Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1868 [PAGE 181]

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169

The Illinois Industrial University is established in no spirit'of rivalry, much less of hostility or antagonism, to the other Colleges and Universities of the country; nor in any spirit of disparagement or even criticism of their objects, management, courses of study or practical results. Nor was it in any manner or sense the intention of Congress, in the munificent endowment of these Universities, or of the State Legislatures in accepting the grant with its conditions, to undervalue or discriminate against the old order of liberal culture. The American College system has an illustrious history, and sits crowned to-day with imperishable lustre and beauty. Beginning at a period coeval with that of the Republic itself, it has done a work of blessedness and power the magnitude of which can never be recorded. It gave us the common school, and, with the common school it has, beyond a doubt, also given us the Industrial University itself. It needs no eulogium : there stand Harvard, and Yale, and Dartmouth, and Brown, and Amherst, and Bowdoin, and Princeton, and Union, and their compeers in the North and West, and there I trust they will stand forever. Peerless mothers of the nation's intellectual Gracchi, whose names and deeds and genius are interwoven with all that is noblest and best in our history and achievements, well may they exclaim, " See, these are our jewels !" What, then, is the grand distinguishing feature, purpose, hope, of this University ? In my view it is to form a closer alliance between Labor and Learning ; between Science and the Manual Arts; between Man and Nature ; between the Human Soul and Godt as seen in and revealed through His works. It is to endeavor to so wed the intellect and heart of the students we educate, to the matchless attractions of rural and industrial life, that they will, with their whole soul, prefer and choose that life, and consecrate to it the resources of skill and culture and power that may here be gained. These I hold to be the aims and hopes of this University. And we hope to attain them, not by a less extensive and thorough course of instruction than is given in other Universities, but by a somewhat different course, and more especially by emphasizing, from the beginning to the end of it, those studies and sciences which look away from literary ,-ind professional life, and towards the pursuits of the agriculturist and the artisan—by holding the student to a closer communion with Nature in her forms of living grace and beauty; her protean changes ; her sweet, profound and pure inspirations; and thus forming in his soul a purified relish for rural employments and pleasures, and a sincere longing for a life-long fellowship with them—by making as it were the very atmosphere of the University redolent of meadows and flowers, vocal with bird-notes and instinct with the love and spirit of the beautiful outer world—by demonstrating that the pursuits to which this Institution invites the young and ardent, are inferior in no element of dignity and honor to the so-called learned professions; requiring a scholarship no less varied and profound ; equally fitting men for the most exalted positions in the State and Nation, while pointing to a life of purest enjoyments and sweetest tranquility—by proving, too, that in addition to these high advantages, the rewards of rural and mechanical industry, when vitalized by intelligence and re-enforced by the treasures of science, are equal to those of any other legitimate human vocation; and hence that none need turn from them in the hope of a speedier acquisition of wealth—and finally, by the sincere convictions and loving enthusiasm of the Regent and Instructors, inspiring and quickening ail minds and hearts, and arousing that " esprit du corps" which is the precursor of success in every department of human activities.