Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 192]

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History University of Illinois

the other public lands had not yet been exhausted, the price neccssarily was exceedingly low and the potentiality of the congressional gift was in no sense realized. The loss resulting from this policy is shown by the fact that the four and one half sections which were held until 1861 brought $58,000 as compared with $59,838.72, the proceeds of sixty-seven and one half sections by the former sale; at this rate if the land had been held until it was needed, there might easily have been a million-dollar fund at the present time. Finally, the loaning of the income to the school fund for twenty-two years was another serious blunder, for neither income nor interest on the income has ever been collected; the fund lost by this action of the legislature about seventy thousand dollars. On the whole the seminary fund in the states of the northwest territory has had an unfortunate history: some sacrifice of the potential principle from premature sales or unfortunate location of lands characterizes them all; a loss of a portion of the principal or interest through misplaced loans or unsound investments characterizes some; but Illinois holds a unique place in that she excelled her sister states in all of these particulars, and to the charge of mismanagement and waste, may well be added the charge of an unjustified diversion of the fund from its legitimate use. Another fund derived from federal grants and intended to aid the cause of higher education, was the so-called college or university fund. This fund, in the case of Illinois, represents a notable departure from preceding practice. When Ohio in 1802 and Indiana in 1816 entered the union as new states they were each granted five percent of the proceeds from the future sales of the public lands within the state for the building of roads and canals. When the enabling act, which permitted Illinois territory to take her place in the family of states, was before congress, Nathaniel Pope, then territorial delegate from Illinois, moved to amend the bill by striking out that portion which appropriated the five percent fund to the construction of roads and canals and to insert a clause by which only two percent might be used for that purpose while the remaining three percent should be appropriated for the purposes of education. This