Thy portals shall throng with the lowly and great, IV. Then hail thee! blest fountain of learning and light, We greet now thy dawning; but ages to come Must tell of thy grandeur, and shout Harvest Home. Dr. NEWTON BATEMAN, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, then delivered the following ADDRESS: A great State has just embarked in a great enterprise, and here, at the very threshold, it is fit that we pause a moment to consider the history of that enterprise, its nature, and how we may hope to conduct it to a successful issue. What, then, is the Illinois Industrial University, which we to-day inaugurate—for what ends has it been established-and by what means shall we seek to achieve those ends? The practical realization of nearly every grand movement of the forces of civilization, is the sequence-usually the long-delayed, long waited-for sequence-of many silently-working, far-distant causes-the final embodiment of the struggling thoughts, aspirations and yearnings of the public mind. To this historical fact the Institution, which we to day place in the grand column of the educational forces of this commonwealth and of the nation, is no exception. It is not a thing of yesterday; it is born of no transient impulse of the public mind of no meteoric flash of popular enthusiasm-no sudden faith in the royalty of labor, and the exaltation of the laborer. The ideas which underlie and have at length fashioned it into being, have long been before the American people, and are indeed, in some sense, co-eval with the existence of the Republic itself. Washington and Jefferson, and many others of that day, were practical agriculturists, and did much to foster a love of industrial pursuits among their countrymen, and to lay under contribution the treasures of science, to enhance the productiveness of soils, and ennoble the employments of husbandry. And from that period to the present, there have been those who, from time to time, have directed public attention to the transcendent importance of this great department of our national industries, and to the need of institutions of learning devised and conducted with more direct reference thereto. But the era of great combined movements, in this country, in behalf of the better education of the masses for the manual industries of life, may be said to have commenced about twenty years ago, And, whether considered in the light of the magnitude of the interests involved; the millions of people concerned in the issue; the grandeur of the thoughts and conceptions advanced; the number, eminence and power of the men engaged; or the undaunted persistency and faith with which the contest has been carried on-whether viewed in one or all of these aspects, this era of effort and conflict for industrial education deserves to be called sublime. Convention after convention was held; league after league was formed; society after society was organized; pamphlets, appeals and addresses were written and published by tens of thousands of copies; petitions and memorials went up from the lakes to the sea; the law-making power was invoked, and earnest, determined men thundered again and again at the doors of General Assemblies and Congressional Halls, demanding to be heard on this great question. At times, in some of the States, the issue went to the hustings, and even the tumultuous roar of rival political parties was awed and hushed for a time by the great voice of the toiling masses, demanding an education suited to their needs. Repeated disappointments and defeats only resulted in fresh combinations, more determined efforts, and large accessions of strength. Able and gifted men from every pursuit in life, from every class of society, and from every quarter of the Union poured into the swelling tide the contribntions of their learning, experience and genius. In the West, the man whose voice rang out earliest, loudest and clearest, in this great movement-whose words pealed and thundered through the minds and hearts of the people, and the round shot of whose tremendous broadsides of irrefragable facts and logic, and fiery rhetoric, plowed and plunged and ricochetted through these prairies, with an energy and vehemence that no bulwarks of ignorance or apathy could withstand, and which brought nearly every farmer and artisan hurrying to his standard, from far and near, and put in motion the imperial columns of our free-born yeomanry-the man who threw into the struggle not only the best energies of his mind, but the unwavering faith of his soul and the deepest longings of his heart, and who plead for the uplifting and regeneration of the masses and for the "millennium of labor," as the patriot pleads for his country and the christian for the salvation of God-the man whose able reports, instructive addresses, and thrillingly eloquent speeches were caught up and re-echoed by the enlightened press of the whole country, without regard to sect or party, and which furnished at once the material and the inspiration of auxiliary and co-operative movements and organizations in many other States-and the man who, as I believe, through all these multiplied and overwhelming labors, was animated not by considerations of self-aggrandizement or sordid gain, but by the loftier purpose of serving his race and honoring God by uplifting and blessing the toiling millions of His children— that man was JONATHAN BALDWIN TURNER, of Illinois. This is not blind adulation nor fulsome eulogy. I know whereof I affirm; I am familiar with the procession of events to which I have referred, and the connection of that great and good man therewith; and I could not suffer this glad day to pass without a few words in vindication of the truth of history, and a grateful recognition of his services. I speak in this matter only for myself, and at the promptings of my own feelings and judgment-no other person is in any manner responsible for what I have said, or may say, in this regard. And if I speak warmly of Prof. Turner as a man, it is because I have known him over thirty years, during twenty of which he was