Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 226]

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History University of Illinois

committee, and opposing the proposition that arose once more to divide the fund. The Journal in an editorial on February 13, 1865, stated very clearly and concisely the objections to the amended bill: " 1 . I t provides for a virtual division of the fund into two or three parts, when no one knows what can be realized from the grant " 2 . The harmony among the industrial classes so essential to the success of the scheme, is sacrificed by a departure from a principle universally acknowledged to be vital, and by an arbitrary location of the institution, thereby endangering the whole enterprise. " 3 . The buildings at Urbana, no matter how well adapted to the use for which they were originally designed, can scarcely be adapted to the use now proposed to be made of them. I t should be the object of every friend of the measure in the State, to secure buildings which shall be models of their kind and which shall stand for centuries in the future as monuments at once of the taste, skill and munificence of the present time. These results can only be obtained by the construction of new buildings. " 4 . The location of a line of colleges at Chicago, Urbana, and in some part of Southern Illinois ignores the whole western half of the State, and practically excludes it from the benefits designed to be conferred upon the citizens of the State in general. " 5 . The bill as amended allows to Southern Illinois the privilege of bidding for the location of the institution proposed to be established in that section of the State while it denies the same privilege to the rest of the State. Why is this difference? " 6 . While the amended section of the bill requires the trustees to establish a department of the Institution at Chicago, it simply authorizes them to establish another department in Southern Illinois. The mandatory portions of the section with reference to Southern Illinois are so loosely written that they may be evaded, if the Trustees choose to do so. Is the object of this to sell Egypt out? 'We might multiply objections and illustrate the unequal character of the provisions by quoting the amended section which

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