ILLINOIS 803 



state educational commission had recommended its increase to $4,500,000. The appro- 

 priation for the University of Illinois for the biennium was more than $2,000,000 for main- 

 tenance and nearly $850,000 for improvements. The legislature provided for a one mill tax 

 thereafter for the university. Among the appropriations was one of 8125,000 for a training 

 school building for the State Normal University, on which work began in the summer of 

 1912 and which will accommodate 700 children. Boards of education were authorised to 

 establish and maintain classes for the deaf, dumb and blind and for delinquent children, the 

 state to pay the excess cost. In 1912 a constitution for the University of Illinois was being 

 prepared. The board of education in any district having more than 1,000, and less than 

 100,000, inhabitants may establish and maintain a fund for the retirement of teachers upon 

 an assessment basis. By a majority vote a district which does not maintain a pension fund 

 may retire any teacher over 50 who has taught in the district for 25 years. 



In 1910 the percentage of illiteracy in the population 10 years of age and over was 3.7 

 (4.2 in 1900). In 191 1-12 the school population was 1,570,867; the total enrollment in public 

 schools, 987,379; the average daily, attendance, 865,009; the average school year, 158 days; 

 the revenue for schools, $36,007,378, and the expenditure, $34,869,457. 



A municipal bureau was established at the University of Illinois in 1911. The medical 

 school of Northwestern University received in 1910, 1911 and 1912 large gifts from James 

 A. Patten of Evanston for a fund for medical research, especially on tuberculosis; and in 

 1912 Dr. A. I. Kendall was put in charge of this research. At the University of Chicago 

 new buildings were begun in 1911 for the departments of geology and geography and of 

 classics and for a women's gymnasium. In 1912 economic conditions in Liberia were in- 

 vestigated by Frederick Starr of the University of Chicago. In December 191 1 N. W. Harris, 

 a Chicago banker, gave $250,000 for school extension work of the Field Museum. 



Penal and Charitable Institutions. In the general appropriation act for charitable 

 institutions in 1911, $3,753,264 was appropriated besides special appropriations for the same 

 institutions amounting to $1,184,250. By separate acts $10,000 was appropriated for the 

 relief of the adult blind and $75,000 for a building for the Illinois surgical institution for 

 children, if ground be donated and $600,000 for a new state hospital for the insane, 

 for which Alton was chosen as the site in 1912. In all courts having criminal or quasi- 

 criminal jurisdiction the probation system was introduced in 1911 for first offence prisoners. 

 A law, approved June n, 1912, shortens the official title of each charitable institution of the 

 state, and provides for the appointment by the governor of a board of administration (five 

 members, one an alienist), of a charities commission, also of five members to investigate the 

 state's charitable system and to establish a bureau of criminal statistics, and of a board of 

 visitors, which inspects and reports to the charities commission. All private institutions 

 for mental and nervous cases must be licensed by the board of administration. A law of 

 1911 authorised courts' with juvenile jurisdiction to fix the amount which will enable poor 

 parents of a dependent child to care for the child properly; this amount is to be paid by the 

 county board. A commission, created by an act of 1907 which appropriated 500,000, has 

 recently bought 2,500 acres (quarry and farm) N. W. of Joliet for a penitentiary to replace 

 that at Joliet, condemned in 1906; plans had been drawn and accepted, but building had 

 not begun at the end of 1912. 



History. The principal political event of 1911, when there was no state election, 

 was the mayoralty campaign in Chicago. Mayor Fred A. Busse (b. 1866; Republican), 

 who went out of office that year, appointed the Vice Commission, whose report 1 and 

 recommendations were of great value. In the city primaries (Feb. 28, 1911) Charles 

 Edward Merriam (b. 1874), alderman in 1909-11, chairman of a commission on city 

 expenditures, and professor of political science in the University of Chicago (afterwards 

 head of the Progressive Republican Club of Cook county), received the Republican 

 nomination with more votes than both his more " regular " opponents; and Carter 

 Henry Harrison (b. 1860), mayor in 1897-1905, defeated Edward Fitzsimons Dunne 

 (b. 1853), mayor in 1907-09, for the Democratic nomination (about 55,120 votes to 

 53,700). Harrison was elected (April 4, 1911), receiving 177,900 votes to 161,000 for 

 Merriam, whose promise to enforce laws about the sale of liquors lost him many votes; 

 the Socialist candidate W. E. Rodriguez received 24,825 votes. Under Harrison the 

 work of the Vice Commission was actively supplemented by the Civil Service Commis- 

 sion, which investigated the building department and the police, effected the discharge of 

 many policemen for inefficiency, and was actually invited to Oakland, California, where 

 two of its members organised a civil service system. Harrison had campaigned for 

 an ordinance making 70 cents the maximum price for 1,000 cu. ft. of gas; but experts 

 who were to report on a fair price set 77 cents and 75 cents (with reductions until 65 



1 Published as The Social Evil in Chicago, 1911. 



