favor, without thinking much of the hazards or of the compensations, and the people of the commonwealth of Illinois, and the Almighty God, will take care of you.

The real growth and strength of this University have hardly appeared. The future will overshadow the past. Hearts, minds, money, boundless energy, the public interests and the common pride are all enlisted to carry the University of Illinois to a place of the very first significance in American education. All that is wanted is a scholarly, a sane, and a fearless leadership. If one cannot supply it, another will. With one accord we think we have found the man who

can.

I am transferring to him not only a title but an opportunity; not only an office but my hope and my confidence that he may enlarge it. I did not impair this office; it is a greater office than it used to be. It is as precious a thing as I shall ever have to give. Before I could transfer it with cheerfulness and with confidence there has been need to think more deeply than have many others of the needs of the situation here and in another state, and of the adaptation of men to differing work. My attachments are no stronger there than here. The decision came out of a mental process which has tried out feeling and broken some strings. The new President has been an all-important factor in the case. But I am ready. The attributes of the new leader give me confidence and the universal acclaim makes me know that all is well.

A true son of Illinois; with the fine lineage of her best pioneers; with native pride in her history; with scholarly appreciation of her resources and of her intellectual development; with a mature and balanced understanding of her needs, as well as with patriotic enthusiasm for all that may uplift her; a severe student, trained in the best schools of the world; a virile teacher; a publicist of wide reputation; an experienced and trenchant administrator: we envy him the gifts. and the opportunity which will let him impress lives, shape ends, weave his name into the history of this University, and add to the greatness of his State; and we give him all the cheer that can spring out of song, with all the sincerity that can breathe through prayer.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY

EDMUND J. JAMES, PH.D., LL.D.
President of the University

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 benevolences 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 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 agri

cultural 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 federal 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 full-fledged university of the modern type.

The comparatively small sums 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 of 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."

What is in a name? Sometimes much, and so it was here. Giving this name the 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 became 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 "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, 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.