for 548 acres remaining unsold including $100 of personal property. The property was then sold by the auditor at public auction on July 25, 1879, at the college buildings in Irvington, and brought a total of $14,608, one-fifth to be paid in cash and the remainder in four equal annual payments. Against this property there were encumbrances amounting in all to $6,509.95. On August 8, 1879, the auditor paid over $4,855.80 to the state treasury, a balance he had on hand after paying $252.19 on account of the expense of sales. On November 15, 1879, $555.75 was paid to the state treasury by the auditor from the sale of products of the farm. By September 30, 1880 it was reported that $10,235.52 had been collected. This was $3,725.57 in excess of expenditures. There remained in notes still to be collected $5,188.27. This sum plus the surplus over expenditures mentioned above, amounting to $8,913.84, should have been returned to the treasury and credited to the seminary fund.37

The records in the auditor's office and the treasurer's office do not show that the $5,188.27 in notes were ever collected and placed in the treasury. The money paid over to the treasury in August and November, 1879 amounting to $5,411.55 was credited evidently to the regular revenue fund of the state.38 Approximately nine thousand dollars, the remains of the four and onehalf sections of seminary land donated to the Illinois agricultural college at Irvington have not found their way back to the seminary fund where they undoubtedly belong.39

"Auditors Report, September 30, 1879.

"Letters from the auditor of public accounts and from the state treasurer, July, 1917.

39The old college building still stands in Irvington and has been used for a children's home by the Baptists for a number of years. Incidentally it may be noted that at the Springfield meeting of the agriculturists in 1864 the institution made a bid for the funds arising from the land grant act of 1862, but nothing came of the effort. In the light of facts related above the state was fortunate that it did not turn any more funds in that particular direction.

CHAPTER VIII

ILLINOIS ACCEPTS THE DONATION OF CONGRESS

AND CONSIDERS ITS DISPOSITION

1862-1865

Illinois, having originated, developed, and brought to a successful issue the land grant proposition, had now the opportunity to accept the terms of the federal law and to enter on the task of creating her own university. By provision of the act congress was to give the states public lands or scrip for the same, in the proportion of thirty thousand acres for each senator or representative in congress. Illinois, with sixteen representatives in congress, was entitled to receive four hundred and eighty thousand acres in land or its equivalent in scrip. The proceeds of the sale of the land or scrip was to be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the states, or some other safe stocks yielding not less than five per cent to constitute a perpetual fund, the interest of which was to be used for the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college in each state, where the leading object should be the teaching of such branches of learning as related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. It was further provided, that in order to claim the benefit of the act the legislatures of the states must accept the provisions of the congressional grant within two years and provide for the establishment of at least one college within five years. Though Illinois was not the first of the state legislatures to accept the congressional grant there was no unnecessary delay, for it took up the question immediately upon assembling in January, 1863. Governor Yates in his annual message January 5, 1863, reminded the legislature that it was necessary to accept the grant within the two years allowed, and on January 8, Mr. Mason of Knox county presented a bill in the senate for the acceptance of the grant. It was referred to the committee on education, which reported it back with a substitute on January 12. The substitute was adopted and the bill then passed the senate by a vote of 22 to 0.1 1Senate Journal, 1863, p. 66, 82-83.

In the house the bill was referred to the committee on counties which reported it favorably, and on February 13, it passed the house with a vote of 62 to 0 and was signed by the governor the next day.2

On the same day that the act accepting the donation of congress was signed, the legislature provided by joint resolution for a committee to be composed of three from the house and two from the senate to inquire into the best method of disposing of the grant from congress. The preamble to the resolution stated that one of the reasons for the investigation was because application had been made to the general assembly by various parties who desired to be invested with the benefits of this grant. Naturally the question arises as to the identity of the parties so eager in the interests of the industrial classes of the state that they were beseeching the general assembly, even before the acceptance of the Federal act, to invest them with the benefits of the grant. As one might expect it was not the group of devoted men who had made the grant possible but it was a faction, or factions of the small college men, who had striven hard from 1852 to 1857 to get possession of the college and seminary funds, who had called the plans of the industrial league and of Turner "chimeras," "absurd," and "ungodly," but who, now that the grant was within reach of the state, pushed forward in almost unseemly haste, to secure for their own institutions whatever part of the congressional bequest they possibly could.

