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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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64 History University of Illinois In this address Turner expressed rather fully his own views and those of the leaders of this movement on the general subject of industrial education. As the entire pamphlet is published in full in the appendix, space is taken for two paragraphs only, in order to show the drift of his argument and the vigor of his style. "Where did Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks, and Cincinnati, the most illustrious of the Romans—Washington, the father of America, and Franklin, and Sherman, and Kossuth, and Downing, and Hugh Miller, and a whole host of worthies, too numerous to mention, get their education? They derived it from their connection with the practical pursuits of life, where all other men have got theirs, so far forth as it has proved of any practical use to themselves or the world. " W h a t we want from schools is, to teach men, more dull of apprehension, to derive their mental and moral strength, from their own pursuits, whatever they are, in the same way, and on the same principles, and to gather from other sources as much more as they find time to achieve. We wish to teach them to read books, only that they may the better read and understand the great volume of nature, ever open before them." 8 As an illustration of the trouble taken to get this pamphlet to the reading public a quotation is given from the Ottawa Free Trader of November, 1853, a few weeks after the pamphlet was published: " T h e Industrial League have made a report to the people of this State, upon the movement in favor of the Industrial University. I t is for sale at the post office, in Ottawa, at the cost of printing and paper, and purchasers who have read it may, if they choose, return it and take up their money if they do not seriously deface the copy. "The terms are fair, and every person who has a son or daughter to educate should read it. "Now that the United States government has some 10 or 20 millions of surplus monies, which politicians are at a loss how to dispose of constitutionally, it strikes us that this little pamphlet provides a desirable solution of the difficulty—Farmers and Mechanics are especially invited to attend to this." •Turner, Industrial Universities for the People, 12; see appendix, p. 374.
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