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again to the darkness of paganism, forgetting that true science conflicts with no law that is capable of demonstration, but only attacks and demolishes the weak dogmas of mere theorists. They have stated that scientists were infidels, when the fact is that the true scientist is nearly always a firm, unwavering believer in the One Great Cause, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, fashioning its materials through the operation of uniform, undeviating law, directing its infinity of operations, and controlling all things "in the heavens above and the earth beneath, and the water that is under the earth."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROF. J. B. TURNER.

EARLY STRUGGLES.

The mere politician lives upon the excitement of public life, and the spoils of office. The feats of the warrior are blazoned over the land, as though he was something to be worshiped. To his memory lofty monuments are erected, which ultimately crumble to dust, or are demolished by the chance of war, or accident. The real benefactors of their race too often live only in the green memories of their fellows.

JONATHAN BALDWIN TURNER, the "wheel-horse of Industrial Education," like many other of our best men, was born on a farm, and reared to a practical familiarity with the routine of daily toil. In his youth, inured to patient effort, and the exacting labors of the farm, he acquired those habits of self-denial and self-reliance that have since enabled him to successfully battle with the world, and acquire a wide-spread and powerful influence for good among his fellow-men.

At college, where he educated himself by the results of his own labor, he early gained high distinction as a classical scholar, but especially excelled in mathematics. He soon ranked with the very foremost among the students as a writer and thinker. His determined energy, originality of mind, and vigorous thought, thus early gave promise of his useful and illustrious future.

PROFESSOR AT ILLINOIS COLLEGE.

Leaving college, he became a teacher; endearing himself to his associates by his uniform courtesy and earnestness; making fast friends, whose love and respect he retains to this day, in addition to many substantial testimonials of their fraternal and lasting regard.

But his energies were not destined to be spent among the hills of his beloved New England. The love of a pioneer life, contracted in youth, led him, in 1832, to emigrate to Illinois, where he was soon chosen one of the professors of Illinois College; in which position he continued for fifteen years, when, at length, his incessant labors, and the controversy of opinions respecting practical education and freedom of thought, undermined his health, and he was compelled to resign his professorship.

Those of his many friends who were conversant with his clear perception and logical mind urged him to undertake the law as a profession; but Providence had a broader field and nobler work in reserve for him as an educator of the masses at large. His honest mind was constantly revolving some project by which he could ameliorate the condition of his fellows, scattered, as yet, at wide intervals over the broad and luxuriant prairies of Illinois. His instincts, fortunately for the children of the State, led him back to the labors of the farm. Since that time he has been steadily engaged in the various duties of his farm, garden, orchard, and vineyard.

As early as 1833, he lectured in various towns of the State, to awaken an interest in education through the founding of common schools, urging, with all the strength of his mind, the necessity of a permanent system while yet the

THE OSAGE ORANGE AS A HEDGE PLANT.

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State was in its infancy. To his utterance of these forcible truths, the people of Illinois are largely indebted for the comprehensive system of common schools that is now the pride of the State, and the power which has carried it forward, and made its men and women foremost in the land in resisting the encroachments of tyranny, of whatsoever kind.

THE INTRODUCER OF THE OSAGE ORANGE FOR
HEDGE PURPOSES.

Thus engaged, he traversed, day by day, these broad prairies that wanted only timber to make them the paradise of the farmer. Not a habitation was to be seen except at long intervals, when some skirt of timber enabled the hardy pioneer to procure logs for his cabin, and rails for his first. corn-patch. Dug-outs, cabins built of sod, were a make-shift then unknown. It required the still greater lack of timber of the country then called the "Great American Desert, but now the fertile fields and smiling homesteads of Kansas and Nebraska, to suggest this idea.

Thus journeying from town to town in the good cause of education, his practical mind was ever asking the question: "What can public schools do for families thus situated?" Schools could not flourish without compact settlements; settlements could not be organized without something to fence fields with. The "no-fence" law was not then in vogue, and the herding of cattle away from the fields of grain was not yet practiced. Mr. Turner at once set himself to experimenting, and, after spending an immense amount of time and trouble, fixed upon the Osage Orange as the plant that could be most easily made available for hedging purposes. To this he adhered with all the tenacity of his nature, through good and evil fortune, till at length "Turner's folly,"