Old Main stood on the prairie as the first building erected by and for state supported higher education in Illinois. Dedicated to a hope and an ideal, it was a place to attempt great things. An act of faith itself, it justified that faith during its 101 years through the thousands of students who shared with the founders the dream that caused it to be built. Old Main answered a people's demand to raise up, from its own stock, teachers for its needs. Those sent out to do that for which they had been educated were, like Old Main, a fulfillment of a hope. Dedicated to truth, humanity, and God, that for which it stood for so long a time will endure.