Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1868 [PAGE 186]

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174 shouts the incoming of the new day, when every man, everywhere, could seek just the sort of education he required. Then, addressing Dr. Gregory, he said that no grander scheme of education had ever been inaugurated, than that of today. He was sure that he would be found equal to the responsibility, and resting assured of that, wonld present him, on behalf of the State, with the symbols of authority. JOHN M. GREGORY, LL. D., Regent of the University, then delivered the

INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Illinois:

Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, and Fellow Citizens of

I should be something more or less than human not to feel the solemn pressure of this hour. From the outset, I comprehended both the greatness and the difficulty of the undertaking in which we are engaged. But, neither ought the greatness to appal, nor the difficulties to discourage us. Let them, rather, inspire to a nobler ardor, and urge to wiser and more determined efforts. The great enterprises of human civilization are not carried forward to their triumphant end by the play of children. They at once rouse and require the full-grown energies of strong men. It is no ordinary work which we are set to do, and it comes to us under no ordinary conditions. We are not here to reproduce, in this new locality, some old and well known style of college or university. Nor are we permitted to sit down in quiet to invent, at our leisure, some new scheme of educat : on, which, when settled to our own tastes, we may offer for public patronage, as a manufacturer offers a new fashioned piano or plough. No such easy task of leisure hours is allowed us. Hosts of earnest men are impatiently waiting to see how we will meet the great duty which the country has entrusted to us. The veteran advocates of industrial education are ready to scan, with keen vision, both our plans and our performances. The hungry eyes of toiling millions are turned, with mingled hope and fear, upon us, to see what new and better solution we can possibly offer of the great problems on which their well-being and destiny depend. We have good need to act wisely as well as earnestly, in the presence of this great host of interested spectators. But it i-s not merely the voice of our fellow citizens which has called us to this work. The Age itself, invites us. Slowly, a great want has struggled into definite shape in the hearts of mankind. The demand has arisen for deliverance from the evils of ignorance and for a more fit and practical education for the industrial classes. t is labor lifting its Ajax cry for light to guide its toil, and illuminate its life. Daily the feeling grows stronger, that the old courses of classical study do not meet the new and increasing wants of the working world. The industries are steadily and rapidly becoming more scientific. They are no longer the rude, manual arts of the olden times. They have brought the mighty powers of nature to their aid, and seek to conform their labors to the great laws of matter and life. Agriculturist and artisun find themselves working amid great and Significant phenomena, which only science can explain; and they have caught glimpses of possible triumphs in their arts which they may win, if they can be educated to the mastery of better processes and more scientific combinations. Hence the cry for the liberal education of the industrial classes. This demand, as we have heard to-day, (see Dr. Bateman's address) was rung by the eloquent voice of Prof. Turner and his colleagues throughout this State. I remember to have heard it echoing over the border, in a neighboring Stale. Agricultural Colleges, People's Colleges and Polytechnic Schools have sprung into existence in answer to this popular want, and even the old colleges