University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

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The metal shops wore to produce equipment for the University as well as to instruct students in metalworking. Gregory Faces Strong Opposition from Low Utilitarians Regent Gregory's antagonists like Jonathan Periam and John A. Kennicott were reacting against the sterility and irrelevance of the old time college. In denouncing these colleges, they were throwing out everything. Greek and Latin were the particular objects of their purge. Be- cause of a strong strain of anti-intellectualism, coining in part out of the Romantic Age, these men wanted to implement low utilitarianism. The real problem lay not so much with the subjects taught, but with the way they were taught. Because the recitation method was used, the student was given an assignment to be mem- orized. The next class period that student was called upon to recite the complete lesson. The students were entirely passive in the educational processes. Willard C. Flagg well represents those who lent support to Gregory and who objected not as much to the subjects as to the method. Flagg advocated an active rather than passive role. I le wanted students participating in learn- ing rather than just observing. Even though he stressed practical education, he did not strip away intellectuality. Even after Gregory triumphed in getting his plan of study accepted, the question of how to provide a type of laboratory instruction yet re- mained. Gregory felt that a system of manual labor was a solution ; but his thinking was behind that of the best, representing the older notions drawn from Pestalozzi. The compulsory manual labor system was soon to prove a failure. Only in one area, Professor Ricker's architec- tural shop and Professor Robinson's machine shop, was this labor system a partial success. Even after the labor system went out, these shops continued to grow. Here engineering stu- dents were able to learn first hand of problems encountered in tool and machine design. These shops were a transition from the labor system to the laboratory method. And the tran- sition was short at the University because of the work of Thomas Burrill. In 1869 he first used the microscope in teaching botany by the laboratory method. He soon used the same method to teach entomology and non-medical bacteriology. 15

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Thomas J. Burrill, acting regent in 1891-1894, lifted the fraternity ban and abolished compulsory military drill. Burrill's botany classes were using microscopes in 1869. I.I.U. Is Early Burdene Two Systems By 1873 all of the promised departments, which were included in Gregory's report, were functional. This was vindication of Gregory's so hotly debated plan of studies. A turning point had come in 1870 when a convention in Bloom- ington appointed a committee to report on the condition of I.I.U. This report was favorable, marking the beginning of general acquiescence to the aims of the University as conceived by Gregory. At the outset the University was burdened by two systems which hindered rapid academic growth. These were the systems of manual labor and of sub-collegiate training. By Gregory's plan students were to spend two early afternoons in labor. Criticisms caused the system to become voluntary and later to be abolished completely. The need for sub-collegiate training for many of the students who arrived with inadequate aca- demic training produced the Academy. Most of the instructors had to teach some of these courses. And in the early 1870' s, one third of the enroll- ment was required to take preparatory courses. In 1872 entrance requirements were raised to elevate the level of University work. As a fur- ther step, the Illinois high schools were accred- ited so that their students would not have to take the entrance examinations. And by 1876 students pursuing a sub-collegiate program were sepa- rated and were taught by recent graduates. The Academv was not dropped until 1897. Civil engineering was one of the most popular depart- ments of a college, enrolling 42 percent of all students by 1887. Here derbied engineers are surveying. tF n H

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German Scholarship Exerts Great Influence at University Though the fate of the humanities and agri- culture at the University appeared uncertain with the rapid rise of engineering, a number of factors contributed to stabilize and increase their influence. In the humanities the greatest impact was that of German scholarship. This great force in revising American higher education was of inestimable value. In agriculture two federal acts the Hatch Act and the second Morrill Act— provided the needed funds to finance the present course and to enlarge the scope of the agriculture program. The Hatch Act of 1887 provided $15,000 an- nually for the maintenance of an experiment sta- tion. In 1890 the second Morrill Act doubled this endowment, providing funds for instruction in agriculture, engineering, and auxiliary sub- jects. Though the act aided agriculture, it also had other far-reaching results. In the text of the bill, the maker stated that the funds also be used for auxiliary subjects, therefore implying that land grant colleges, cur- riculums should not be narrowly based. The other important result was that since the aug- mented income from the endowment almost cov- ered faculty salaries, Regent Peabody feared that the legislature might withdraw its support. Peabody therefore used the new fund to expand the faculty. In the next year and a half, new professors of chemistry, mining engineering, French, Greek, and pedagogy and psychology were added, as were instructors in gymnastics, rhetoric and philosophy. National Education Changes At a time when the University was expanding physically and also increasing the number of courses offered, a rapid change was taking place in national higher education. This change was the proliferation of research and specialization, will) their concomitants of organization and pub- lication. There were many factors which quick- ened this change l he work of immigrant schol- 16 ars, the growth of national learned societies, and adequate financial resources. The rise of specialization signaled a basic change in the intellectual ideals of American higher education. Though this change had taken place sometime in the mid-nineteenth century, its pace kept quickening during the last half cen- tury. Prior to 1850 the ideal of higher education had been to acquire and transmit the greatest possible amount of knowledge. After mid-century the ideal came more to be the discovery of new truth through original investigation. The single greatest impact causing the shift in emphasis was that of German scholarship. During the nineteenth century an increasing number of American students journeyed to Ger- many to study. And between the War of 1812 and World War I, 10,000 American students attended German universities. Scholars at Illinois were among those whc studied at German universities. Arthur W. Pal- mer, '83, who helped to direct the chemistry de- partment to its modern role, had studied a1 Gottingen and Berlin. George W. Myers, '88 held a doctorate in mathematics from Municl and taught at the University of Illinois. Under the influence of specialization, manj disciplines took their modern form. History, fo example, had experienced little forward develop ment at the University from 1868 to 1894. Bu with the arrival of E. B. Greene in 1894, this de partment was reorganized, offering courses oi the Reformation, the Puritan Revolution, an the French Revolution. C. W. Alvord's life- he came to the University in 1897— well illus- trates the activities of the men who transforme the history department. In 1905 Alvord discovered in two Souther Illinois courthouses stores of documents datin back to Illinois' French colonial period. Alvon published many of these documents in the COI LECTIONS of the Illinois State Historical L brary. Active in the Mississippi Valley Historic; Society, he began the MISSISSIPPI VALLF HISTORICAL REVIEW in 1914. Alvord, thei who specialized, conducted research, partic pated in learned professional societies, and pul lished books and articles, was one of the me who were active in reconstructing discipline and departments, and in transforming colleg into true universities.