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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Activity Illinois Industrial League 75 part of the whole people for its advancement. Early in the summer of 1854 they found it necessary to suspend the calling of meetings on account of the fact that farmers were busy in their fields. Besides the campaign of lectures throughout the state the "industrial" men were not overlooking other agencies that might advance their cause. On December 26, 1853, an important educational convention was held in Bloomington. It had been called by some thirty persons, twenty of whom were college presidents or professors, and judged by its results it was a very successful meeting. It urged the appointment of a state school superintendent and within two months a special session of the legislature authorized such an official. It organized the State teachers' institute which on February 14, 1855, received a charter under the name of the Illinois state teachers' institute which in turn in December, 1856, was changed to Illinois state teachers' association. It originated the Illinois Teacher, one of the first notable school journals of the state. It urged the legislature to establish a normal school, which was accomplished some three years later. It advocated a bill for free schools and in 1855 the legislature passed the essential features of the present school law.27 In this convention there were some enemies of Turner and his cause. Bronson Murray wrote Turner on December 30, four days after the convention, that everything went off well at the educational convention. |' You were attacked, f' he said, • 'by Rutledge and Roe and this brought out some friends of whom I did not know we had any in the Convention save Arney. We were victorious throughout and have the most important committees growing out of the Teachers' Convention and the most important office for our purpose in the Teachers' Institute which was formed then." The above statement by Murray, later action by other conventions, and the friendly relations with such men as Jesse Fell indicate that the industrial movement had become an imposing one in the state. As a result of the work of Rutherford in Stephenson county, an educational convention was called at Freeport for June 22, "Burnham, Borne of the Influences which led to the Foundation of the Normal University, 5.
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