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 16]

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LEGISLATIVE ERROBS

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folly disposed of at the advertised auctions, the remain* ing land could be purchased at any time thereafter at this minimum figure. Naturally, there was no demand for so much as thirty-six square miles at once, and all but three sections remained to be purchased after the auctions—at $1.25 an acre. It was inexcusable to fix as the price for these picked farming lands the lowest rate at which any public lands could then be bought in America. As for the cunning, the laws authorizing the sales of the townships contained a clause appointing four State Commissioners to take charge of the proceeds1 and invest them in "stocks and funds." To these proceeds were added the "college fund," as the accumulations from the half per cent, of the sales of Government lands, granted the State for a University, were called; and by a separate act the Governor was authorized to borrow the whole, at six per cent, annually, the interest to be added to the principal until the funds were needed for the founding of the University. Thus was devised a method of borrowing money without any immediate payment of interest. It is easy to see why the Legislature, for six years at this period of acute financial embarrassment, was loath to disturb the

To distinguish it from the " college fund/' the money obtained from the sale of the two townships was called the "seminary fund." Representative Nathaniel Pope, the Congressman responsible for tne inclusion within Illinois of the present northern part of the State, was responsible also for the commutation of part of the ordinary grant for roads and canals to one for schools and a college. See Frank W. Blackmar's "History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States," Chapters II and VI; "Early Education in Illinois," by W. L. Pillsbury, in Public School Report, 1886-86, p. civ; "His torical Sketches of the State Normal University and the University of Illinois," by the same author, Public School Report, 1887-88, pp. lxxvii and cxvii; and for the later pages see also " Historical Sketch of McKendree College," by M. H. Chamber* lin in Publication No. 9 of the Illinois State Historical Library, p. 328.

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