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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Memorial to the Legislature DOCUMENT NUMBER 5 431 So far as known this memorial has not been published since 1853 and then only in one or two newspapers. Turner manuscripts, Springfield, III. MEMORIAL The Industrial Convention of the State of Illinois assembled at Springfield 111 this fifth day of January 1853 To the Hon Senate and House of Representatives in congress assembled would respectfully represent that We are members of the Industrial class engaged in the variour pursuits of Agriculture and the Mechanic arts. We find ourselves and most of our associates in these pursuits throughout the union, destitute of the needful Scientific knowledge, without the Books, apparatus and needful means of illustrating our pursuits, ignorant of many principles and processes, which if known would greatly relieve our toil, augment our products and our means, elevate ourselves and our children in intelligence and virtue, and add greatly to our own comfort and prosperity, and to the resources of the State—What we have learned, we have learned empyrically, by the slow process of individual experience, without either instruction or needful schools or books or means. We are not willing to leave our children to the same unaided toil and the same wasteful empyricism— In Europe, through polytechnic and Agricultural schools, some successful effort has been made to meet this great want of the age and of the people. In our own country, though eminently industrial and practical in all its interests and aims, no adequate effort has ever yet been made to meet that want, though felt, known, and seen by all— There are in the United States according to published reports two hundred and twenty five principal colleges, and Universities, etc. (besides many smaller ones), devoted to the interests of the Professional classes, while there is not a singUone with suitable endowments designed for the liberal practical education of the Industrial classes.
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