UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
N A V I G A T I O N D I G I T A L L I B R A R Y
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 118]

Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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104

YEARS OP DEPRESSION

for securing more generous legislative treatment as well as for inviting the notice of public-spirited citizens who might give to the University. The Club stated its willingness to spend years in maturing an endowment plan, but the move came to nothing. Dr. Peabody's handling of the University budget was conscientious and wise; at the very outset he instituted an improved bookkeeping system. His cautious and methodical traits were also evident in the attention he gave the University's invested capital. Soon after he took his chair it was evident that immigration into Nebraska was greatly increasing the value of the 9,000 acres of University lands there. One bid of ten dollars an acre was made, but not accepted. By judicious management, sales conducted during the next six years brought in a total of $155,000, or enough to raise the endowment to almost $475,000. The Regent expressed natural regret that the University did not own a hundred thousand acres; though of course the same reasons that made proper the sale of 1885 of lands that would have brought much more in 1900 had made proper the sale in 1870 of tracts worth much more fifteen years later.1 The turning point in the University finances came less through State than through Federal appropriations, carried by two measures: the Hatch Act of 1887 for agricultural experiment stations, and the Morrill Supplementary Act of 1890. The first was a fruit of the efforts of an association of the land grant colleges

"Trustee Emory Cobb had been an advocate of the policy of locating and holding as much of the land scrip as possible; the Board at first proposed to do this with 60,000 acres, but the pressure for funds was too great. Cobb even undertook to organize a syndicate to hold the land, but, among other obstacles, 1 public cry of "land-grabbing" defeated this excellent scheme.