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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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198 History University of Illinois tion they make is, that the land shall be sold to them, not at a low but at a reasonable price. They ask no special favors, nor any particular display of liberality: they propose to carry out the project with their own means, if the above condition shall be complied with. This project deserves encouragement. The company will expend not less than $100,000 in our midst, and leave us an educational establishment of the first class. Of course those who have it in hand expect to find their profit in it. They expect to be able to sell a sufficient number of lots at a sufficient price to repay themselves for the outlay." 84 The promoter seems to have made it clear to the citizens that the company was acting from motives of personal gain. The project was placed on a business basis chiefly, though along with it was the attractive educational appeal which was perhaps stronger because merely incidental. The plan appealed to the citizens of the two towns because it offered means of stopping up the "awful" gap between the towns. With apparent readiness they immediately took up the task of finding out the sentiment of the community and of devising methods of procedure. On Saturday evening, January 29, 1859, citizens of Urbana met at the court house, discussed the scheme and appointed a committee of three to confer with a like committee from West Urbana, which was appointed two days later, in reference to the proposals they could secure from the holders of the land lying between the two towns. The discussions in the meetings and in the local press were mostly favorable to a careful consideration of the plan and it was even suggested by Dr. C. A. Hunt of Urbana that in case the present company did not choose to accept their land proposals a company of citizens might organize to secure funds for a seminary.35 Negotiations were delayed on account of the illness of Mr. Hodgerson's wife, for according to Reverend Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Hodgerson, who lived in the east, furnished all the money for the seminary projects.36 In July Stoughton and Babcock visited "Our Constitution, January 29, 1859. "Ibid., February, 19, 1859. "Central Illinois Gazette, Champaign, July 13, 1859 published two letters from Stoughton, dated April and June, 1859, to Dr. Scroggs explaining that Mr. Hodgerson was prevented from coming by the sickness of his wife.
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