Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 212]

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History University of Illinois

men had ventured to meet Turner in debate upon this same subject: eleven years before, at the second convention, Turner under rather dramatic circumstances had put them to flight, and now a new set of opponents representing the same principles as the former group faced Turner and its defeat was as inevitable. The outcome of the discussion was the adoption of a series of resolutions offered by Turner in place of those proposed by G. I. Bergen: the preamble recited that amid the excitement of civil war the people needed time to reflect upon the best method of appropriating and applying the grant of lands, and, therefore, it was the sense of the convention that a committee be appointed to memorialize the legislature to defer all appropriations of said funds for the present session, and that a committee of one from each congressional district of the state be appointed to collect and report facts, statistics, suggestions, and propositions in regard to said proposed institution and to report to the committee on agriculture at the next session of the legislature. 9 Thus those in control of the convention used the plea for fuller consideration in order to delay action in the legislature. It happened, however, that the next day, June 10, the governor prorogued the legislature and the crisis was safely passed. Impressed with the necessity of action those who stood for the establishment of a new, single institution determined to have a bill ready for the next legislature, which would meet in January, 1865. They filled the interval of the year and a half with discussions, in lectures, in articles, in the press of the state, and with action in the form of resolutions at agricultural, horticultural, educational, and industrial conventions. Almost every issue of the Prairie Farmer during the latter half of 1863 and during 1864 had one or more articles on the subject of the industrial university. The writers, some of them from outside of the state, advocated strongly a single institution, separate from existing colleges, from which politics and sectarianism should be excluded. On August 29, 1863, the Prairie Farmer

For the names of the members of the congressional committee and for the memorial to.the legislature see below p. 472-473 and also Prairie Farmer, June 20, 1863.

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