my near neighbor, during four of which he was my teacher, and during all of which he has been my friend, ever kind and true. If his right to the place to which I have assigned him as the western pioneer and leader in this great educational movement, is challenged, I refer to the printed records and documentary history of the whole agitation, from the convention at Granville, in November, 1851, down to the passage of the bill creating this Institution, in February 28th, 1867. Through all those sixteen years of struggle and effort, you will find him towering up as the central figure, the very Ajax of the fight; closely identified with every phase of the controversy, and with all its vicissitudes of fortune. His reports, addresses, memorials and other papers, are scattered through all the earlier published Transactions of the State Agricultural Society: the record of his personal labors is in fact, in epitome, a record of the whole movement. But I have also referred to the commanding ability and power with which he led the forces of the people, and championed their cause in the grand march to the gates of Washington, and the final achievement of the supreme purpose-national recognition and aid by acts of Congress. None who have heard him will dissent: let those who have not, read his ringing oration on the "Millenium of Labor," delivered in 1853; or his Plea in behalf of "Industrial Universities for the people," published in 1854; or his Essay on "Industrial University Education," prepared by special request of the Commissioner of the National Bureau of Agriculture, and scores of other papers written and published during that period. The recognition, too, of the signal energy and grasp with which he handled the profound themes involved in the discussion, was general and hearty, not only from the rural and metropolitan press of the country, both East and West, but also from the solid columns of some of the oldest and stateliest Reviews, and even from Presidents and Faculties of existing Colleges and Universities, although utterly dissenting from and vehemently protesting against his views and opinions upon many points. And this leads me to observe, that although I believe that Mr. Turner is justly entitled to the high honor of being called the Father of Industrial Education in the West, and that he should be (and sooner or later will be) held in grateful remembrance for having done more than any other one man in the United States to arouse, inspire and vitalize the public mind on this subject, impelling to investigation, thought and action, and thus hastening by many years, if not by a whole generation, the results already attained-yet I doubt if there is a man in the State, or even in the Union, who accepts, in detail, his theories, views, opinions and methods in respect to Industrial Universities, or to the practical education of farmers and mechanics, or even his theories of educational philosophy-certainly I do not. I regard not a few of his opinions and schemes on these subjects, as at war with both fact and reason-belonging to the realms of Utopia, and not to those of reason or history. But then, Prof. Turner does not expect any body to think and believe and act precisely as he does he would rather they would not--it would savor too much of a blind faith, which is the especial horror of his soul. He would a thousand times rather a man would fight him from honest conviction, than indorse him from stupid servility. I think that, upon the whole, he rather relished the criticism of the man who, after listening to an address from him on a certain occasion, remarked, "that was a magnificent thing, but I don't believe a word of it." He cares nothing for the ipsisima verba, in speaking or writing. So that he can get his harpoon well into the heart of the ugly whales of error that prowl God's great ocean of truth, he is not particular how it is done, or who drags the dead monsters to the shore. So that he effectually breaches the walls behind which cheats and humbugs are intrenched, he cares little what people think of his engineering. When pitted against an antagonist, his sole purpose is to knock him down, in the speediest and most effectual manner possible, and so that everybody can see that he is down, regardless of the rules of pugilistic science. A sample or two will best illustrate his way of "moving upon the enemy's works :" Speaking of the causes of failure in previous attempts to establish Industrial Colleges, he pulverizes one of them in the following style: "One capital and fatal error has been the idea that we should send a boy to school to learn to work, and not simply to learn to think; thus absurdly attempting to teach, by public endowment and munificence, the little arts of personal manipulation, instead of the magnificent science of UNIVERSAL SUCCESS. Nothing could be more fatal. When I have taught a boy merely to hold a plow, I have only taught him to be a two-legged jackass, twin brother to the four-legged team in front of him. But when I have taught him truly and scientifically all the mighty mysteries of seas, stars, oceans, lands and ages that are concerned in that act of plowing, I have made a man of him-had we not better say, an angel? Art, in the sense of mere labor, mere servile imitation alone, is only animal; the common property of asses, dogs and monkeys. But true labor, inspired by universal science and intelligence, is not only characteristically human, but also Divine. What could be more absurd than to take a hundred boys, in their teens, away from their parents, the year round, and set them to dabbling with a hundred teams for a few hours per diem, half of which break their traces and run away the first hour, under the absurd pretext of teaching these boys how to plow? When Almighty God created the heavens and the earth, and ordered man to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow,' he created and most liberally endowed the best possible University for learning all such mere manual arts; and if we expect to supersede Omnipotence by grants of land for