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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Illinois Plan Before Congress 99 He added that President Cary of Farmers college, Ohio, had written him that petitions were being sent from Michigan and from New York and would soon be sent out from Ohio. Turner thought that if they exerted themselves they might get the appropriation that session. He concludes: "If this appropriation is secured in the form proposed the poor despised Illinois League will have done more for the true cause of American Education on this continent that all the other associations and forces that ever existed on it and the Pilgrim Fathers to boot."13 This was a private letter written by Turner to his closest friend and helper in the cause only three weeks after the land grant bill had been introduced into congress, saying in effect that the bill was a result of their labor. Would Turner have made such a claim under these circumstances without a reasonable certainty that his statement was true! The appropriation was secured in essentially the form proposed in the bill of 1857. Anticipating by a few years let us hear what these Illinois men have to say after the act has finally become a law. Under date of February 7, 1863, the following communication from John Kennicott was printed in the Prairie Farmer: "Though intended for me only, I pray you print this letter from Professor Turner. I accept even the flattery for the sake of its object. Turner, Murray and I, with a few others, did labor night and day for the boon now within reach of the State. The idea belongs to Illinois! though a Vermonter adopted and urged it upon a willing Congress. Let us not be the last to accept and act under the law." The letter from Turner to Kennicott had been written after a long silence due to the war and to the writer's absence in Washington where he had gone to care for his son who was ill in one of the military hospitals*!!Not intended for publication it was eloquent evidence of the work that had been accomplished and of the hope that apathy would not cheat the people out of the benefits that were now actually within their reach and it urged especially the necessity of action on the part of the state to "Turner to Murray, January 8, 1858, Pennell manuscripts.
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