Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - New Chemistry Building [PAGE 7]

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labor and effort and human capital that has gone into the enterprise, he is converted to the fact that that must be an important subject; and before he is convinced that it -is not, somebody must establish the fact to his satisfaction that this investment of money has been a foolish one. In other words, the existence of such a building creates a prima facie case for the importance of the subject. After all, friends, there is a certain symbolic significance in all of this. I am not, of course, arguing for the waste of money on great buildings. I am not arguing for spending money on buildings which ought to be spent on men. I agree entirely with the fundamental view which all of us hold. I am simply emphasizing the results which the investment of money in this form may produce upon the public mind,, leading, in all probability, to a greater willingness to spend money for men and for equipment and for the real things for which the building is constructed, than would otherwise be the case. After all, a building is nothing but the body which is going to house the soul, and, speaking generally in a large way, the body is always constructed in advance of the soul, or at least with the development of the soul,, and we can hardly expect any of those creations which combine body and soul to be developed without a body to a very great extent. You will remember that according to the Jewish conception of the world, even God Himself had to make the human body complete, ready to function, before, by breathing the breath of life into it, He created man. And so I have stood in these later years of my life, for a worthy housing, in our great institutions of learning, of the subjects and departments for whose cultivation these institutions exist, looking at them as centers of teaching and research. Some of you have seen, for example, the Armory of which the University of Illinois has begun the erection over in our military field. I think it is not too much to say that the existence of this building, the mere sight of the building, the examination of the building, the mere going into the building has done more to convert the people who have actually come in contact with it to the necessity of more adequate appropriations for our military work than any speech I or anybody else could make. And I am quite sure that if we had upon the campus of the University of Illinois an ade\6.