214 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



professors connected with foreign and American universities and col- 

 leges who were in attendance, the variety and scope of the papers read, 

 and the subjects discussed at the meetings held during the week. 



The wonderful growth of the university in the past ten years, both 

 in material equipment and in the number of its faculty and students, 

 afforded a splendid demonstration of the possibilities of the develop- 

 ment of the institutions founded on the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 

 and the Hatch Act of 1887, when once the people of a State are 

 thoroughly aroused to the importance of maintaining and extending 

 higher education on a National and State basis. This university is 

 directly the outcome of the National land -grant act of Congress for 

 higher education, and has been maintained wholly by State and 

 National funds. 



In 1895 the University of Illinois had four colleges in six buildings, 

 less than fifty members on its faculty, and about six hundred students. 

 In 1905 it has eleven colleges in twenty-five buildings, four hundred 

 and eighty-seven members on its faculty, and nearly four thousand 

 students. In the same period the legislative appropriations have 

 increased from $295,000 to $1,500,000. 



Among the subjects most prominently and thoroughly discussed 

 on this occasion were the relations of the State to education in both 

 higher and lower schools, and the best methods of administration for 

 American universities. The functions of the university or college 

 president and the relations of the faculty to the president and board 

 of trustees were most earnest^ discussed, and a marked divergence of 

 opinion regarding the authority which the president should possess 

 was brought out. It was evident that while university development 

 in this country in recent years has been in the direction of the central- 

 ization of authority in the president, there was a strong feeling in the 

 minds of many of the eminent educators gathered on this occasion that 

 this tendency had gone too far, and that in some ways the boards of 

 trustees and the college faculty should be brought closer together and 

 exert more influence in determining the educational policy of the 

 institution. 



In the conference of college and university trustees, the first of its 

 kind held in this country, much attention was given to questions relat- 

 ing to the management of finances and accounting for funds. The 

 desirability of stricter accounting and more intelligible and accurate 

 financial reports was strongly insisted on. 



Agriculture as a subject on which has been based one of the main 

 divisions of the university, and which in recent years has fully shared 

 in the general prosperity of the institution, was given full recognition 

 in the programme of the installation exercises. In his inaugural 

 address, in which great stress was laid on the importance of maintain- 

 ing the courses of instruction in the university on a high grade and 



