ing object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively provide, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

The Legislature of Illinois promptly signified its acceptance of the grant, upoa the conditions imposed by the act of Congress, and, at its last session, consummated the whole transaction by passing, 1st," AN ACT in relation to the location of the Industrial University," approved January 25th, 1867. 2d. "AN ACT to provide for the organization and maintenance of the Illinois Industrial University,” approved February 28, 1867. 8d. AN ACT supplemental to the before-mentioned act, approved March 8, 1867.

In obedience to the requirements of the first section of the act, the Governor appointed twenty-eight trustees, who, with the members ex-officio, thirty-two in all, met on Tuesday, the 12th day of March, 1867, in compliance with the law, and the summons of the Governor, and, after being solemnly sworn into office, proceeded in due form, to organize as "The Board of Trustees of the Illinois Industrial University."

Having thus briefly traced the history of this Institution from its dim foreshadowing in 1851, through the successive periods of its individual, organized, legislative, and congressional struggles, down to its formal organization, just one year ago, it is fit now to examine for a moment the essential nature and objects of the Institution which has thus been created. This I shall endeavor to do in the blended light both of law and of reason-of statutory provisions and common sense; for we cannot presume that these, in any of the acts concerned, are contrary the one to the other.

The act of Congress of July 2, 1862, is the fundamental law, the magna charta from which the whole system of Universities not only derives its life, but in which its essential objects are defined, and the sphere of its legitimate operations clearly and comprehensively marked out. To the provisions of that act we must therefore look, primarily, to ascertain the province within which this University may legally and appropriately act. And since each State, in accepting the proffered endowment, did so with a full knowledge of all its accompanying conditions, and a solemn covenant with the National Government to stand to, abide by, and in good faith carry them out, it might be safely presumed that the legislation of each State on the subject would be in strict accord with the fundamental law. And this, upon examination and comparison, we find to be the fact. Indeed, the language of the two acts in relation to the fundamental purpose and scope of the University, is nearly identical. In section four of the act of July 2, 1862, Congress declares that “the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." While in section 7, of the act of February 28, 1867, our State Legislature declares that the Board of Trustees shall have power to do whatever "may be required to teach in the most thorough manner such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and military tactics, without excluding other scientific and classical studies." The two sections are identical in meaning, upon these points, and nearly so in language-the only difference worthy of note being that

our State law emphasizes the broad terms of the Congressional act, by the significant phrase "in the most thorough manner."

The purposes for which this University was established, the work which it must do and may do, are here stated and defined, by the supreme and authoritative laws of Congress and of Illinois, in a manner so plain that only the most hopeless iguorance or willful perversity can misconstrue or misunderstand them.

It will be seen that the law in respect to the instruction to be given in the University is two-fold, mandatory and permissive-certain things must be taught, certain other things are not excluded. Respecting the latter the Trustees seem to have discretion; they may provide for them or not, as they see fit; in respect to the former, they have no choice or discretion whatevor, they must provide for them, or violate their oaths and the laws.

The departments of instruction for which the Trustees are positively and peremptorily required to provide, and that “in the most thorough manner," are two: 1. "Such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts," and

2.Military tactics."

Instruction in these is a sine qua non, a condition precedent, default in which would work the forfeiture of the endowment.

Those branches of learning which are "not excluded," and for which the Trustees may, therefore, provide, at their discretion, are embraced in the comprehensive phrase, "other scientific and classical studies."

The boundaries of the present inquiry are thus sharply defined, both inclusively and exclusively. If the Trustees have arranged a course of study embracing “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts," and also, "military tactics," they have strictly complied with the law; and if in addition to these they have also provided for some "other scientific and classical studies," they have therein done precisely what the law, in so many words, allows and empowers them to do. Indeed, a much stronger interpretation of the clause, “without excluding other scientific and classical studies,” is held by many eminent lawyers and jurists to legitimate, if not even obligatory. In their view it would be by no means an unwarrantable construction to regard the italicized words in the above quotation as but another form of requirement—as coupling the duty of not excluding certain studies, with that of including certain other studies, and embracing both alike in the positive injunctions of the statute. But while this view is not without much force, and is strenuously maintained by many, I have preferred to adopt the permissive or optional theory, because it is the one about which there cannot be the semblance of cloud or doubt.

What then, are those "branches of learning which are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts," and which are necessary in order to teach the same "in the most thorough manner?”

The answer to this question involves answers to two others, viz: What is agri.. culture? What are the mechanic arts?

