Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 363]

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the same time take care that its great wholesale supplies should be ever open and near at hand. The whole thing is absurd. Others say that political States cannot successfully endow and manage our higher universities; and that, too, in spite of the fact that no institution, worthy of the name of an university, was ever founded or endowed without State aid and patronage, on the face of the eartn, or probably ever will be. It would be quite as becoming for * a great State like Illinois to run abroad for all her goods and merchandise, as to do it for all her higher forms of knowledge; And what it is clearly impossible that individuals should do, in this regard, it is wise and proper that the State should do. It is said that there is also in our State still a small class of seven-by-nine politicians, who occasionally sneer at the great cause of industrial education, and begrudge it the crumbs it gathers. Let them sneer. To all such in this State, and in all our States, I have but one answer to give in behalf of the farmers and working men of the Republic. We intend to keep on asking for endowments for each and all of these institutions throughout the land, until we have made each one of them, in some good degree, in all needful buildings, apparatus, perquisites and endowments, what they ought to be; and when they shed the full radiance of their united glory and light over every stave and every hamlet on this continent, from sea to sea, we intend to point to them and say to these carpers, "these are all our stealings from the treasuries of the Republic. We obtained every dollar of them by the honest vote of a proud, a patriotic, and a grateful people; and now, where are yours ? Can you, dare you show them to us ?" And whenever their dishonest stealings—which they cannot and dare not show—do not in fact amount to ten times as much as our honest ones, which we can show with great pleasure and pride, we intend to suspend all further applications, and give them a chance to get even with us again. The mass of our people pay the taxes and fight the battles of the country, and whichever party is in power, they do none of the stealing out of the public treasury, and I, for one, am tired of the groaning and whining of the few who do it all, whenever these masses ask for a few dollars out of the general or the State treasury, for some great agricultural or industrial interest of their own. I have no doubt that the majority of our people and our legislators, who are not thieves, will continue to give us all we may need in this regard, and that in despite of all these croakers, these institutions will at last achieve a great and glorious success. Let, then, these beautiful walls rise, as the monument of our past endeavor and the memorial of our plighted faith, if not where we preferred, still to become what we preferred; if not as our feeble forecast prescribed, still in that better way which He who alone can truly forecaste and overrule all events, may prescribe and elect. Let them rise till the myriads who dwell upon these rich plains shall throng around to uphold, to endow, and to bless them, till their rising light shall shine far abroad over this great green sea of prairie lands, with its woodland isles and dales, to gladden every household, to bless every farm, and to enlighten and exalt every soul: till ministering angels shall come to greet and to bless their inmates with every morning sun, and bid them rest and sleep in peace with every evening shade.

The band then played Prof. Colberg's "Industrial University March," and then the audience listened to the

ADDRESS OF HON. N. BATEMAN, LL.D.

On the 11th day of March, 1868, just three and a half years ago, the Illinois Industrial University was formally inaugurated, with appropriate ceremonies. In the presence of a large concourse of citizens, gathered from every part of the State, words of gratitude and of hope were spoken—glad songs were sung—and the benedictions of Almighty God were solemnly invoked upon this new child of humanity and of civilization, as, in weakness, yet in faith, it stepped into line, and entered upon its work.