endowments in this line, it will prove worse than a Bull Run defeat; for no institution for teaching the arts and the habits of bare manipulation and industrial skill, can ever be endowed at all comparable with those which the great Father of All has most munificently spread abroad over every household, every shop, and every field, throughout the civilized globe. The principles of science, therefore, and not the bare manipulations of art, should form the sole end of Industrial Universities." So wrote Prof. Turner, four years ago, demolishing a great fallacy and enunciating a great truth, in a manner not to be resisted or forgotten, whatever may be said of his zoological illustrations. But I was briefly tracing the antecedent steps, the grand co-operative movements, which have culminated in the gift to us and to our children of this noble school of the people. When I turned aside, at the promptings alike of strong personal regard and a sense of justice, to speak of the labors of Prof. Turner, I intended to say but a very few words-merely to record my sense of the gratitude we owe for his long and powerful advocacy of the principles upon which this University is founded; the close and unquestionable connection of his services with the success that has been achieved, and my regret that he is here not to-day to mingle with us in congratulations for progress made, and in prayers for the continued blessing of God upon the school which we here consecrate to the reduplication of the products of labor, by subordinating thereto the forces of science, and to the exaltation of the toiling masses by putting them into closer and more intelligent communion with Nature, and Truth and God. I trust that I shall not, herein, be deemed to have been unmindful of the proprieties of the occasion. Resuming the antecedent historical thread whose sinuous but unbroken course will be seen to have led straight on to the noble University which we to-day inaugurate, I observe that the first tangible result of the wide-spread and extraordinary agitation of the subject of industrial university education, which began with the Granville convention in 1851, and soon pervaded the whole State, and in behalf of which three more great Industrial State Conventions had already been held-was a Memorial to the General Assembly of Illinois, praying that body to invoke the pow erful aid and resources of the National Government itself, in furtherance of the object. This memorial was drawn up and presented in January, 1853, and sets forth in cogent and eloquent terms the claims of the enterprise upon State and National regard. As a condensed and forcible statement of the argument, from the stand point of the farmers and agriculturists of the country, I do not think it has been surpassed. Its conclusion, showing the comprehensive views, and advanced position taken in this State more than fifteen years ago, is as follows: "We, therefore, respectfully petition the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Illinois, that they present a united Memorial to the Congress now assembled at Washington, to appropriate to each State in the Union, an amount of public lands, not less in value than five hundred thousand dollars, for the liberal endowment of a system of Industrial Universities, one in each State in the Union, for the more liberal and practical education of our industrial classes, in their various pursuits, for the production of knowledge and literature needful in those pursuits, and developing, to the fullest and most perfect extent, the resources of our soil and our arts, the virtue and intelligence of our people, and the true glory of our common country. We further petition that the Executives and Legislatures of our sister States be invited to co-operate with us in this enterprise, and that a copy of the Memorial of this Legislature be forwarded by the Governor to the Governors and Senates of the several States." Note the magnificent conception, the patriotic and continental sweep of that Memorial-five hundred thousand dollars' worth of the public domain, for the endowment of a system of Industrial Universities, one in each State of the Union! And this, I believe, was the initial step, the original suggestion, the first formal call ever made upon the National Government to endow these schools of the people-the first banner uplifted on the continent to lead the millions, through the puissant arm of the Republic itself, onward towards the millennium of labor. The simple grandeur of the conception, its startling munificence and universality, the majestic visions of the future which it invited, educated and inspired the whole American people, in this direction, more than a thousand elaborate orations could have done, and evoked a spirit that rested not till the prayer of that great petition was substantially answered by acts of Congress in conformity therewith. Is there not truth as well as boasting in the remark of one, that "the American people instinctively hate little things?" The author of that Memorial, and hence the first man in the United States, so far as I know, who ever advanced the great idea of the National endowment of Industrial Universities, an idea which has since ripened into such glorious fruitage, was an Illinoisan-the same of whom I have already spoken. Scarcely was the ink of that Memorial dry, when it was presented, in due form, to the Legislature of the State, then in session. The reception it there met with was worthy alike of its commanding importance, and of the forecast and statemanship of a great Commonwealth. Instead of being "laughed down the wind," as the wild fancy of some dreaming enthusiast; or shuffled off to some unsympathising committee, there to sleep the sleep that knows no waking; or bartered away, by intrigue, for some wretched mess of local or political pottage-instead of this, that General Assembly made way for that grand message from the People, as the Lords and Commons make way for the King! acknowledging the majesty of its presence, and the exceeding glory of which it was prophetic. |