Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1897-1898 [PAGE 24]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

paign County offered a large brick building, erected for a seminary and nearly completed, about 1,000 acres of land, and $100,000 in county bonds. To this the Illinois Central Railroad added $50,000 in freight. In consideration, of this offer the institution was located, May 8, 1867, in the suburbs of Urbana. The state legislature has from time to time appropriated various sums for permanent improvements, as well as for maintenance. The present value of the entire property and assets is estimated at $1,600,000. The institution was incorporated the last day of February, 1867, under the name of the Illinois Industrial University, and placed under the control of a Board of Trustees, constituted of the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the President of the State Board of Agriculture, as ex-ofUcio members, and twenty-eight citizens appointed by the Governor. The chief executive officer, usually called President, was styled Regent, and was made ex officio a member of the Board and presiding officer both of the Board of Trustees and of the Faculty. In i873the Boardof Trustees was reorganized, the number of appointed members being reduced to nine and of exofficio members to two—the Governor and the President of the State Board of Agriculture. In 1887 a law was passed making membership elective at a general state election and restoring the Superintendent of Public Instruction as an ex-ofhcio member. There are, therefore, now three ex-ofhcio members and nine by public suffrage. Since 1873 the President of the Board has been chosen by the members from among their own number for a term of one year. The University was opened to students March 2, 1868, when there were present, beside the Regent, three profesors and about fifty students. During the first term another instructor was added, and the number of students increased to TJ—all young men. During the first term instruction was given in algebra, geometry, physics, history, rhetoric, and Latin. Work on