Part V. State Institutions
- University of Wisconsin
The Support of the University
[p. 763]
The University is supported partly by the income of federal
grants, partly by taxation of the people of the State, and
partly by private gifts. For such support there have been
five federal grants, namely: the Two-Township Grant of 1848;
the Supplementary Two-Township Grant of 1854; the Morrill Grant
of 1862 for the support of studies pertaining to agriculture
and mechanic arts; the Hatch Grant of 1887 for the support of
agricultural experiment stations; and the Supplementary Morrill
Grant of 1890.
Besides numerous and large appropriations for buildings and
other specific purposes, the State of Wisconsin has made
eight continuing grants, namely: the one-tenth mill tax of
1891; the appropriation for the support of the Observatory in
1887; the appropriation for the support of Farmers' Institutes
in 1885, increased in 1887; the appropriation for the College
of Engineering, in 1889, of one percent of the railroad license
tax, and the additional one-fifth mill grant of 1897. The legislature
of 1899 consolidated the various mill taxes, specified above,
and the grant of one percent of the railroad licenses, into a
specific continuous annual grant of an amount equal to the annual
revenue from these various grants. This appropriation was increased
by the legislature of 1901, and again by the legislature of 1903.
In 1905 the legislature passed a new law for the support of the
University. Section 390, revised statutes of 1898, as amended
from time to time, was amended so as to levy two-sevenths of
a mill tax for the support of the University. Instead of making
specific appropriations for individual buildings as heretofore,
an appropriation of $200,000 per annum, for a period of three
years, was also made for new buildings, repairs, improvement,
equipment, apparatus, etc.
Of the gifts that have come to the University, that of Dane
county for the purchase of lands for the University farm; that
of the late Governor C. C. Washburn for the founding of the
Washburn Observatory; that of the late Judge Mortimer M. Jackson
for the establishment of the Mortimer M. Jackson Professorship
of Law; the President Adams' fellowship fund; the Mary M. Adams
Fellowship fund; the Fannie P. Lewis Scholarship fund; and the
endowment of the Henry Gund Fellowship in German have been the
most considerable and important.