The University of Illinois, a land-grant college, opened in 1868 and developed slowly for a quarter of a century. In 1894 the trustees, determined to give the institution greater recognition, appointed Andrew S. Draper as president. Draper had made a reputation in New York State and in Cleveland as a school administrator, but he had never attended a college or university and did not understand the transformation of higher education then taking place in the United States. During his ten-year tenure the University gained the shape of a university by establishing various professional schools, but it lacked the spirit of a university.
