Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1874 [PAGE 90]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

86

Heport of the

ever living God teaches to his children upon earth, and what God hath joined together let no man—no Board of Trustees—put asunder. Now, young gentlemen, one word to you, and to you, young ladies: I t is not out of the way that young ladies are admitted to the Illinois Industrial University. What have they to do with labor ? They have a great deal to do with it. Sir Richard Steele said that to look upon a beautiful woman was a liberal education in itself. You have abundance of such sources of a liberal education here, and I hope they will s e increased, for these fair daughters are soon to become the fair wives of these artisans, and farmers, and other professional men ; for remember this, that three-fourths of all the men in positions of trust and eminence ' i n church and state, at the bar and by the bedside of sickness, in the United States, have come from the ranks of farmers; three-fourths of the women that grace and gladden their households come also from the farmers7 homes. Now to you, young men : these young ladies will take care of themselves. Eealize the end for which this Illinois Industrial University is established. Let the rest of us take care of lawyers and theologians and others in the learned professions; but do you take care that those professions, which are the basis of life—which lie at the very foundation of the stability, the prosperity and the glory of this country—that they suffer no harm at your hands ; and I trust, as the years onward roll, you will go back to the farms; you will go back to the workshops, you will go with the culture of the brain, with the culture of the heart, with the culture of the cunning hand, and bear ever before you this inspiring motto, " Learning and Labor,77 and God bless you in your efforts to realize the ends at which you are aiming. Mr. W I N E S , Secretary of the State Board of Charities, then said: I give you notice that I shall say nothing of much consequence, but I never hear a story without trying to match it; and Dr. Fellows told us such a capital story that I shall have to speak of a sermon once delivered by an eloquent Baptist preacher, upon the text "Adam, where art thou ?77 He divided his subject as follows : First, All men are somewhere. Second, Some men are where they hadn 7 t oughter be. Third, Some men, if they don't look out, will be where they will not want to be; and Fourth, A few remarks, by way of exhortation, upon infant' baptism. Now, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I do not know whether I am where I ought to be or not; I know I am where I am very glad to b e ; but if I should detain you much longer, I am afraid you will put me where I do not want to be. I remember an implied warning contained in a sermon preached when I was a boy at college, by an old negro preacher. You know the negroes are very fond of dreams, in fact, their religious experience they make to assume the form of a dream. He said, " My bredring and sistering: Last night I dreamed a dream; and I dreamed dat I had de berry identical ladder dat Jacob went up to saw de Lord on, and by de help of faith, I mounted away up de top, and it was too short; so I took it down, and I spliced i t ; an, by de help of Mth, I mounted away up to de top a second tirn£, an*d it was too short de second time. I took it down again and put on a smashing big splice, an, by de help of faith I mounted away up to de top a third time, an it was too short de third time. Fo I spread my wings, an I give an almighty jump, an I got th$ tarnationest fall dat ebber you see on God7s yearth*