Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Early History of University (1916) [PAGE 28]

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HISTOEICAL SKETCH

XXVII

confusing since the term was generally used for a member of the board of control— a trustee. The legislative enactment founding the University designated the executive by this name and it was so used from that time up to the appointment of Dr. Draper. With his appointment the Board of Trustees gave authority for the title " P r e s i d e n t " to be used instead of the title " K e g e n t " as given in the University charter. The time fixed for the beginning of Dr. Draper's services was August 1, 1894, and upon that date he assumed the duties of this office. The third president of the University was of sturdy New England stock. He was born June 21, 1848, at Westford, New York. He was educated for the profession of law in the Albany Law School of Union College, graduating in 1871. For nearly a dozen years after his graduation in law, he practiced his profession. He was a member of the New York state legislature in 1881, a Judge of the United States Court of Alabama Claims from 1884 to 1886, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1886 to 1892. He received the honorary degree of laws from Colgate in 1889, from Columbia in 1903 and from the University of Illinois in 1905.1 For two years previous to his coming to the University he was superintendent of the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio. President Draper did not aspire to the presidency of the University. He was sought out by the Board. He says, ' ' I had serious misgivings about the advisability of accepting the post. I doubted my adaptability to i t . ' ' The fact that he was not a university man caused him to hesitate. While, for a long time he had followed educational thought, he had not concerned himself much about college and university work. But his wide experience with men, in politics and educational work, and his ability as an organizer, aided greatly in his management of University affairs. President Draper early sided with the many friends of the University who felt that, while the institution was organized primarily to educate people for industrial vocations, it was not doing its whole duty as long as its efforts were confined within these limits. Conferences were held with the trustees and faculties as to the best means of beginning departments of law, medicine, and teaching. The result of this activity was that during his administration the University organized and established a number of new schools and departments. The first new school was that of Pharmacy. The Chicago College of Pharmacy . made a proposition to turn over and donate its school and property to the University on the provision t h a t it be maintained as • a part of the University of Illinois. The Board accepted the proposition at its April meeting, 1896,* and on May 1, this College became the School of Pharmacy. Negotiations looking toward the affiliation of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago with the University, which had been going on for several years, were concluded by the Board of Trustees March 9, 1897.* On April 21, 1897, it became the School of Medicine of the University of Illinois. I t had been one of the foremost of such schools of the Middle West. Its buildings were substantially constructed and its location directly opposite the Cook County Hospital, and in the very center of opportunities for medical research, gave the students unusual clinical privileges. The first year there were 409 registered at this medical college. The organization of a School of Law was a matter which had long been in the minds of the authorities, and nearly two years previous to the opening of the School,

Who's Who in America, 1908-9, V. 5, p . 530. K e p . of Univ, of 111., 1898, p. 238. ' * Rep. of Univ. of 111., 1898, p. 74.

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