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SCIENCE

A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBlishing the
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

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THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE
UNIVERSITY.1

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS owes its foundation to the initiative of the federal government of the United States.

The celebrated Morrill Land Grant Act of July 2, 1862, provided that each state in the union should be granted thirty thousand acres of land for each senator and representative to which the state was entitled in the federal congress, for the establishment and support 'of at least one college, whose leading object shall be (without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics) to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, *** in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.'

This has turned out to be one of the most magnificent endowments of higher education ever made by any government, church or individual, whether we have regard to its immediate effects in leading to the establishment of the particular institutions contemplated in the act, or to its remoter effects in further increasing and stimulating state benevolence for this same general purpose.

As the result of the said grant, at least one institution corresponding to the above description has been established in each state and territory in the union. There

1 Inaugural address of Dr. Edmund Janes James on the occasion of his installation as president of the University of Illinois, October 18, 1905.

are now more than forty-nine in all! The states have in nearly every instance contributed to the further endowment of these colleges in the form of permanent funds or what is practically the same thing, in the form of permanent annual appropriations, exceeding, and in some cases far exceeding, the amount given by the federal government itself.

In some instances the new college was incorporated in, or annexed to, some existing institution. In others it was made an entirely independent institution limited to instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts. In still others it became the nucleus of a great state university, with all the departments properly belonging to an institution which may justly lay claim to that time-honored name.

This was the case in Illinois. The proceeds of the sale of this original land grant constitute an endowment fund providing about thirty-two thousand dollars a year for the support of the institution.

In 1887 the federal government passed an act known as the Hatch Act, providing an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars a year, to each state in the union, for the establishment and support of an agricultural experiment station. This, in the state of Illinois, was made a department of the state university.

In 1890, by what is known as the second Morrill Act, the federal government appropriated an additional sum of fifteen thousand dollars a year, to be increased by one thousand dollars annually until it reached the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, for the further endowment of colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, founded on the act of 1862. This sum, in Illinois, was naturally also turned over to the state university, so that, by these various federal acts, the University of Illinois now receives, either directly or indirectly from the fed

eral government, about seventy-three thousand dollars a year, to be applied in the maintenance of an agricultural experiment station, and the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts.

The state of Illinois has added largely to this sum of seventy-three thousand dollars for the support of these two enterprises. The last legislature, for example, appropriated four hundred thousand dollars per annum for the support of these departments, or more than five times as much as the federal government. In addition it also appropriated considerable sums for the support of other departments which, although not mentioned specifically in the Land Grant Act of 1862, were contemplated by the words 'not excluding other scientific and classical subjects.'

In other words, the state of Illinois has not only applied conscientiously to the purposes of the federal act all the funds which the congress has provided, but it has actually appropriated five times as much for these same purposes as the federal government itself. In addition it has provided for the other departments necessary to transform the original college of agriculture and the mechanic arts into a fullfledged university of the modern type.

The comparatively small sum thus appropriated by the federal government has led in the sequel to the expenditure of ten times as much for higher education by the state of Illinois. The other states have followed in the same general path, so that it is doubtful whether a similar expenditure of funds to that made by the federal government on this occasion ever led to proportionately greater returns for higher education, in the history of any time or country.

The University of Illinois has become the largest of the institutions which owe their origin to this federal grant. Opened for

work on March 2, 1868, with fewer than one hundred students, its growth for the first twenty years was very slow, as the state at first declined to give very largely in addition to the federal grant. Indeed, it seemed inclined for a time to limit the institution strictly to the work of a college for agriculture and mechanic arts, in the narrowest sense, as was indicated by the name first selected for it, namely, 'Illinois Industrial University,' and by the refusal of the legislature to do more than apply in good faith the proceeds of the federal grant to its support.

But about the year 1887 a new spirit became manifest. The Hatch Act, furnishing additional funds for the support of scientific work in the domain of agriculture, seems to have been potent in stimulating this new attitude. As a result of the activity of the alumni and of other friends of higher education in the state, the legislature was prevailed upon to change the name to the 'University of Illinois.'

Sometimes much,

What is in a name? and so it was here. Giving this namethe University of Illinois-to the institution, if not at that time an indication of a conscious change of purpose on the part of the people of this state, powerfully helped, at any rate, in working out this change of purpose and bringing it to the public consciousness.

It did not, of course, immediately produce large results, and even so late as 1890 the faculty of the school numbered only thirty-five, and the student body, four hundred and eighteen. Since that time, partly as a result of the impetus given by the second Morrill Act of 1890; partly as a result of the changed attitude on the part of the state toward the institution, evidenced, even though unconsciously, in this change of name; still more, perhaps, as a

result of that marvelous increase of popular interest in higher education manifested throughout the country in the last fifteen years; the legislature of Illinois has become more and more liberal in its appropriations, enabling the institution to approximate with an ever-increasing rapidity toward the ideal expressed in its name, 'The University of the State of Illinois.'

The increase in the attendance and in the instructing body has been remarkable. The faculty has grown to number nearly four hundred and the total number of matriculants in all departments for the present year will probably reach four thousand.

This rapid increase has been partly the result of adding new colleges-in some cases existing colleges with an honorable history and a considerable attendance, as in the case of the colleges of medicine and dentistry-and partly the result of increased attendance in the older departments.

