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 152]

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SECOND MILITARY REBELLION

137

limitation of their number. Juniors did not drill that spring, and feeling rapidly quieted. Indeed, a few years later the only complaint was that too little interest was taken in the department. The Illini thought the slouehiness of the companies disgraceful, and commented on the eagerness of everyone to skip drill. For a time the cadet corps seemed dropping to the plane of indifference and dislike that it now holds in many land grant universities. But in 1891 the course of affairs was interrupted by a yet more serious military rebellion, a principal agency in the ending of Peabody's regency. At the beginning of the January term it was discovered that W. G. Miller, a junior, captain in the battalion, was deficient in scholarship. He was allowed to continue his studies, but under a rule which had theretofore been laxly enforced was relieved of his command. A reexamination left his average grade still below the mark required. The sophomores and juniors thereupon protested, reminding the faculty that Miller had been a good student, that other men who had failed had been treated with more leniency, and that his removal deprived him of chance for a State commission^ When the faculty remained obdurate, all the officers handed in their resignations, with the threat that they were final unless Miller was reinstated. This happened in chapel, where the company ranks were thrown into confusion and the halls were for some time in an uproar. The faculty, which had collective charge of discipline, blundered in treating this insubordination. It acted properly in requiring an unconditional withdrawal of the resignations and of the threat demanding Miller's reinstatement. It twice interviewed all the officers, and the latter, after a series of meetings, decided in the main to yield. But it was needlessly harsh, and when two