Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 199]

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UNIVEESITY OF ILLINOIS.

4. Congress has appropriated generous means for the endowment of research, in lines thus far restricted to agriculture, in the foundation of agricultural experiment stations. This may certainly be included in the means of education named in this ordinance. 5. Will Congress take the next step, and make a vigorous effort to banish illiteracy from every part of that magnificent empire which knows no other emblem of sovereignty but the starry flag? Illinois has been the Nation's beneficiary in all the respects named. She has received her endowment of talents. When the master comes and calls for the reckoning, I hope it will not appear that she has buried any of her talents in the earth; but I fear that she will not be able to show a proper increment of five other talents which entitle her to the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servant," such as has been earned by some of her sister States, say Michigan or Wisconsin. Her donation for common schools has been well-used. Her system of school suffers in comparison with none. Her university fund was for forty years turned into the public treasury and its proceeds distributed among the common schools, and for thirty years since has been used for the support of normal instruction. Each of these is a grand and noble object, well worthy of the fostering care of a generous, intelligent and appreciative public. Neither of them should for a moment suffer, but neither of them answers the condition of the endowment made for the support of university education. Let it not be thought for an instant that this University desires to deprive the normal schools of what they have so long enjoyed, a fund not adequate to their necessities. But the facts which I have referred to may be urged as very good reasons why the State should be both just and generous toward the institution which is her acknowledged University. I can in only the briefest way refer to the discussions upon educational matters in general, and in particular, upon education having special reference to the wants of the growing industries of the country, held in the years 1851-1854, in this State. They sprang from the active thought of the time. They were rife east as well as west, and received a mighty stimulus from the first of the great industrial expositions, that held in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. Professor Turner, of Illinois, must always be held in honorable memory for the earnest work done by him in' advocating the recognition of the new conditions which the progress of science was making for the nations. Any one who is interested to know the movement of x the thought of that time will find the subject admirably written up by Mr. Pillsbury in the last report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of this State. I quote a few of Professor Turner's pregnant paragraphs, being sure that my hearers who are familiar with things as they now are in this institution will recognize the marvelously close parallel between the almost forgotten thought of that day and the .actual performance of the present day.