I shall not consume the precious time of this occasion by any attempt at mere definitions to do so would be alike idle and unnecessary. Suffice it to say that no man can take the terms, elements and ideas commonly and necessarily embraced in any tolerably complete definitions of those words, and undertake to trace their logical and necessary connections and relations, without finding the courses of study prescribed by the Trustees in those departments, utterly exhausted long before even

the beginning of the end is reached. In comparison with the hights and depths of research and investigation-the immensities and infinitudes of thought and study into the realms of Nature, comprehended in "those branches of learning" which are closely and inseparably related to " agriculture and the mechanic arts"—in comparison with these, the scheme of study and culture proposed in this University, comprehensive and excellent as it is, seems meagre indeed.

Agriculture and the mechanic arts! Whither do they not reach? Into what corner of the physical universe do they not lead us? What law of the terrestrial, solar, or sidereal worlds, do they not lay under contribution? What principle of life, or growth, or matter, or force, is not grasped by their ubiquitous hands? It is no rhetorical extravagance, but an undoubted and easily demonstrated truth, that there is naught of material life, or form, or being, force or motion, in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, into which, and through which, and around which, the laws and principles of those two sciences, in their myriad ramifications, relations and dependencies. do not pour and penetrate with an all-pervading, divine universality, even as the atmospheric ocean envelops the globe. The student of agricultural science encounters, at the very threshold of his investigations, problems among the nicest and most abstruse that can engage the scrutiny of the human intellect. He may indeed handle the implements of husbandry, and stir the clods of his ancestral acres, with as little sense of the tremendous forces and eternal harmonies that slumber beneath and about him, ready to spring into quick, responsive, co-operative action, re-enforcing and completing his labors—as the savage who stares at the rings of Saturn through a telescope has of the immutable laws and everlasting symphonies of the spheres.

But let him attempt to leave the beaten track-let him, leaving his mere handicraft, undertake to interrogate Nature herself-let him endeavor to "make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before"-let him try to improve the quality or increase the productiveness of his fruits and vegetables and soils and animals-let him essay to produce new varieties of trees, plants, or flowers or to revitalize exhausted soils; or to reclaim barren and worthless lands; or to discover the hidden manna upon which each plant delights to feed, with its peculiar and almost spiritual affinities for certain elements of atmosphere and soil-let him try to add one new flush of beauty to the queenly rose, or a daintier aroma to its fragranceor an additional tint to the brilliant verbena-or another grace to the bending beauty of the elm, or the dark majesty of the pine: let him attempt to do any one of these, or a thousand other similar things, and he finds himself at once confronted by the jasper walls of science, through not one of whose beautiful gates can he pass without the countersign, known only to the polished children of meditation and culture, He finds Nature a sealed book, her oracles dumb, and her shrines guarded by inexorable sentinels, who pithessly reply to his entreaties: "We know you not."

There is no recourse for him but to begin with the a, b, c, of scientific principles, and laboriously work his way up to the sun-lit hights of Universal truths, as all have done who have gone before; or dismiss forever his new-born inspirations, and be content merely to hold the plow and swing the scythe till he dies. He can no more deal with the profound questionings that assail him on every side, without a knowledge of the subtle principles and exact scientific facts and truths upon which the problems of animal and vegetable life and growth and change depend, than he can make a book without an alphabet, or a house without tools and materials. And if he is really intent upon being a thinker, as well as a plowman, an explorer of

truth as well as a sower of seed, a scientific agriculturist as well as a sturdy, practical farmer; it will not be long till he appreciates the utter absurdity of the popular outcry against the study of abstract principles and pure science. Here, as elsewhere, it will be found that there is nothing like a little wholesome experience to take the conceit out of a man-provided always that he has sense enough to know when that operation has actually been performed upon him-for incorrigible fools are not confined to the ranks of school-masters and theorists, as some affirm; there may be farmers, perchance, worthy to divide with them the honors!

Let the farmer who points to his own life-long and successful husbandry without the benefit of books and theories and so-called useless abstractions, as a justification of his contempt for the thorough and systematic training of youth for agricultural pursuits-let such an one be called upon to conduct any original investigation, to analyze a soil; detect the presence of the insidious foes to vegetable life which lurk in earth, air, water and food; in a word, to advance the boundaries of agricultural science in any direction, and he will invoke the aid of his boasted skill in mere handicraft, as vainly as the false prophets of old, in their utter helplessness, cried aloud to Baal to help them. The divine fire will only descend at the sum

mons of the true Elijahs of science.

