The University of Illinois, 1894-1904: The Shaping of the University

The University of Illinois, 1894-1904: The Shaping of the University By Winton U. Solberg University of Illinois Press 2000 $50.00 415 pp. It has been said that institutional histories tend either to be provincial in their outlook or laudatory and expansive in the treatment of their subjects. Neither generalization holds true here. This study can best be described as analytical in its approach to the development of the University of Illinois and the challenges it faced in becoming more than an engineering college. The author, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois and the author of an earlier volume, The University of Illinois, 1867-1894, sets forth the proposition that the decade spanned by this book represents a crucial turning point for the University in its rise to become one of the leading universities in the nation and of the world. The years 1894-1904 coincide with the presidency of Andrew Sloan Draper, who came to Illinois from a career as a lawyer and school administrator in New York State. Draper is portrayed as something of an autocrat and micro-manager who becomes well connected with the political and economic leadership of the state but has difficulty in his relations with his deans and members of the faculty. When Draper arrived, the University consisted of four colleges: Engineering, Literature and Arts, Agriculture, and Science. The best known unit and the one with the largest enrollment and faculty was the College of Engineering. Fortunately for Draper and the University, the election of 1892 had brought John Peter Altgeld to the governorship. Governor Altgeld was self educated but believed passionately in the worth of an educated populace and worked with the General Assembly to increase substantially state appropriations in support of the University. More importantly, this laid the foundation for more generous treatment and understanding of the University in future years. The author has a keen eye for weaving a myriad of detail into the story that unfolds. But he does so unobtrusively and in so doing, he creates a valuable reference work for the years under study. Brief, one or two sentence sketches of deans, faculty members, and University trustees appear throughout the narrative. Among the more prominent figures who reappear at appropriate times is David Kinley, a young economist who, as dean of the College of Literature and Arts, is entangled repeatedly with Draper over the latter's insistence that centralizing authority represents the best means of administering a university. Kinley will go on to serve the University in major roles for many years, eventually becoming its president for the decade of the 1920s. But for the period of this study, he struggles to build and strengthen his College without the steady and enthusiastic support of President Draper. In contrast to Engineering, the College of Agriculture was in sad shape upon Draper's arrival. Scientific research was unknown and enrollment had dwindled to three students. To fill the vacant dean's position, President Draper looked to Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) and hired Eugene Davenport as the new dean. Davenport had ideas for the introduction and promotion of scientific agricultural practices that were in sharp contrast with the position of Draper who would have preferred to have students interested in agriculture enroll in the University's preparatory school rather than pursue a four-year degree program. The author outlines in detail the strategies employed by Davenport in mobilizing the Illinois agricultural interests in support of agricultural education and neutralizing the views of the president in this area. The author describes the establishment of new components of the University during this era, the Library School and the University Library itself, the School of Music, the Department of Art and Design, and the all important beginnings of the Graduate School. …