Lincoln Hall Project
Education’s New Dawn
Grades and Discipline
Household Science, Railway Engineering, and More
Incoming freshmen were required to take courses such as rhetoric, chemistry, mathematics, foreign languages, military drill (for men), and physical training (or physiology for women). Upperclassmen could expand their studies in areas such as European history, philosophy, sociology, romance languages, English, chemistry, business, astronomy, railway engineering, ceramics, household science, music, animal husbandry, and many other areas.
In 1911 the College of Engineering conferred the most undergraduate degrees (202) of any college, followed by the College of Literature and Arts (148), which would merge with the College of Science in 1913 to form LAS and become the largest college. Students at the U of I needed a 70 to pass a course, although if they scored less than a 75 in more than one-quarter of their courses, they could not graduate. Freshmen and sophomores would be dropped from a course automatically if they skipped more than one-eighth of the class periods.
Mandatory Military Drill
In 1911 it was mandatory for incoming freshman males to purchase cadet uniforms and participate in military drills through their sophomore year (upperclassmen by then could opt out). Failure to do so, and even poor performance at the drills, could result in expulsion. Training in military tactics was a requirement passed down in the Morrill Act. University regulations at the time read:
“Military instruction at the University is not a matter of choice with the students or with the authorities; it is a matter of law.”
Discipline by a Dean with Spies
One of the more colorful campus characters in 1911 was a dean named Thomas Arkle Clark. After Clark retired in 1930, Time magazine wrote that he “invented and made famous” the job of dean of men. Known for his gaudy tastes, manipulative manner, and an enormous memory for names and detail, Clark was in charge of discipline and rooting out hazing and campus hooliganism, including that of a secret student fraternity that he fought for years. Historians are fairly certain he created a spy network on campus, as he had a knack for showing up when trouble was brewing.