UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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210

History University of IUin

the time. They labor particularly to show that the Governor and Senate cannot be trusted to select one man from each Congressional District, to decide on the location of the Institution, guard and define their action by law as we may; while their bill proposes that this same Governor and Senate shall appoint the Trustees to manage the vast accumulating interests of the University, in all coming time. All the old friends of the grant, and all the constructive and appointed representatives of the industrial classes, the officers of their societies, the representatives of the teachers in the state, and the committee who drew the House bill, are opposed, to a man, so far as I know, to this whole proceeding." Later in this session of the legislature the Chicago and Champaign interests united in a plan to divide the proposed institution. Representative Cook of Cook county on February 10 introduced a substitute to section 11 of the house bill that was in fact only an addition to the section as it then stood and as quoted above. I t provided that the trustees of the industrial university which was to be located in Urbana-Champaign should be "required" to establish a department in the city of Chicago for the purpose of teaching the mechanic arts and that they have the "authority" to establish a department to teach agriculture at "some time" at "some place" in southern Illinois, 55 These loosely worded but carefully planned paragraphs might have been used, as it was claimed, to sell out the southern friends of the measure, though whether that was the purpose would be difficult to establish. The adjournment of the legislature without deciding the question of the location of the industrial university was unfortunate, for it prolonged an unseemly scramble of Illinois men to obtain control of a prize that was intended to benefit all the people. It was particularly unfortunate because it had drawn into the struggle some of the men of Illinois who, through long years of sacrifice and labor, had made the grant to all the states possible. The struggle, however, was only fairly begun. The next two years were to be utilized by the various contestants in preparation for the inevitable "fight-to-a-finish" upon the question of the final disposition of Illinois' share in the federal land grant.

*H<nise Journal, 1865, p. 808.