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Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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THE NAME CHANGED 119 eminent to vote for a change under Gregory, were principally two. It was obvious, in the first place, that it was a misnomer for a broadly planned institution, and made it seem both narrow and eccentric, while depriving it of the full value of the State's name. In the second, a peculiar sense had become attached to the word "industrial" as applied to a public institution, and this sense was highly damaging. Since 1875 one commonwealth after another had called its reformatory or correctional workhouse for youths an industrial school, borrowing the euphemism from England. Some asylums for dependents bore the name. By the early eighties the University was thought by some to be a place where obstreperous youngsters were sent for safekeeping, and by others a place where the povertystricken might come to work their way through school. Graduates, especially upon going to other States, were likely to be asked why they had been "sent u p " to the institution, while the Regent was angered by such inquiries as the one contained in the following letter: REGENT ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY:—Will you please inform me if your institution will admit children and retain them until maturity? I have two boys, nine and eleven years old, and four girls, from two to nine years old. Buried my wife on the first of May last. Health is poor. I have no means for support of them, and I want to get them where they will be cared for together, j Educated in learning and labor. The number expressing such ideas was probably small even in the aggregate, but it was nettling to have s u f t a misconception possible at alliS And there were o t h p | impressions quite as erroneous. Many reasoned from the name that the University was one in which the State furnished a free education and the student paid
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