learning insisted upon an equal place with the new in the industrial university to be organized. "I suppose it will be clearly the province and duty of the Legislature to require the organization of certain departments -Practical Agriculture, Practical Mechanics, Military Tactics, and, (whether some wily old fogy had it inserted in the act of Congress or not) Departments for teaching to some extent other scientific and classical studies." During the years that Reynolds was corresponding secretary of the Illinois state agricultural society he was also president of the Illinois state sanitary commission. He gave freely of his time to public affairs-in 1867 he was commissioner to the Paris exposition and in 1876 to the centennial exposition in Philadelphia, in 1891 he was chosen director-in-chief of the Illinois world's fair commission. practically retired from public life. chief grain inspector for Illinois. 25, 1912. At the close of the fair he RALPH WARE Ralph Ware came from Massachusetts to Illinois in 1834, settling near Granville. Public spirit and hearty interest in all that stood for community advancement characterized the Ware family. It was members of this family, still in Massachusetts, who built the church where Jonathan Turner delivered his famous Granville address; it was here that the friends of agricultural and industrial education often met. As a member of the Buel institute Ware had frequent opportunity to aid industrial education. Mr. Ware died in middle life, a farmer of influence and wealth. JESSE W. FELL Jesse W. Fell (1808-1887) came to Bloomington, Illinois, from Pennsylvania in the fall of 1832. His personal effects he carried in a carpet bag, his fortune was under the broad brim of his quaker hat. He was Bloomington's first lawyer but as the citizens of that day and district spent little upon the law, he soon looked about for a more remunerative field. He found it in real estate where he invested so shrewdly that by 1836 he was accounted a rich man. He was driven back to the law for a few years by the financial troubles of 1837, but in 1844 he left. it definitely. He was by nature an upbuilder of desolate places. He could look over the prairie and in his imagination see the steel rails, the spires, the big smoke belching chimneys that meant humanity's progress. He felt the worth of the broad acres. He knew that, trapped in the unplowed bosom of the prairies, was wealth that would magnificently support an energetic people. He devoted himself earnestly to the upbuilding of the corner of the earth that he had chosen for home. With his own hands he planted trees, for the prairie to him seemed to beg for trees, by his own. efforts he furthered every movement that promised a better community life. It was through his shrewdness and labor that Bloomington obtained the normal school, through his hard work that McLean county made the largest bid for the industrial university. As Frances Milton Morehouse in "The Life of Jesse Fell" has given a detailed account of his activities, nothing will be attempted here, beyond this brief acknowledgement that he deserves a place among the men who led. JUSTIN SMITH MORRILL The agriculturists in entrusting their plan for industrial education to Justin S. Morrill made a wise choice. Morrill was emphatically a man of the people, one who through his own experience knew the darkness of ignorance in which the work of the world was accomplished. His life record is remarkable. He was a plain shop-keeper and farmer for the first forty-four years of his life, yet when he died December 27, 1898, he had spent half his life in congress having been six times elected to the house and six times to the senate. He came from Vermont, a state that sent eminent lawyers and jurists to congress, yet he, a man of scant schooling, the son of a blacksmith, had at his death been in public service for a longer consecutive period than any man in the history of the country. He was not an orator yet he was heard more gladly than the orators for he never let delight in words obscure his vision nor egotism limit his wisdom. The task of pushing the bill for a system of industrial universities through congress was one that appealed to his understanding. He knew the need of bringing science to the soil, of forcing the goddess of learning down from her pedestal and exchanging her flowing toga for a gingham apron. The defeats that met the bill were not defeats for Morrill, they were only lessons in the way to victory. Under our system of government where every citizen is a sovereign and where the farmer, the artisan, the wage earner are the dictators of sentiment, it is of vital moment that this majority shall not be at the mercy of political demagogues but shall be guided by the conservatism and common sense that can only follow upon education. The plan for a system of land grant universities, therefore, appealed to Morrill as intensely patriotic. It had for its object the elevation of a large body of citizenship to a higher plane. What was of equal importance the elevation of this body would not detach its members from the masses of the people as had been the result of education heretofore, but would make them more than ever in sympathy with the toilers. Morrill had the vision to see the great significance of industrial education. Besides the bill establishing land grant universities Morrill introduced the Morrill tariff act in the house during the closing days of President Buchanan's administration. "Previous to this act American industries were paralyzed, American labor was a wandering tramp in the land, American credit was so low that Government paper was sold at a discount of 12 per cent.''30 The enactment of the Morrill tariff act changed the entire industrial situation: it put new life into American industry and restored the credit of the Government. As Webster said of Hamilton, he "smote the rock of the national resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth." Accounts of the life of Justin Morrill and interpretations of his work may be found in various publications. On April 14, 1910, centenary exercises were held by the State of Vermont 30 Memorial address delivered by Mr. Powers of Vermont. at Montpelier in honor of the birth of Morrill. On that occasion the governor of the state of Vermont, a United States senator, and other well known men paid homage to the virtues of the man and his abilities as a statesman.3: These and other addresses have been published and for this reason it has seemed unnecessary to give more extended account of Morrill in this volume. CHAPTER VII SEMINARY AND COLLEGE FUNDS AND VARIOUS AT TEMPTS TO ESTABLISH AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OR STATE UNIVERSITY IN ILLINOIS Federal land grants for the purpose of higher education have come to be considered an integral part of the national policy. A study of the motives prompting these grants reveals the unflattering truth that, contrary to the general belief, federal aid to higher education was not the result of the beneficent foresight of our first congressmen, but was, in fact, the outcome of a rather clever bargain between a private land company and an unwilling congress, forced to yield to its purchasers' demands through sheer necessity. In other words, the precedents for land grants by the federal government for higher educational purposes had their origin in the land sales of 1787.1 This subject of public land disposal was closely connected with questions of government with which the congress was then struggling. The temporary government for the northwest territory which had been provided in 1784 had proved inadequate in many ways, and therefore in 1786 plans for a new and permanent arrangement were brought before congress. Discussion on the bill lagged for the reason that the enthusiasm of congress had been lessened somewhat by the inactivity of land sales and the consequent effect on immigration. The question, however, took on new force and significance when a memorial was presented to congress from a number of influential New England men connected with the Ohio land company. The originators of this organization were Generals Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper both of whom had been interested for some time in the questions of "Treat, The National Land System, 265-270 and Knight, Land Grant for Education in the Northwest Territory uphold this view. See also American Historical Association, Papers, vol. 1, No. 3, p. 17, 18. |