Educating The Lord’s Redeemed And Anointed: The University Of Illinois Chapel Experience 1868-1894 -- By: J. Gregory Behle

Journal: Masters Seminary Journal
Volume: TMSJ 11:1 (Spring 2000)
Article: Educating The Lord’s Redeemed And Anointed: The University Of Illinois Chapel Experience 1868-1894
Author: J. Gregory Behle


Educating The Lord’s Redeemed And Anointed:*
The University Of Illinois Chapel Experience
1868-1894

J. Gregory Behle

Professor of Christian Education
The Master’s College

[*Editor’s note: The title of this article, “Educating the Lord’s Redeemed and Anointed,” is drawn from the speech by Dr. Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Illinois, given at the University’s opening on 11 March 1868. He stated, “Thank God, monopolies of learning by privileged classes, are among the discrowned shadows of the past. A new element is henceforth to bear sway in the destinies of these States and of the nation. To the dust must go, and will go, whatever schemes devices or systems refuse to affiliate with or set themselves in opposition to, the Lord’s redeemed and anointed—the People” (Dr. Newton Bateman, “The Address of Dr. Newton Bateman at the Inauguration of the University,” Some Founding Papers of the University of Illinois, David Hatch, ed. [Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1967]: 30-31).]

Institution-sponsored religious activities within American state universities in the nineteenth-century have gone largely unnoticed by higher education historians, although such activities were an integral part of such institutions from their founding. One such case was the compulsory chapel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from its origin in 1868 to the demise of chapel in 1894. The first Regent of the University, John Milton Gregory, instituted chapel exercises from the beginning of the institution. Emphasis on chapel began to decline under the leadership of Selim Hobart Peabody, the second Regent. Compulsory chapel attendance ended during the tenure of Thomas Jonathan Burrill, the interim Regent who followed Peabody. Historical lessons to be learned from the University of Illinois experience include the effect of changing student populations on chapel attendance, the limitation placed on faculty schedules by academic work loads, and the effect of leadership’s view of the importance of chapel attendance.

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Introduction

RESOLVED… that sensible of our dependance on the Divine blessing
in the great work in which we are engaged, it should be a
standing order of this board to commence each day’s proceedings

by reading of the Word of God and prayer.1

On Tuesday, the 12th of March 1867, the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Industrial University met to begin the process of creating a new college on the Illinois prairie. Appoint...

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