Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Engineering Hall (1894) (and Inauguration of President Draper) [PAGE 24]

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INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT DRAPER.

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admiration of the civilized world, and we must have an educational institution that will be on the same plane of greatness and of the same high character. W e have over this state n u m e r o u s colleges and seminaries that are doing excellent work, and we should have here a University which could offer to the graduates of those institutions higher advantages. We should have here all the machinery, the i n s t r u m e n t s , the models, and the specimens that are necessary in modern education. I am anxious to have a university here to which our people can send their young men and their young women, instead of sending them E a s t ; a university that shall perpet uate the rugged strength and stalwart manhood which characterize the people of the Mississippi Valley. W e want an institution which shall be free from the dilettanteism that is weakening the East, and that shall inculcate those fundamental principles of liberty, of national union and supremacy, and of local self-government that have given our country its marvelous career of progress and development. W e want an institution that shall be thoroughly modern in spirit and effort, and from whose halls shall go forth men and women of such strong moral fiber, such industry, and such fervor of soul, that they will lead our people on to loftier planes and to greater glory. W e must have in this state a university t h a t will hold aloft the flame of American civilization so that all the people in the world may be blessed by its light. W e must have a university whose fame shall be co-extensive with civilization. I trust that this occasion may prove to be more t h a n merely an e n t e r t a i n m e n t , more than a passing event that leaves only a pleasant recollection. I trust that there may go forth from this meeting a spirit that will arouse all of our people, and that all of us who are in any way connected with this institution may have renewed inspiration and may go forth with higher and nobler resolves in our efforts to make this University represent the great common people of this country; make