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 inaugu rate, 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.

Without unnecessary delay it came before the House, able and eloquent advocates sprang to its defense, opposition quickly yielded, and in due time, to their everlasting honor, that body unanimously passed the following resolutions. Though not strictly necessary to my present purpose, they are not irrelevant, and standing as they do at the very gateway of the great national movements that followed, I cannot resist the desire to cite them:

"WHEREAS, the spirit and progress of this age and country demand the culture of the highest order of intellectual attainment in theoretic and industrial science: And, whereas, it is impossible that our commerce and prosperity will continue to increase without calling into requisition all the elements of internal thrift arising from the labors of the farmer, the mechanic, and the manufacturer, by every fostering effort within the reach of the Government: And, whereas, a system of Industrial Universities, liberally endowed, in each State of the Union, co-operative with each other, and the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, would develop a more liberal and practical education among the people, tend the more to intellectualize the rising generation, and eminently conduce to the virtue, intelligence, and true glory of our common country: therefore be it

“Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring herein, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives be requested, to use their best exertions to procure the passage of a law by Congress donating to each State in the Union an amount of public lands, not less in value than five hundred thousand dol lars, for the liberal endowment of a system of Industrial Universities, one in each State of the Union, to co-operate with each other, and with the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, for the more liberal and practical education of our industrial classes and their teachers; a liberal and varied education, adapted to the manifold wants of a practical and enterprising people, and a provision for such educational facilities, being in manifest concurrence with the intimations of the popular will, it urgently demands the united efforts of our national strength.

"

Resolved, That the Governor is hereby authorized to forward a copy of the foregoing resolutions to our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to the Executive and Legislature of each of our sister States, inviting them to co-operate with us in this meritorious enterprise."

These resolutions were promptly, heartily, and as the records show, unanimously concurred in by the Senate, and, on the 8th day of February, 1853, received the approval of the Governor, who lost no time in forwarding authenticated copies, as requested in the last resolution; thus completing the glorious and unbroken record of Illinois, more than fifteen years ago, upon this great public measure.

The past at least is secure, and I will not disguise the pride I feel in thus adducing the irrefragable testimony of history to the fact that this Empire State of the West has the high and unchallenged honor of being the first to conceive and advance this idea and form of Industrial Education by national appropriation, and the first also to petition Congress, by a formal and unanimous vote of her Legislature, to grant the endowment.

Those ringing resolutions of our General Assembly not only elicited approving responses from all quarters, but seemed also to kindle the slumbering thoughts and sympathies of the people into a blaze of enthusiasm, and to inaugurate, at once and with resistless power, that decade of splendid efforts throughout the Union, which received their triumphant culmination in the Act of Congress of July 2, 1862.

A leading paper of New York City, Feb. 28, 1853, in an eloquent editorial upon our joint resolutions, declared: "Here is the principle contended for by the friends of practical education abundantly confirmed, with a plan for its immediate realization. And it is worthy of note, that one of the most extensive of public land States (Illinois), proposes a magnificent donation of public lands to each of the States, in furtherance of this idea. The Legislature of Illinois has taken a noble step forward, in a most liberal and patriotic spirit, for which its members will be heartily thanked by thousands throughout the Union. We feel that this step has materially hastened the coming of scientific and practical education for all who desire and are willing to work for it. It cannot come too soon."

Similar opinions were expressed by the leading newspapers of the whole North and East, and by all the principal agricultural journals and periodicals then extant, (as I could prove by copious extracts did time permit), while from the far South responses no less emphatic and cordial, swelled the accumulating volume of public opinion. The key-note struck by Illinois, was echoed by the Governors of other States in quick succession, in their annual messages--while orators, statesmen, authors, with College Presidents and Professors, the ablest and most gifted and honored men of the nation, entered the lists and mightily contributed to arouse, instruct and guide the public mind. Edward Everett, Marshal P. Wilder, Henry W. Cushman, John W. Lincoln, and others of like eminence, headed a movement in behalf of the liberal education of the industrial masses, in Massachusetts; while upon a single committee appointed by a convention held in the State of New York, in furtherance of the same cause, appear the illustrious names of Francis Wayland, Bishop Potter, Washington Irving, President Hitchcock, and Professors Pierce, Henry, Bache, Mitchell, Dewey, and others.

But enough; the columns of the people were in motion, their Representatives were already in Congress, the great battle was fought and won, and it only remained to embody the popular will in the forms of law.

Accordingly, the Congress of the United States recognized and gave effect to these great principles by the passage of an act entitled,

"AN ACT donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts."

This act was approved on the 2d day of July, 1862. Its most important sections are the first, which makes the endowment, and the fourth, which declares to what objects and uses the fund shall be devoted. The first section reads as follows:

"That there be granted to the several States, for the purpose hereinafter mentioned, an amount of public land, to be apportioned to each State, in quantity equal to thirty thousand acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress, to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860." The fourth section reads as follows:

"That all moneys derived from the sale of lands aforesaid, by the States to which the lands are apportioned, and from the sales of land scrip herein before provided for, shall be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per cent. upon the par value of said stocks; and that the money so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated by each State, which may take a d claim the benefit of this act, to the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college, where the lead