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Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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14 THE FOUNDING OP THE UNIVEBSITY upon the mingling of practice and theory in industrial education; but for some years he was preoccupied with the problem of the elementary schools. In 1837 he was again lecturing, in 1845 he was a prominent member of the Education Society's Convention at Jacksonville, and he corresponded with Eastern educators, among them Henry Tappan, later president of Michigan, upon the subject1 It was very soon after his retirement from Illinois College that Turner's beliefs as to higher industrial training found clear-cut expression. In 1837 he had spoken of democracy's duty "to augment the facilities, the resources, and the completion of knowledge until a royal road shall be paved from the threshold of every cabin . . . to the open doors . . . of our most magnificent temples of science.'' Upon this his intense, austere mind brooded until he felt impelled to a plan of action. In 1847 he had resigned his professorship to become a farmer and fruit-grower.2 In 1848 we find him communicating with President Blanchard of Knox College upon the endowment and filling of a possible chair of agriculture; and May 13, 1850, taking charge at GriggSviUe, in the Pike County John Hay was soon to make famous, of one of the first Teachers' Institutes, The extent to which Jacksonville was a center in educational movements may be gaged from the fact that in 1833 was formed there a "Ladies Association for Educating Females," and in 1834 an "Association to Advance the Course of the Common Schools," which, having announced that spring its intention of sending out an agent, may have been Jargely responsible for Turners tour. The various teachers spoke constantly in the thirties on education; and in Jacksonville in 1836 was organized the Illinois Teachers' Association. See Pillsbury ut aupra, and the files of the Sangamo Journal. * Prof. Turner was the first man to see the usefulness of the osage orange as a hedge-plant, and to introduce it to the country a t large. He long grew at Jacksonville a greater variety of treea than could be found in the Smithsonian Gardens. 1
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