Indiana University - Arbutus Yearbook (Bloomington, IN)

Page 19 text:

INDIANA UNIVERSITY HE life of a University is like the life of a man. Though there are occasional red letter days that stand out prominently, it is the steady, quiet growth and development on which the final stature d(.-|icn.ls. -t ill tilling tlu- story .if the life it is necessary to touch Miily tile higlicr k uN : the l.iiig sc:is..ii . ,f calm day by day growth The liii-tliday of I ii,liaii;i rnivcrMty wa the twentieth of Junuat-y, 1820. I ' ivr iiu-ii u ere that .la appointed 1, tlie (ieneral Assembly of the Slate of Indiana to select in tlie sch.,ol township of I Ionroe county an eligible and convenient site for a . tate Seminary and to erect thereon a suitable building and also a suitable ami commodious house for a professor. As a result of this act of the Asseinbh the new seminary was opened in .Max , 1824. During the next three years the attendance increased so rapidlv that the curriculum was enlarged and in the first month of 1828 the Legislature raised the school to tire dignity of a college. Ten years later the title College was raised to University. I ' or si.xty-nine years now the school has been known as the State L ' niversity of Indiana, the head .if a general and uniform system of common schools, wherein tuition shall lie without charge, and equally open to all. Until 1867 the funds for the support of the University came almost entirely from the sale of seminary lands, eked out by gifts from friends and fees paid by students. In that year eight thousand dollars were appropriated to place the State University in the highest condition of usefulness and make it the crowning glory of our present great common school system, where education shall be free . As time went on this amount was increased