Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 202]

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History University of Illinois

the governor on February 12, 1853.80 Apparently the project was not pushed for there is no mention of any move actually to establish such a college in the correspondence or papers of the time. The bill stated that the institution should be permanently located in Putnam county; that the object should be the promotion of the general interests of agricultural and mechanical education, to qualify students to engage in the several pursuits and employments of society, and to discharge honorably and usefully the various duties of life. Just what connection, if any, this project had with the general state-wide movement for industrial education is not clear. Some of the men named as incorporators—L. L. Bullock and William A. Pennell—were close friends of Turner and it is not likely they intended to do anything that would interfere with the great plan advocated at the Granville meeting, though it does appear strange they had not consulted with Turner. The bill resembled that of 1855 prepared by Turner and his friends, but this was due possibly to the fact that these men held the same views on industrial education. In 1855 the industrial university men made an united effort to get their plan of a university for the state adopted by the legislature. After careful preparation " A Bill for an act to incorporate 'The trustees of the Illinois university' " was introduced in the legislature. Six trustees named in the bill together with six to be elected by the people were to choose a site for the institution in some central portion of the state. It was to be a university in the broad sense for they proposed that it should include all departments of useful knowledge beginning with those most needed by the citizens of the state: a teachers* seminary, an agricultural department, and a mechanical department. For the establishment and maintenance of the university three funds were to be created: a donation of twenty thousand dollars to be collected by the trustees, the seminary fund, and the college or university fund.81

•°The biU is printed below, p. 540. "The bill and the report of the senate committee is printed below, p. 546. For history of the bill see p. 81. The bill for the "Illinois state normal university" will be found in appendix, p. 556. For the relation of this to the industrial university movement see p. 83-86, and for a history of the