Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - 16 Years (Edmund James) [PAGE 43]

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Sixteen Years at the University of Illinois

In 1910 Mr. Francis J. Plym of Niles, Michigan, a graduate of the University of Illinois of the class of 1897, offered to the University the sum of $1,000 a year for the period of five years for the establishment of a fellowship for the advanced study of architecture. The holder of the annual fellowship established in consequence of this gift is expected to spend the year in study and travel abroad. Although the proposed term of five years expired in 1914, Mr. Plym has continued to contribute $1,000 annually for the maintenance of the fellowship. From the accumulated interest on two annual contributions which could not be used immediately because of the European war, three prizes amounting to a total of $50 were offered in 1916-17, in accordance with the desire of Mr. Plym, for the best solutions to a problem in architectural design which might be presented by members of the junior class in architectural engineering. The gift of certain farm lands by Captain Thomas J. Smith of Champaign, already referred to, to provide funds from which a building might be erected for the School of Music, was accompanied by a request that four free scholarships in the School of Music should be granted annually to young women who might seek a musical education but who might be unable to pay the customary charges for instruction in music. Accordingly, four such scholarships were established by the Board of Trustees and became available first in the fall of the year 1916. The Board of Trustees of the University were notified in June, 1916, that the Irish Fellowship Foundation of Chicago would guarantee a fund of $1200 for Gaelic research work in the University of Illinois for the year 1916-17. In consequence of this gift a Fellowship in Gaelic was established and an appointment made for that year. In 1919, Mr. Robert F. Carr, President of the Board of Trustees, gave the University securities worth $10,000 to endow the Robert F. Carr Fellowship in Chemistry. For the years 1918-19 and 1919-20, the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company have given an annual stipendium of $750 for the Du Pont Fellowship in Chemistry,