ties in the northeastern part of the state. It was organized in 1841 and by the next year had a membership of several hundred. At its fair held in the village of Aurora in October, 1842, from five to seven thousand people congregated for no other purpose than to witness the exhibition. At this time twenty-eight counties having more than two-fifths of the population of Illinois, were embraced within the limits of agricultural societies.7 An important project was begun at this time by the Union agricultural society: it was the permanent establishment of a farm paper, the Union Agriculturalist and Western Prairie Farmer. After 1842 the name was changed to the Prairie Farmer, and as such it has flourished to the present day. Three years later an attempt was made to create the Illinois state agricultural society. The plan apparently was to transform the Sangamon county agricultural society into a state society. Sangamon county included the state capital, Springfield, and it was thought that when the legislature was in session the agricultural society could hold evening sessions and procure the attendance of the 117 farmer members of the legislature as well as that of other men of note who would give addresses and confer high prestige upon the organization. In this plan they were frankly copying the "agricultural conversations" of the New York and the Massachusetts societies. The state society, however, seems to have exhausted its energy in producing a constitution and electing officers. Through the ensuing years up to 1850 there was an earnest interest in agricultural education. It was clear that a plan for such an education had to be formulated because the time was coming when people would demand that their sons be offered the opportunity to obtain wisdom of the soil. The Prairie Farmer was constantly on the alert for practical proposals and one plan after another was brought from under the bushel and the light of earnest, intelligent criticism turned on it. Some proposals showed themselves not American, hence doomed to failure. Professor Ebenezer Emmons of Albany, New York, declared in the Prairie Farmer for June, 1849: "Certainly an American school 'Prairie Farmer, January, 1843. Prairie Farmer, January, 1843. in Europe would overthrow any of their governments, and a European school here would work us backward. Our systems of education must be devised with reference to our circumstances, our government, and our social relations." Emmons added still another point: "Our plan, whatever it may be, must be economical, and if it be designed to exert a widespread influence, tuition must be abolished. Instruction must be as free as it is possible to make it." This certainly is definitely feeling after agricultural education at government expense. It is very interesting to note that as early as 1848, an Illinois man, Professor Jonathan B. Turner of Illinois college, in a letter to President Blanchard of Knox college, had formulated an outline for agricultural education. He later abandoned the main idea expressed in this outline, which was that agricultural instruction should be connected with a classical school. Nevertheless his proposal shows in certain respects so much foresight, sagacity, and enthusiastic common sense that it cannot be passed without comment. It certainly was definite prophecy of the significant part Turner was to play in the establishment of agricultural education. Of his ideas he says: "It is true that they may not be worth either writing or reading, but still as the thing is evidently new, someone must run the hazard of exposing his folly by making suggestions-and I know of no one who has a greater capital in that line to spare than myself." He advocated: "1. A professor of chemistry, 2. a professor of botany, 3. a professor of what-the green earth?" A delicious touch that-revealing the imagination and humor which, united with sterner qualities, enabled him to fight so gallantly in his chosen cause. The first two professors would, of course, already be on the faculty of the classical school, but the third, he of the "whatthe green earth?" would be an addition, and Turner by no means proposed that life for him should be a bed of roses. "Let him,' Turner advised in speaking of the model farm, "purchase the farm himself and put the buildings, fences, etc., on it according to his own notion. While he was doing this and arranging "Turner to Blanchard, undated but known to be 1848 from Blanchard's letter in reply. Turner manuscripts, see appendix, p. 357. his affairs he would have to struggle hard with much to do and little to show but his bills of expense.' However, Turner felt that if the professor escaped starvation or death from anxiety, his work would be thoroughly worth while and in time even yield him a good living. "I would put no public funds," he continued, "into the professor's hands (certainly none beyond the original outfit) to squander in day dreaming and absurd speculations. I would have every new experiment bear directly on his own private purse so that it might be made economically as well as carefully. You may say that this would defeat all experimenting. But I think not, for you must find a man for such a place whose natural love of experimenting and observing would impell him to it wherever he was and at whatever cost-no other man would be likely to accomplish anything anyhow." President Blanchard in reply to this acknowledged that he pined for a professorship of the "blessed green earth." But he did not see his way to acquiring the funds for establishing such a professorship.10 There was little in these ideas of Jonathan B. Turner to recommend them as a plan for building up an industrial university for a great state. They were significant merely as showing the beginning of his constructive thinking along these lines. Fortunately for his reputation he did not stop here. With keen eyes and a keen mind he watched the progress of this movement throughout the country and became convinced apparently that the ideas he had held were entirely wrong or inadequate. Three years later he will be found advocating a plan that is radically different in nearly every particular. 10 Blanchard to Turner, October 19, 1848, Turner manuscripts. CHAPTER II THE ILLINOIS PLAN FOR A SYSTEM OF LAND GRANT COLLEGES In 1849 Daniel Lee of Georgia told the New York agricultural society that up to then nothing had been done in any quarter that showed promise of resulting in a college of agriculture and of the mechanic arts. The facts made dispute impossible. For two years so far as actual achievement was concerned, the situation remained essentially unchanged. Then, on the eighteenth day of November, 1851, a definite, vigorous movement, was begun in Illinois for the higher education of the working classes. The leaders of the movement in Illinois had been watching the movements in other states. They felt that they knew precisely why the efforts in Massachusetts and New York to get state aid for agricultural colleges had just been defeated; why the founding of professorships in applied sciences at Yale and Harvard had failed to appeal to the agriculturists of the country. In fact the Illinois men were inclined to view these professorships satirically. Said the editor of the Prairie Farmer, the leading state agricultural paper published in Chicago: "That was a sort of 'backfiring' such as is practiced upon the prairies when the burning grass is too tall and dry, and so far as we know amounts to little or nothing in meeting the demand." Jonathan B. Turner was still more vigorous in his sarcasm: "They have hauled a canoe alongside of their huge professional steamships and invited all the farmers and mechanics of the State to jump on board and sail with them; but the difficulty is, they will not embark. But we thank them even for this pains and courtesy. It shows that their hearts are yearning toward us, notwithstanding the ludicrous awkwardness of their first endeavors to save us. The sarcasm of the Illinois men was not that of mere scoffers or of the ignorant. They had acquainted themselves with 1Turner, A Plan for an Industrial University, 8. |