Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 611]

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Address to the Citizens of Morgan County

571

going their educational course. Here we have a permanent school of instruction so inexpensive as to attract the child of poverty to the very best advantages in the land, in all those branches which will fit him for honorable stations in life, and yet pouring into the channels of trade, in the community possessing it, year by year, in an unceasing flow, the large amount before stated. In making these statements we must not be understood that the desirableness of the institution to the County of Morgan is at all confined to its direct pecuniary disbursements. Neither would we libel the public sentiment by pretending that these are the sole reasons why the county should wish to wear on her bosom this most rich and honorable jewel. There are further advantages to be taken into account. The State of Illinois is yet without its agricultural center. Although ranking as nearly the first in agricultural importance, and doubtless soon to be the very first, it has no museum in which the progress of improvement in agricultural implements and machinery may be studied, and where specimens of every vegetable product of the State may be collected and preserved. Neither has it any library of agricultural works. Agricultural science can never advance, however important it may be in the industrial interests of a State, unless those who devote themselves to it have direct access to the works of other minds in this and foreign lands. Thus Illinois, where the groundwork of the highest agricultural perfection is under our feet, has yet contributed to the world little in this, her all-pervading department of industry. Such a museum and such a library will be established in connection with the contemplated University. These will, while increasing the value of the appliances of education, serve as attractions to the general public. Again, it would be altogether probable that the establishment of the proposed university would fix the same locality as the permanent seat of the State Agricultural Fairs. That the present practice of changing the place of meeting of those most profitable gatherings of the farmers of the State with each year will long continue no one can believe. A fixed location, to which one can always look as the certain place of meeting, is most essential