Caption: Book - John Milton Gregory Memorial Convocation (1898)
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l 2 UNIVEF Il Y I II I INOJ will grow old and all the things mortal will i s away, but th< >mb immortality of a lift l i b his is insun I this lid< of the t9 well as beyond. It now falls to my lot to i count in limple fashion and humble w ling something of tin history of ourfirstR t's plans and accomplishments in connection with this University I would gladly leave out in this all mention of tin obstacles encounter' I, and of the shattered hopes that bestn I his pathv ty; but light is rev< aled by shadows, and smiling v lleys lie only between hills. There is neither in this nor should ti en be anywhere in this connect ion condemnation of anyone or of anything. Opinions rightfully diff< r even though on one sid< or the other there may at length be found ( OStly and irrem< liable error. It is exceedingly difficult for anyone not having in memory the conditions of things as they exist- d when the movement was made for the founding of institutions of high* r learning in the several states baser) upon the idea of Special usefulness to the industries, rather than to what were at that time- called the t h r e e learned professions. Let it be r e m e m bered that this movement began in real earn* t just in the middle period of our century. It was in 1851 that th m< . o r a b l convention was held in Granville, this st te, where* in direct and public way the agitation began ; and it was I- ,3 than two years subsequently that the Illinois Gen ral Assembly • nt that table first memorial in February, [853, to the National C< 1gress, praying for the endowment and establishment in <• h _ tte of industrial universities for the promotion of th- m re "liberal and vari d education adapted to the manifold 1 its of a practical and enterprising people/ But what a transformation has taken p l a o in industrial affairs since th' lat< N e v e r before in the his- ry of tie 1 world has there been in an equal I ngth of tine such m- plishmei s, ich a Stupendous forward mov rnent in th a . , ti n f the dominion of man o v r nature, in controlling and mar fmg t h e forces and forms of Iiatun for the good f man d the uplifting of his race. The magnetic telegj ph h. I its intr' I ion in / 14, only seven y< rs bef > the (ii nvilh nv d ir 1 id haidly mad' beginnii in usefulix
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