ADDRESSES 17 



Addresses 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME 



T. J. Burrill, University of Illinois 



Mr. President and Members of the Academy : 



I esteem myself fortunate in having the privilege of offer- 

 ing to the officers and members a few words of welcome to this 

 place and to the University, within whose walls we are gath- 

 ered. President James would have gladly done this, but al- 

 ways has many calls upon his attention and time at home and 

 abroad. It seems the world is his parish and he magnifies 

 his office. 



It is a great pleasure to us all that you meet here, especially 

 because you are among those who are best contributing to the 

 upbuilding of our splendid commonwealth. It is such studies 

 and investigations as you are making that have made the phe- 

 nomenal material and humanistic advancement now witnessed 

 and are to make the further improvements assuredly on the 

 way. 



The area of Illinois is no larger now than it was forty-nine 

 years ago, when the University of Illinois was chartered and 

 located. The soil is no better now than then, the vast deposits 

 of coal were as vast then, the forests the State over are cer- 

 tainly no better; but marvellous things have happened within 

 the time mentioned. Then it was easy to reach from where 

 you now sit, by horseback in an hour or less, areas of the 

 great native or original prairies from points of which on the 

 clearest day not a tree or a house was to be seen. There were 

 large areas of this open prairie, too wet for tillage, that were 

 offered for sale as low as $1.50 an acre, land that now. with- 

 out much outlay meanwhile, commands $200 or more. Men 

 never dreamed in those earlier days or nights that floating 

 dredge machines would burrow their way through and across 

 these level, water-soaked plains. The Illinois Central engines 

 were burning wood, waiting better adaptations for coal, of 

 which the enormous supplies were little appreciated. And to 

 suggest a greater difference the trains were run by time card, 