To the original colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, contemplated in the first act (including engineering and architecture), have been added the colleges of liberal arts, of science, of law, of medicine and dentistry, and the schools of music, of library science, of pharmacy and of education.

In the college of liberal arts and the graduate school connected with it, are included the ordinary subjects of instruction embraced in the modern university so far as they are not included in the other schools and colleges mentioned, except those belonging to a theological school.

Associated with the university are, besides the agricultural experiment station already mentioned, the engineering experiment station (the first of the kind in the country); the state geological survey; the state laboratory of natural history; the

state entomologist's office and the state water survey.

Such is the university now. What is to be its future? At the risk of incurring the fate of a prophet I will undertake to forecast the future of this institution to a limited extent; and I do it with more confidence because the history of other state institutions has already indicated some of the things in store for us-institutions in whose footsteps we are sure to follow, and if at first longo intervallo yet with increasing determination to press them ever harder in all those things which pertain to a true university.

I take it first of all, then, that this institution is to be and to become in an ever

truer sense, a university. That, I presume, has been settled once for all by the people of this state. It was settled, even though unconsciously, when the word 'industrial' was stricken out of the title, leaving it simply "The University of Illinois'by no means the first time that the subtraction of a word from an expression has indicated an addition to the meaning.

It has been settled anew at each successive session of the legislature, as by one increase after another in the appropriations the representatives of the people in the general assembly have set the seal of their approval on the large and wise policy of the trustees.

It has been settled by the ever-increasing purpose of the great mass of the people of this state, the plain people of the farm and the mill, of the country, the village and the city, to build here a monument which will be to them and their children an honor and a glory forever, an evidence which all the world can see and understand, of their corporate appreciation of the things of the spirit.

What then is a university-that which this institution is to be and become?

Men of different nations and different times would give different answers to this question. Nay, men of the same nation and of the same time would give different answers. In fact so different would be the answer given by different men in the United States at the present time to this question, that one might well wonder whether there is any common agreement as to what a university really is.

I must, therefore, answer this question. for myself, for this time, and this place, and this institution without, however, reflecting in any way upon what other institutions bearing this name are or may become. I believe that the system of institutions which shall satisfy the educational demands of a nation like this must embrace higher institutions-universities if you will-of many different types. In sketching out the future of the University of Illinois, therefore, I do so with due regard to the fact that we have in this state important and valuable institutions of an entirely different type whose work the University of Illinois will thus supplement and complete.

I should define a university briefly as that institution of the community which affords the ultimate institutional training of the youth of the country for all the various callings for which an extensive scientific training, based upon adequate liberal preparation, is valuable and necessary. You will note the elements in this definition. By virtue of the function thus assigned to it, it is in a certain sense the highest educational institution of the community. It is the institution which furnishes a special, professional, technical training for some particular calling. This special, technical, professional training must, however, be scientific in character, and must be based upon adequate preliminary preparation of a liberal sort.

By this requirement of a liberal preparatory training, the university is differentiated from the technical school or trade school of secondary grade. By the scientific character of its training, it is differentiated from a mere preparatory 'cram' school for public examinations: such as were so many of our private professional schools down to a recent date.

There are certain things, then, which must mark this institution in order to make it a true university. The most striking peculiarity is the scientific character of the training which it affords. A consideration of this feature-for to my mind it is the fundamental and distinguishing quality of the university-may properly delay us for a moment. There are many ways in which a man may be prepared for a profession. He may have no school training whatever of a special or professional kind. Having acquired a knowledge of the elements of learning, he may be thrust directly into the practise of a profession in order to learn by doing.' This has been characteristic of most of our professional work in this country down to within a recent date. But even when schools have been organized to afford such training, they may still be of very different kinds. Thus they may be merely institutions to purvey what is already known in the profession, their purpose being to fill the minds of their pupils with knowledge of what at present is known about the subject in hand; perhaps to enable them to pass a state examination which may be prescribed in this particular field, or to pass a university examination set for the purpose of testing one's knowledge rather than one's power.

A school may, on the other hand, be organized on the theory that the best way to prepare a man for the practical duties of a profession, so far as it can be done in

school, is to train him to be an independent investigator in the domain appropriate to the profession. Thus, from this point of view, the best way to prepare a man for a professorship in mathematics would be to train him in mathematics in such a way and to such a point that he might have a power of independent judgment in the domain of mathematical problems; that in an independent way he might discover the possible mathematical problems for himself and be equipped to handle them one after the other as he might have occasion or opportunity to take them up. In the same way the best training for a lawyer or a judge would be such a training in the science of the law as would enable him to have a power of independent judgment on any legal question he might meet, such as would qualify him to take up with entire freedom and with a feeling of ability the investigation of any topic which might come before him.

It is this latter idea which underlies the German university and the German professional school. According to the idea of the Germans the way to prepare a man to become a professional chemist is not to load him down with all the knowledge of chemistry which the world has thus far accumulated, though such an acquisition under certain circumstances may be valuable, but to train him in the field of chemistry in such a way as to make him an independent investigator-one who will be qualified to meet any chemical problem coming up in the course of chemical work. In the same way, to prepare a man to be a professor of history is not, according to the German idea, to fill him up with the knowledge of all historical facts, for such facts have already passed, in their multitude and magnitude, beyond the power of any man to grasp, even that of a von Ranke; but to give to the man a historic

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