Founders’ Day

The first Founders' Day commemoration took place on December 11, 1913. The first printed program held in the University Archives is dated 1922 and all that are available have been scanned and uploaded to this collection. When possible, speeches or entire event recordings are also available.

President William H. Wilder gave one of the speeches at the 1913 ceremony. He quoted a paragraph of the Central Illinois Methodist Conference Education Committee's report (copied below in its entirety). In 1922, part of the quote was inscribed on the University's west gate, named the Founders' Gate. The University has since adopted this quote as a guiding philosophy, and it is usually cited at Founders' Day Convocations.

"The Methodist Church, in the West and Southwest, stands in a position of incalculable responsibility to the great wave of population overspreading the valley of the Mississippi. Destiny seems to point out this valley as the depository of the great heart of the nation. From this center mighty pulsations, for good or evil, must in future flow, which shall not only affect the fortunes of the republic, but reach in their influence, other and distant nations of the earth. The advances herein reported which are being made by the Methodists on the subject of education in the bounds of the Illinois Conference, flatter the idea that, in so far as our section of the church is concerned and especially the division of it embraced in the Illinois Conference, cheering success will attend our future efforts to contribute our share towards the general education of the great masses. In addition to all other motives conspiring to lead us forward in this noble work, patriotism or the love of country is not the least. The nature of our constitutions and laws demands it. The tenure and price of our liberties are involved in it. The sovereignty invested in the whole people imperiously requires it; and recent events, as they have been connected with the civil questions which have agitated the nation, some of which questions have sprung from the tide of foreign emigration setting in upon American soil, call loudly for the work of education to go forward-the education of nothing less than the whole American mind; an education, too, that shall be American in all its essential principles."

[Education Committee Report, Journal and records of the ... session of the Illinois Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1854, p. 19.]

Founders’ Day

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