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Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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COMMUNITY BETTERMENT 345 ing. The conference on railway problems and that on animal tuberculosis have been noted. Two annual drainage conferences have been held, for in Illinois there are great overflow areas of rich lowlands along the rivers, the reclamation of which would add $150,000,000 to the State wealth; and the college of engineering is eager to arouse interest in drainage problems. Since the University appointed a Community Advisor three years ago, it has appealed directly to scores of towns and villages to make themselves more attractive to their inhabitants. The ugliness of many small prairie centers, with unkempt streets, ramshackle business districts, few shade trees or lawns, and no expressions of community feeling beyond a town hall, a "callaboose," and a few lodges, is patent to every traveler. Dr. Hieronymus has traveled throughout the State, attempting in some places to form a new organization for local improvement, in most sensibly employing some organization already at hand—a commercial, a social, an educational, or even a religious body. One town is urged to build a library, another to preserve the building in which Dickens or Lincoln slept, or the log house of its first settler; a third to arrange for a township high school; a fourth to acquire a park; practically all to better their appearance by the planting of shrubbery, the designing of flower beds, and the systematic trimming of trees. Wisconsin led in this work when she obtained the originator of the social center idea from Rochester, New York; Illinois is making a good second. An annual Better Community Conference is held at the University, and a comprehensive program of community improvement has been proposed in connection with the centennial celebration. It is evident from its position that the University,
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