It is asserted that noxious insects destroy, annually, over $20,000,000 in fruits, trees and grain. If the University shall teach how to avoid the ravages of a single species, it will save more than the entire cost of the institution.

If its experiments, widely published, shall save the farmers and fruit growers from useless experiments with worthless fruits, grains and trees, it will save annually to the State hundreds of thousands of dollars now wasted.

If its influence shall increase the tree planting throughout the state, it will give back in the wealth, and health and beauty of the State a hundred times all it now asks to carry out its plans.

If its mechanic shops shall stimulate the inventive genius of a single inventor of agricultural or other machinery, like the horse cultivator, rake or reaper, it will open a perpetual source of wealth.

If it shall help to develop our manufactures as such institutions have done, it will, like pumps sunk in deep wells, give out in perpetual streams what it asks now in quarts.

If it shall help to save the rich soil of our State from ultimate exhaustion by bad and wasteful husbandry, or shall teach how to bring under tillage lands now worthless or shall incite to a saving of the millions worth of manures now left to be wasted, how immense will be the returns it will yield for coming ages.

Nor are all these mere baseless suppositions. We are fully authorized by the past history of industrial schools to aver that this, if liberally fostered, will help to enrich the State a thousand fold more than all its costs.

While other appropriations are asked by charity or extorted by crimes, and are gifts from which no returns are asked, this is an investment, in the industrial fields and forces of the State, and will pay back every ten years all it asks. A million of dollars spent in this way would be wisely laid out, and would glorify and enrich the State beyond computation, and for ages to come.

ACTION OF OTHER STATES.

The liberality exhibited by other states, and by some of those of far less power and wealth than our own, encourages the Trustees to hope that a wise and liberal policy will be pursued towards the University. Pennsylvania appropriated to its Agricultural College $200,000. New York gives to Cornell University $18,000 a year, after having given it 900,000 acres of Agricultural College Land Scrip, to which Mr. Cornell has added about $800,000. That state also gives to the Renssalaer Polytechnic school $15,000 a year, and nearly $40,000 to other colleges. Massachusetts has given to the new Agricultural College of that state $91,000, to the School of Technology $262,444, and to the Museum of Zoology $180,708. It has also given to Harvard and to other colleges, within ten years, $128,500. The total gifts to Harvard amount to $215,797 73. Michigan has appropriated to its Agricultural College $198,398, besides large donations of state lands. It has also given to its State University $100,000, and now tenders it the income of a tax which will yield $15,000 a year, and this although its endowments already afford nearly $40,000 per annum. Wisconsin has given to the agricultural department of its State University $30,798 50, and to the University itself $27,594 84, and now gives it $7,303 76 annually.

The following tabular statement exhibits the sums paid to higher institutions of learning by the states whose statistics have come to hand:

Thus far in her history, Illinois, as a state, has done very little for the promotion of this higher form of education. Her citizens have done generously, but as yet no statute graces her records, making a direct appropriation for the promotion of liberal and scientific education. Circumstances have heretofore prevented the founding of a distinct State University, and her liberality has found no channel tempting its exercise. But now the State has a University closely linked to its great industrial interests, and indissolubly bound to its own name and fame. The Industrial University belongs inalienably to the State. The world recognizes it as an institution of the State. Its prosperity will be both a blessing and an honor to the State; its failure would be both a curse and a shame.

With these considerations in view, the Trustees earnestly solicit, and confidently hope for, the favorable action of the Legislature. A failure to make the appropriations asked would be so disastrous that years could not repair the loss. The prompt development of the University will give early to the State the fruits of its work and afford its advantages to hundreds who will otherwise fail to receive them.

J. M. GREGORY,
Chairman of Committee.

___**15

AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE BENEFIT AND COMPLETION OF THE ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the sum of sixty thousand dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated to the Illinois Industrial University, located at Urbana, Champaign county, Illinois, in amounts and for the purposes hereinafter set forth, viz:

To the agricultural department, including the erection of barns and other out-buildings for the experimental and stock farm, houses for farmer and farm laborers, fencing, drainage, wells, teams, tools, seeds, roads, bridges, fruit and forest trees, and stock of several breeds and varieties, twelve thousand five hundred dollars per annum, for two years.

To the horticultural department, including horticultural buildings and structures, house for gardener, barn and tool house, horticultural implements, fencing, underdrainage, roads, forest and fruit trees, shrubs, plants, etc., ten thousand dollars per annum, for two years.

To the chemical department, the sum of five thousand dollars. To be used for other apparatus and for books, by direction of trustees, ten thousand dol lars.

§ 2. The Auditor of Public Accounts is hereby authorized and required to draw his warrant upon the Treasurer of the State of Illinois for the said sums of money, upon orders of the board of trustees of said University, signed by the regent and attested by the secretary of said board, with the seal of said institution affixed thereto. And it shall be the duty of said treasurer, and he is hereby authorized, to pay the same out of moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated: Provided, that said orders of said trustees shall not be given except as, in their judgment, the necessity arises for the expenditure of the moneys so appropriated for the specific purposes herein provided.

§ 3. This act shall be deemed a public act, and shall be in force from and after its passage.

§ 4. The board of trustees shall not create any indebtedness nor incur any liabilities beyond the provisions of this act.

APPROVED March 27, 1869.

INDEX.

NOTE.-It will be observed that the pages numbers 41-48 are duplicated. In indexing, we have referred to the second series of folios as 41 a, 42 a, etc.