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 84]

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UNIVERSITY HALL

71

the University found themselves handicapped by the fact that they could not claim the letters that are the universal symbol of a university education; and a petition to the Legislature resulted in a change in the law in 1877. Yet the Trustees still hesitated, announcing that they thought degrees valueless in themselves, and so easily gained as no longer to distinguish the scholar from the charlatan. They would yield only if the alumni seemed rooted in their prejudice. As a result of this controversy, a conference of the land grant institutions was held at Columbus, Ohio, and as it was shown there that all but Illinois were already granting degrees, the Trustees permitted the class of 1878 to receive them. The slowly growing enrollment under Gregory implied an equally slow growth in plant and equipment. The mechanical building and drill hall for which an appropriation was made in 1871 was ready that fall. But University Hall stopped abruptly when its walls were half built, for the Legislature of 1871, pressed for money, adjourned without appropriating the $75,000 necessary to complete it. As what was built would soon have gone to ruin, the Board completed the building by the sale of $60,000 worth of Champaign County bonds, properly a part of the endowment—a white streak across the west end still marking the point where construction had halted^ The principal address at the dedication in December, 1873, was made by Gregory, as that at the laying of the cornerstone had been delivered by Turner, who seized the opportunity to confess that his fears for the institution had been belied, and to offer it his best wishes, j Though the Legislature ultimately gave about $15,000 for completing the hall, and nearly $30,000 for furnishing it, the endowment had