UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
N A V I G A T I O N D I G I T A L L I B R A R Y
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 26]

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TURNER'S CAMPAIGN;

15

he made his first notable appeal for an advanced education for farmers and mechanics. This appeal, a presidential address, was entitled "A Plan for a State University for the Industrial Classes," and centered around the thesis that the workers need a "system of liberal education for their own class, and adapted to their own pursuits; to create for them an industrial literature, adapted to their professional wants; to raise up for them teachers and lecturers for subordinate institutes.'' With a harsh criticism of the older learned institutions, "which make men of books, not men of work," he joined a project for an institution with a complete equipment in physics, chemistry, and industry, with experimental farm and orchards, and with a museum of models of all useful implements and machines. This should offer instruction in all the sciences and arts, including commerce, mining, transportation, economics, government, and not excluding the classics, should prosecute constant investigations, encourage lower institutes and schools, and cooperate with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, then just incorporated, which Turner strangely viewed as an instrument of popular education. Horticulturists and entomologists should be "ever abroad at the proper seasons" to find remedies for blights, rusts, and mildews, and the chemists should "carefully analyze the various soils and products of the State, j' The University should be open to all classes of students of proper age, and they might study for a few months or for years. For its support he would set aside the college and seminary funds for which the sectarian colleges and supporters of normal education were quarreling The teachers and citizens at Griggsville offered the scheme, Turner tells us, "warm, earnest, and decided support," and the rural