Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - 16 Years (Edmund James) [PAGE 17]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

16

Sixteen Yean at the University of Illinois

The legislature of 1867, which authorized the establishment of the University and fixed its site at Urbana, made no appropriation for its support The legislature of 1869, however made an appropriation of $60,000 to the University, and each succeeding legislature has accepted the obligation of contributing to its maintenance. The appropriations may be grouped in three periods: For the first eighteen years of the life of the University or until 1885, the appropriations were quite irregular. There was no uniformity of increase or of decrease from one biennium to the next. The sum of all appropriations for this period was $496,850—an average of $55,206 per biennium, or $27,603 per annum. The sums ranged from $11,500 in 1875 to $130,500 in 1871. For the next eighteen years, from 1886 to 1904, the total sum appropriated by the State to the University was $3,881,344.32, an average of $431,260 per biennium, or $215,630 per annum. There was a steady biennial increase from $54,500, appropriated in 1887, to $1,152,400, appropriated in 1903. For the next fifteen years, from 1904 to 1919, the total sum appropriated by the State of Illinois to the University was $28,998,125, an average of $3,624,765.62 per biennium, or $1,812,382.81 per annum. There was again a steady biennial increase in the appropriations, the sums advancing from $1,414,535, appropriated in 1905, to $5,000,000, appropriated in 1915, falling however to $4,800,000 in 1917. It is noteworthy that the sum appropriated in 1913—$4,500,000—was over $120,000 greater than the entire sum of all the appropriations made by the State of Illinois to the University during the thirty-six years from its foundation in 1867 to 1903—$4,378,194.32; and that the sums appropriated in 1915 and 1917, namely $5,000,000 and $4,800,000, exceeded by $620,000 and $420,000 respectively, the sum total of all the appropriations made by the State to the University during the first thirtysix years of the latter *s existence. The increase in the successive appropriations made during the past fifteen years is seen in the next table.