Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1868 [PAGE 167]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

155

Thy portals shall throng with the lowly and great,' Thy Science-crowned children shall bless all the State.

IV.

Then hail thee! blest fountain of learning and light, Shine on in thy glory, rise ever in might; We greet now thy dawning; but ages to come Must tell of thy grandeur, and shout Harvest Home.

Dr. NEWTON BATEMAN, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, then delivered the following

A D D K E SS :

A great State has just embarked in a great enterprise, and here, at the very threshold, it is'fit that we pause a momenfrto consider the history of that enterprise, its nature, and how we may hope to conduct it to a successful issue. What, then, is the Illinois Industrial University, which we to-day inaugurate—for what ends has it been established—and by what means shall we seek to achieve those ends ? The practical realization of nearly every grand movement of the forces of civilization, is the sequence—usually the long-delayed, long waited-for sequence—of many silently-working, far-distant causes—the final embodiment of the struggling thoughts, aspirations and yearnings of the public mind. To this historical fact the Institution, which we to day place in the grand column of the educational forces of this commonwealth and of the nation, is no exception. It is not a thing of yesterday; it is born of no transient impulse of the public mind—of no meteoric flash of popular enthusiasm—no sudden faith in the royalty of labor, and the exaltation of the laborer. The ideas which underlie and have at length fashioned it into being, have long been before the American people, and are indeed, in some sense, co-eval with the existence of the Republic itself. Washington and Jefferson, and many others of that day, were practical agriculturists, and did much to foster a love of industrial pursuits among their countrymen, and to lay under contribution the treasures of science, to enhance the productiveness of soils, and ennoble the employments of husbandry. And from that period to the present, there have been those who, from time to time, have directed public attention to the transcendent importance of this great department of our national industries, and to the need of institutions of learning devised and conducted with more direct reference thereto. But the era of great combined movements, in this country, in behalf of the better education of the masses for the manual industries of life, may be said to have commenced about twenty years ago. And, whether considered in the light of the magnitude of the interests involved; the millions of people concerned in the issue; the grandeur of the thoughts and conceptions advanced ; the number, eminence and power of the men engaged; or the undaunted persistency and faith with which the contest has been carried on—whether viewed in one or all of these aspects, this era of effort and conflict for industrial education deserves to be called sublime. Convention after convention was held ; league after league was formed; society after society was organized; pamphlets, appeals and addresses were written and published by tens of thousands of copies; petitions and memorials went up from