Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Engineering Hall (1894) (and Inauguration of President Draper) [PAGE 63]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

i

i\ ! I

ii.

01

H i IK

support entii

i i litable to the

tat

is e b r great fir<

has ris 1 from th< h( i m c ern 1'h ix, into I lender and promi , Since: th Spring i I the legi latui of Missouri h a s appropriated t o i l I livei it mere than a million and a half of dollai I< nnot but think that the Univei of Illinois is about to enter upon a new and far great r j sriod of prosperity. When 1 think of all that is pO! ible in this state, ith ; ricultnral resources that are perhaps nnrival i among the tates of the Union; with supplies of coal that ai enough for the manufactures of an empire; with the gr at metropolis at the north into whose lap all the states of the Northv. st, if not all the states of the Union, are pouring tributi when I think of these things, my imagination makes a vivid picture of the vast possibilities of the University yet to be built np upon these spacious and beautiful grounds. I have long held that the prosperity of every university is helpful to the prosperity of every other. T h e growth of the other universities will help you, and your growth will help them. It is with pleasure therefore, that, coming from another state, as I do, I anticipate a new and more prosperous career for this institution of learning. Standing in the open door of the future. 1 ask myself what should be attempted in order to make this University all that it ought to be. W h a t should be tl le scope of the scholastic activities here undertaken? W h a t should a state university endeavor to do? W h a t , at this period of the nineteenth century, should be the UNIVERSITY n u ird which we should strive? It is to a consideration of these questions that I invite your attention. T h e first universities were founded for the purpose of giving men the proper training for the learned pr< si« is Accordingly, all the universities of the Middl Vges were ganized upon the basis of four general departments: th< devoted to philosophy, theology, m< licine, and law. It wai