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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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The Chicago Committee at Home DOCUMENT NUMBER 16 Prairie Farmer, December 17, 1864. 477 THE CHICAGO COMMITTEE AT HOME.—The committee from the mechanics of Chicago, who visited Springfield last week, for the purpose of conferring with the agricultural committees regarding a bill for the disposition of the land grant made their report at the rooms of the Mercantile Association, in this city, on Saturday evening last, through their chairman, A. D. Titsworth Esq. It was as follows:— -' In pursuance of the object, your committee left for Springfield on Monday evening, and on reaching there proceeded to the rooms of the State Agricultural Society, and found several of the above named committee present, but not being ready for business, owing to the absence of some of their members, it was proposed by Mr. Reynolds, Chairman of the Committee, to organize an informal meeting, which was done by calling Mr. K. H. Pell, of Bloomington, to the chair, and Mr. T. W. Baxter, of Chicago, was appointed secretary. The Chicago delegation was cordially received and invited to a full and free participation in the business before the meeting. It was determined on the part of your committee, prior to the meeting, to advocate a division of the fund—one half for the endowment of an agricultural school, and one half for a school adapted to the promotion of the mechanic arts. Your committee regard this division as a necessity growing out of the different circumstances of the two classes contemplated in the act. Agriculture being widely spread through the length and breadth of our State, necessarily demands that an institution of learning for that class should be centrally located, equally accessible to all, and where a sufficient quantity of lands may be obtained for practical purposes. On the other hand it was urged that mechanics necessarily locate in cities, towns and villages, where there are sufficient population m encourage and sustain mechanical pursuits, and that it was even more necessary to connect practice with theory in mechanism than in agriculture; therefore it was contended that schools for mechanic arts are the most extensively conducted, and where the
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