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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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84 History University of Illinois intendent; Newton Bateman, J . M. Sturtevant, J . B. Turner, and W. H. Powell. Lively discussions followed the address of Turner for naturally it turned toward his scheme for an industrial university. The State Register, which was decidedly vigorous in it opposition to Turner and his plan, said that the discussion was " checked by a resolution introduced and very ably supported by J . M. Sturtevant, Jr., that the institute did not wish to discuss any university but to confine itself to topics connected with common and normal schools." 46 I t is apparent from this that the university men were meeting with some rather stiff opposition. In fact there were three distinct parties represented at this meeting: a group of those who desired immediately a normal school that should be independent for the present of any existing institution; a small party of college men who were anxious to have any department of an educational nature attached to existing colleges; the friends of industrial education with Turner at their head, who desired a normal department but would have it connected with the proposed industrial university. The second and the third groups had been fighting each other bitterly for several years and the struggle was destined to continue for many years more. Between the normal school men and the industrial university party there was lacking any intense feeling of opposition. For this reason it was easy for them about a year later to agree upon a plan that was satisfactory to both. In a letter of January 2, 1856, addressed to Bronson Murray, Turner announced himself well satisfied with the meeting at Springfield and expressed the belief that on the whole their cause stood better with the teachers, for the latter now saw more clearly that the university men were seeking neither to antagonize them nor to master them, A few lines from Turner's letter reveal something of what had been transpiring beneath the surface: " I can hardly express to you the joy and relief I feel in having that ugly point of the superintendency so well got by with, without my name in any way pushed into the contest. "Ibid, President Sturtevant was in accord with Turner, J. M. Sturtevant, Jr., was at that time very young and was drawn into an action which he afterward regretted. Letter to writer from J. M. Sturtevant, Jr., 1917, ii
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