Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 279]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

260 UNIVERSITY AFTER IT FOUND ITSELF his father, and the dormitory was moved to the rear of this and converted into a girls' residence hall. For the endowment of the church over $60,000 was raised by State-wide collections. Meanwhile other denominations were bestirring themselves: the Congregationalists had bj. 1910 purchased a house and lot and were planning to erect a church, theJJnjterians at the same time built a small church and laid emphasis upon student meetings of an intellectual character, and the Lutheran and Christian churches employed student pastors. Following 1910, more advanced steps were taken by some churches, in which the Methodists and Baptists led. The latter approved (1910) plans for a large structure to be at once church, student center, and parsonage, at which regular courses might be conducted in Bible study, church history, and so on. The Methodist church nearest the University had meanwhile enlisted the support of the general Methodist body in the State in organizing the Weslevaai Foundation of the University, under a board of trustees headed by Bishop McDowell of Chicago.g Its plans call for the expenditure of over a half million on a group of buildings which shall be virtually a theological seminary as well as a social center and a church, to be supported by an endowment of as least as much more. Resident lecturers shall be employed here to offer instruction in theological subjects, and semi-theological subjects of general appeal. It is proposed to make this of such grade that it may be accepted by the University for partial credit towards a degree; All this religious work, involving appeals to almost every congregation in every city and hamlet in Illinois, has naturally assisted the University's prestige, and dissipated the last of the feeling that it was an irreligious place.