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 214]

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WOEK IN PUBLIC SERVICE

197

The work of the engineering experiment station had before 1903 been somewhat anticipated by the study within the civil engineering department of railway roadbed construction, and right-of-way maintenance, and of the use of mortar and cements, and within the mechanical engineering department by that of railway operation. The station first made provision for a steam laboratory and its equipment, for giving the laboratory of applied mechanics appliances for advanced work, and for developing a road laboratory for testing road and pavings materials. Investigations were also commenced at the end of the administration into the value of different fuels. Other extension activities which deserve mention were those of a vaccine laboratory founded for the benefit of physicians soon after Draper came, a chemical laboratory to examine the State's potable waters, and a laboratory of economic geology which studied clays, lime and cement materials, and building stone. An effort was on foot during this period, with Dean Forbes its moving spirit, to establish a State Geological Survey; and in 1901 a conference of colleges was held in Chicago to promote the movement, and the Legislature was asked to divide the Survey's work among the different institutions, with headquarters at Illinois. But it was some years before the Survey became a fact. Of extension work in the narrowed sense there was little, for no effort was made to revive the attempt at lecture courses. Near the end of the administration the Trustees appointed a committee to consider the possibility of offering correspondence work in agriculture, but it arrived at no material result; 1

The committee that considered the question of correspondence teaching reported that the University seemed to be reaching all but three classes of farmers—young farmers unable to attend college, farmers' children who wrote to a University office that

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