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Caption: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler)
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CHAPTER T W O The Advent of Dr. Peabody and Some Historic Class Fights > N A M E "Illinois Industrial University" was a terrible mistake. It sounded like a court order was necessary to get a student sentenced to a term in the institution; parents with incorrigible children wrote they would like to place them here so they could be corrected of inherited traits. Both widows and widowers left with children thought the Industrial University was exactly the place for them, and there were preachers—God bless their narrow souls—who called our institution a "hotbed of infidelity and iniquity," notwithstanding the fact that each and every student had to attend chapel exercises every morning at 9:45 whether he wanted to or not. There was the celebrated case of Foster North who refused to go to chapel and was thrown out of the University. He took his case into the courts and lost it but later the University offered to reinstate him only to be refused this courtesy. I was born in Urbana just about the time the University was opened for students. The driest summer on record came in 1871 and we had a big fire in Urbana in October at the same time of the great Chicago fire. I insist that I can remember this fire, but my family and friends insist that I can't. They admit with reluctance that I was a very bright baby but say it simply can't be possible for a two-year-old to remember anything. Of course they're wrong. In connection with the Chicago fire, there is a fact of historical interest in that it was the only time the University Regiment has been called upon to serve the state of Illinois. E. N. Porterfield '72, a member of the first class graduated, and the oldest living graduate reports this incident as follows: "I think that the male students were a part of the state militia at that time; I don't remember the name of the man who taught us the manual of arms, but Colonel Snyder was our commanding officer. Our uniforms were a cadet grey with a coat fashioned like an infantryman's. We made a good appearance on parade. In October, 1871, six companies of us were called to help guard Chicago during the great fire. One half of my JLHE 25
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