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 13]

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2

THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY

later. Under President Edmund J. James since then the ground won has been consolidated, new growth achieved, something approaching symmetry given an unshapely aggregation of colleges and schools, and the spirit of a real center of learning infused into it. The fact that the University was not incorporated until 1867 speaks plainly the want of interest in public higher education that was to handicap its growth for so many years. Illinois was the last State of the Northwest Territory, and one of the last in the Middle West, to found a State University. Virtually all of the public collegiate education west of the Alleghenies traces its origin to the Ordinance of 1787, the inspiration of which should have been as effective in Illinois as in other States. The Ordinance provided that "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind," throughout the Territory "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged"; and one of the ways in which Congress translated this generality into concrete terms was by placing in the deed for the tract sold to the Ohio Company a stipulation that two townships should be reserved for the support of " a literary institution, to be applied for the intended purpose by the Legislature of the State.'' This step set so powerful a precedent that after the year 1800 each State admitted into the Union, with the exceptions of Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, received two or more townships for a University. By the close of 1802 the American Western University, later Ohio University, had been chartered and located at Athens Ohio. In 1820 the Legislature of Indiana founded Indiana Seminary, later Indiana University, at Bloomington. Michigan's Territorial Legislature established