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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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814 History University of Illinois ' ( Some found it necessary to remain at the dormitory daring the Christmas holidays on the score of economy, but still were alive to the necessity of ushering in the New Year with a big noise of welcome. With meagre facilities for such work we borrowed a musket from the armory and loaded it with a goodly charge of powder and when the proper time arrived a dormitory door was opened, the gun pointed down the corridor, the trigger was pulled and a satisfactory noise shook the walls of the old building. More that that, the concussion blew out the window at the end of the corridor. By the time the rattle of glass had ceased, the dormitory door was closed and silence reigned in the darkened room where the occupants had learned a new lesson in the effect of concussion. "The University itself furnished employment in digging ditches, laying drain tile, planting trees and various other work paying therefor at the rate of 15 cents per hour. Even at that rate we were in some cases overpaid." lip The great inspiration possible to the young men and women attending this new and struggling institution can not be better expressed than in the words of Lorado Taft, the sculptor, who received here the great impulse for his life's work. In writing of the period of the early seventies he said: "As a near neighbor and later a pupil, it was my privilege to see Dr. Gregory almost every day for ten years. Two incidents remain particularly vivid. The first was a wonderful lecture on sculpture illustrated with stereoptican views more beautiful than I have ever seen since. I was thirteen or fourteen and the enthusiasm of the speaker made my blood tingle! Nothing had ever so appealed to me. A new heaven and a new earth were opened up to my imagination. Unconsciously that night settled my fate. It is hardly necessary to say that when the entertainment was repeated at Urbana, a few evenings later, I was in a front seat. 'The purpose of the lecture was a most novel and improbable undertaking: to awaken interest for a local art collection. Dr. Gregory's eloquence won the day and all of the leading citizens of Champaign and Urbaha, and particularly the Faculty, contributed to a fund of several thousand dollars for the pur-
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