The activity of the college men began as early as January 27, 1863, when a memorial of the trustees of Shurtleff college in relation to an agricultural college was presented in the senate by Mr. Underwood of St. Clair county, and referred to the committee on education. On January 30, Mr. Mason of Knox county, chairman of the joint committee presented a "bill for an act to provide a college for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts." This was referred to his committee and reported to the senate, February 2, under the title of "Incorporation of sundry agricultural colleges," with a substitute which was adopted and ordered engrossed for third reading. On February 11, this bill was read a third time. It now bore the title House Journal, 1863, p. 116, 201, 288, 621. The act is printed in appendix p. 588.

"An act to establish two agricultural colleges, one to be known as the agricultural college of southern Illinois, and the other as the agricultural college of northern Illinois."'3 The trustees named in this bill were men directly or indirectly, connected with Shurtleff or with Knox college and to them the eleventh section of the bill gave the power "to make arrangements with any existing college for the accommodation and instruction of the students of such Agricultural College, and for the use of lands, buildings, libraries, etc."4 These facts when made known revealed of course, that the bill was in the interests of the colleges and was "a shrewd effort on their part to get possession of a valuable endowment and ally themselves to a vigorous popular movement. ''5

The industrial university men were caught napping; in January and February Kennicott and Turner apparently knew nothing of what was being prepared and directed in the other camp. Turner in a letter to Kennicott published in the Prairie Farmer, February 7, 1863, said that he did not desire to touch the matter of the grant for he wished all the feelings aroused in the earlier contests wholly to die away. When he found, as he soon did, what the college men were up to, he entered with his usual vigor into plans to defeat them. Fortunately for the cause of the industrial men the legislature took a recess from February 14 to June 2.

Aware at last of the danger the friends of the industrial movement issued a call in the latter part of May "to the agriculturists and friends of agriculture throughout the state" to meet in convention in Springfield on June 9, 1863. After drawing attention to the munificent donation to the state by congress the summons stated that such enactment remained to be done as would secure two things beyond peradventure: the fulfillment of the conditions upon which the grant rested, so that its object would not fail entirely; and the attainment of the greatest possible benefit to the industrial classes of the whole state, 'Senate Journal, 1863, p. 276; see also p. 141.

'See below p. 181.

Illinois School Reports, 1886-1888, p. cxxx.

"Prairie Farmer, May 30, 1863, and many other papers.

whose highest interests it was specially designed to promote. This call was signed by twelve well-known leaders in the state from ten different counties headed by the enthusiastic John Kennicott.7

When the assembly reconvened on June 2, the effect of the work of the college men was readily recognized, and it caused no little discomfort and uneasiness among those who were opposed to a division of the funds.

An effort was made by friends of the bill then pending in the assembly to push it through but John Reynolds, the corresponding secretary of the agricultural society, frustrated their scheme. He foresaw the danger and from the committee in charge of the bill in the house he secured a promise to defer its report until after the meeting of the convention.

The sixth industrial convention met in Springfield June 9, 1863, with James N. Brown, of Sangamon county as president and W. W. Corbett of Cook county and Thomas Quick of Washington county as secretaries. The call for the meeting and the act of congress donating lands for the establishment of colleges were read: resolutions in honor of Dr. John A. Kennicott and expressing the sorrow of the convention at his death were also read, after which G. I. Bergen, of Knox county introduced the following resolution: "Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that the interests of agriculture can best be promoted by locating two Agricultural Colleges within the State." This was afterward amended, on motion of Dr. English of Madison county, by the addition of the words "in accordance with the bill now pending before the Senate.'s

Thus the college men threw down the gage of battle and the fight was on. All afternoon and evening a vigorous discussion took place in which some ten or more men of both parties engaged, including Bergen of Knox, Turner of Morgan, Roots of Perry, English and Edwards of Madison, Burroughs of Cook, Thomas of Jackson, Quick of Washington, and Lawrence of Boone. This was not the first time that a group of small college "This was probably the last public act of the "Old Doctor" for he died before the convention met.

Prairie Farmer, June 20, 1863, gives a full account of the proceedings of the convention.