The Attorney Gen. v. the Ill. Agricultural Coll.

• Decision Date: 30 June 1877
• Citation: 85 Ill. 516,1877 WL 9605
• Parties: THE ATTORNEY GENERALv.THE ILLINOIS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

85 Ill. 516

1877 WL 9605 (Ill.)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

v.THE ILLINOIS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June Term, 1877.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Washington county; the Hon. AMOS WATTS, Judge, presiding.

Mr. JAMES K. EDSALL, Attorney General, pro se.

Mr. JUSTICE WALKER delivered the opinion of the Court:

An act of the General Assembly, adopted on the 21st of February, 1861, incorporated the Illinois Agricultural College “for the purpose of instruction in practical and scientific agriculture, and in the mechanic arts.” The capital stock of the corporation was fixed at $50,000, with liberty to increase it to $100,000, to be divided into shares of $100 each. The capital stock was, by the charter, required to be exclusively devoted to the purposes for which it was incorporated. It provided, the stock, property and concerns of the company should be managed by the directors.

The charter further required that, in employing teachers to impart instruction in practical agriculture and the mechanic arts to the pupils attending the institution, it should be the duty of the directors to give the pupils an opportunity and to require of them to labor in the field, in the workship or in the laboratory, one-half of the time, from the 1st of March to the 1st of December, to the end that all pupils might learn the art of productive industry as well as mental improvement; that the institution should annually receive one student from each county in the State, free of charge for tuition, to be instructed in the science and practice of scientific agriculture and the mechanic arts.

For the purpose of enabling the college to perform this duty, by the 8th section of the charter, the State gave to the corporation the college and seminary lands of the State, and the evidence shows that these were subsequently sold by the college for $58,000.

The company opened subscription books, stock was taken, the incorporation organized by the election of officers, and a farm purchased near Irvington, in Washington county. Buildings were erected at a cost, including the lands, of $30,000, teachers were employed, and the school opened in 1866. But it was, in its character, no more than a common school. The directors provided no means for teaching scientific agriculture, and erected no workshops or provided any facilities for teaching the mechanic arts. On the contrary, the whole effort seems to have been a miserable failure.

The directors appointed A. D. Hay treasurer, and authorized him and the secretary to sell the lands, which they did. The buildings were erected, and the money was advanced therefor by Hay, to be paid from the money for which the land donated by the State was sold, when collected. It was collected by Hay, and he reimbursed himself, used the balance and failed financially, and, as the directors took no bond from him, the money was lost, and the directors borrowed money of Sawyer, McCracken & Co. to meet expenses of the school, and gave a deed of trust on the property to secure its payment, which has never been paid.

These facts, as shown by the evidence in the case, seem most clearly to establish a waste and perversion of the fund donated by the State. That fund had been granted to the State by Congress for the purpose of maintaining a college or seminary of the character created by this charter, and there would seem to be no doubt that the General Assembly intended, when they donated it, that it should be held as a sacred trust fund for the establishment, improvement and carrying on a college of the character they were...