Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 369]

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First Years of Work

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members who it was thought would be ardent in urging the university, grew cold at the time of the test The very act of giving expression, however, to what would mean satisfaction in a proposed educational institution, centered attention upon causes of dissatisfaction in the institutions existing. When the northern Illinois horticultural society met in Dixon, January 27, 1870, the industrial university was the subject of thorough discussion and thorough disapproval. It was, in the estimation of the gentlemen discussing, a pitiful failure with a preacher at the head. The following resolutions offered by Smiley Shepherd expressed their sentiments: " Whereas, By an act of Congress, a fund for an endowment of institutions in each State has been granted for teaching, as its leading objects the sciences relating to 'agriculture and the mechanic arts,' without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, for the advancement and elevation of the laboring classes; and "Whereas, In our State Institution organized under and in accordance with the provisions of said endowment, the Trustees do, by their published curriculum, give each student the right to decide the course of study to be pursued, irrespective of the declared design of the endowment. "Resolved, As the sense of this society that any and all teachings in said institution that supersedes or comes in competition with the declared leading design of such grant should be ruled contraband, and be disallowed at all times in such school. "Resolved, Further, as the sense of this Society that it is imperatively necessary for the preservation of the funds to the leading design of the grant that the charter of our State institution should be so amended as to confine its teaching to agriculture and the mechanic arts until the pupil has taken a full course in them, and then if so desiring, may have such classical and literary instructions as the institution may be able to afford. "Resolved, further, That the exclusion of the female sex from a full participation in the advantages of such education in our agricultural schools as they should be able to give, is a flagrant wrong to both male and female, and ought not to be tolerated.