48 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



After serving as professor of agriculture and director of the Ag- 

 ricultural Experiment Station in connection with his Alma Mater, 

 and later spending a year in Brazil, attempting to organize a govern- 

 ment agricultural college (which proved premature in that country 

 owing to changing political regime), he had just returned to America 

 by way of England when destiny stepped in, opportunity beckoned, and 

 the broad prairies of Illinois presented their vista. He came ; and be- 

 hold, he found less than a dozen students, no buildings, no equipment 

 of any kind. He was told to go ahead and make bricks, but to make 

 them without straw. Later on, after straw began to be supplied from 

 outside sources as a result of his own activities, there was somewhat of 

 opposition to be overcome from the executive office of the University 

 in its ideals and in regard to the matter of support which the progress 

 of agricultural education required. 



CONDITIONS DURING THE MIDDLE NINETIES 



Reviewing the condition of things in the middle nineties, the 

 state was preeminently an agricultural one. The people were largely 

 of the progressive type and tendency a good many of them. The 

 Agricultural College was on the campus of a rapidly growing Uni- 

 versity. There was sympathy and encouragement on the side of many 

 members of the faculty, notably in the personal interest of Dr. T. J. 

 Burrill. The University was beginning actually to push forward the 

 agricultural interests. Our more progressive farmers, and others 

 whose business or professional activities made them recognized pro- 

 moters of agriculture, were not numerous in the state, but there were 

 men here and there of real and growing power, enthusiastic rural 

 men who had a force and whose influence had important bearing on 

 subsequent developments. These and other farmers were beginning 

 earnestly to better themselves; they had already in 1895 planned the 

 organization of a State Farmers' Institute, with legislative support. 

 The agricultural press was assuming a more friendly attitude. The 

 state legislature was beginning to demonstrate a new interest toward 

 the University but was yet apathetic toward the agricultural interests. 



What if there were no distinctive Agricultural College buildings, 

 no separately designated College funds, but few agricultural students, 

 and little favorable inside or outside consideration? 



After the University had been founded for over thirty years, some 

 of the progressive citizens began to realize that they had some per- 

 sonal responsibility in an institution which was supported by them as 

 tax payers. A committee from the State Farmers' Institute and other 