It is no disgrace to be ignorant of abstruse knowledge, or of the subtle laws which pervade the universe of matter, from the atom to the continent-such knowledge can never, perhaps, be the inheritance of all. But to deride the study of abstract laws and principles, while boasting of the success which those very investigations have alone made possible, is the opposite of reasonable or honorable; and if to derision be added active and wanton hostility, what was before only stupidity and folly, becomes a crime against the interests of humanity.

I have spoken of the debt which successful husbandry, viewed only as a practical manual art, owes to scientific thinkers and pure philosophy. Go to your model farmer of this class, and inspect his estates, his methods of tillage, his selections and preparations of soils, the manures and fertilizers he uses, the rotation of crops that he practices, the breeds of animals he prefers, and how he rears and nurtures them-look at his machines and tools and implements of all sorts; his barns and other out-houses, his fences, gates, wagons and carts; his orchards, gardens, hotbeds and green-houses-and see what you will find. The latest and best improvements will characterize his outfit and equipments in every department. not have an old and defective machine or implement upon his place at any price, if a new and better one can be had. Every new and successful method and invention is eagerly sought for and applied. And yet, too often, after this unconscious homage to science, he will join in the chorus of disparagement of those very studies to the products of which he owes all of his pre-eminence; and of the men, it may be, who seek to place these priceless treasures in the hands of the people. Oh, men of Illinois, these things ought not so to be.

He will

Thought rules the world, doubt it or deny it who may, and it will continue to do so to the end of time. Each and all of those marvelous machines, whose fingers of wood and iron spare those of flesh and bone, are the offspring of science-born of the patient vigils of the student, begotton of those same despised abstractions which lead down to the solemn laboratories of nature, and upward to the high cabinet of heaven where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides. Those amazing displays of productive energy, which have quadrupled the value of the estate, are but the grand victories of Agricultural Chemistry. Those lordly herds that

sweep down to greet you, seeming the very incarnation of health and power and beauty, and as unlike their lean, ungainly progenitors as Darwin's hideous antetypes of man are to the imperial Caucasian, are the magnificent result of the applied principles of Animal Physiology. Those new and gorgeous varieties of flowers and shrubs, native and exotic, and those reduplicated specimens of choice fruits and vegetables, which have quintupled the market value of that orchard, garden and conservatory, are as certainly the radiant children of Botany, through Hybridization, as the day is the child of sunrise. Those peculiar soils of which our model farmer is the fortunate possessor, and of which he is so justly proud, are the gift of ages and epochs of strange and grand mutations, the thrilling story of which can only be told by Geology. He knows how to protect his favorite grape, or pear, or plum, from the invisible parasite that had for years doomed it to blight and death; or his wheat from the ravages of the terrible midge; or other fruits and grains from the deadly invasions of countless armies of atomic Goths and Huns-but gives no thanks to Entomology, to which, re-enforced by the microscope, he owes his deliverance and his wealth.

It might also be shown that he is equally a pensioner upon the munificent bounty of many other disregarded or despised, but life-giving, treasure-discovering, and wealth-bestowing sciences-such as Mineralogy, Meteorology, Natural History, etc. But the field is too wide, and enough for our purpose has already been said in this direction.

If we turn now for a moment to the other great department of instruction for which provision is required to be made in this University, viz: Those branches of learning related to the "Mechanic Arts," we shall find the views already presented to be not only sustained, but if possible, still more strikingly illustrated and confirmed. If the student of agricultural science can not advance without a systematic and thorough training in the principles of pure philosophy and abstract science, it is vain for him who would be master of the mechanic arts to hope to do so.

And here it may be properly remarked that I am not now considering these scientific studies as instruments of mental discipline, at all-with that subject, upon which so much, wise and otherwise, has been said and written of late, I have now no concern. My present purpose is to show the absolute necessity of the mastery of principles in order to the highest success in the practical industries of life-that the material elements and resources with which we have to deal, can not be utilized without them; that a great many practical problems can not be solved at all without them, while a still larger number can not be advantageously or economically solved without them.

The student of Mechanics finds himself environed at once by those absolute and immutable laws of matter, of motion and rest, of momentum and force, by which the whole stupendous fabric of the material universe is sustained, directed and controlled. Go where he will he can not escape their presence, their inexorable conditions, or their resistless power. From the shape of the tiniest cog in the wheels of a watch, to the configuration of the earth and planets-from the whirl of a child's top, to the sweep of Neptune through his illimitable orbit-from the force that moves the index of the torsion balance, to that which upheaves oceans and continents-in all things and everywhere he finds himself in the grasp of God's everlasting and uncompromising code of dynamics and statics. And he finds, too, that the rock-built buttresses upon which all these laws rest down eternally, derived from the science of Mathematics-without which he can do nothing; with

are