USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
4 Peru Daily Chronicle, January 5, 6, 7, 1854; official proceedings in Alton Courier, January 3, 1854; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 16 : clxxvi-clxxix.
5 Journal of Convention of 1847, P. 352-353; Laws of 1849, p. 153-179; Laws of 1851, p. 127-130.
233
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
for a general system of free schools which was presented at the next session of the legislature. Edwards recommended the use of the township as the unit for school purposes, with the township directors to combine in a county convention to elect a county superintendent ; the legislature, however, retained the district system. Important gains, however, were made in the provisions for a state school tax, for unlimited local taxation, and for a free school in every district for six months in the year. 6
This law was passed by the representatives of northern Illinois in spite of opposition from most of Egypt. St. Clair county, however, unanimously supported the proposition be- cause of the popularity of education among the Germans there, led by men like George Bunsen, school commissioner of St. Clair county, who was later appointed a member of the first state school board. The wealthier northern counties of the state wanted education badly enough to pay more than their share for it; they proved this to the south by arranging the distribution of the two mill tax on the compound basis of population and territory -two-thirds according to the school children and one-third according to the number of townships. Some of the northern counties received less than half what they contributed, while southern counties doubled their contribu- tions. This consideration, reenforced by the complaints from northern districts of the unfair distribution of the state funds, reconciled many parts of Egypt to the law, and the school fever began to carry all before it.7
The law, however, was criticized by Superintendent Ed- wards as containing many obscure and unjust features. On February 16, 1857, therefore, in the face of attempts to repeal the statute, an amendatory act was passed which cleared away many obscurities and added certain necessary details. In the
6 Laws of 1854, p. 13-15; Laws of 1855, p. 51 ff. The supporters of J. B. Turner in a convention at Macoupin, February 24-25, recommended his appoint- ment as state superintendent; he was regarded by many, however, as too visionary and too destructive in his interests. Alton Courier, March 9, 1854.
7 Orwell Sexton to Trumbull, June 1, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts. In cer- tain particulars it worked hardships in southern Illinois, because of the difficulty of getting teachers and of continuing the schools for the six months period required. See P. Knowlton to William H. Powell, September 22, 1857, and reply, Illinois State Journal, October 14, 1857.
234
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
same session provision was made for the establishment and maintenance of a state normal university, which was promptly located at Bloomington.8
Under this encouraging legislation, rapid strides were made. In 1850 poorly trained teachers conducted a large share of the few schools that existed, and the terms were often only three months. Two-thirds of the school buildings were log houses and only one-fifteenth brick or stone. Many of the rest were shanties or temporary shacks. The average worth of 21 school buildings in Stark county was $65. But in the two years of service of William H. Powell as superin- tendent for 1857 and 1858 three thousand schoolhouses were built, bringing the total well over 8,500, nearly two thousand school districts were organized with a total enrollment of 440,339, making only I child of school age in 15 not in attendance; the average school term was now six and five- sixths months.9
Considerable improvement was also made in the caliber of the teaching staff. Before 1850 almost anyone with a super- ficial knowledge of the most common and necessary branches of education was accepted for service. Under the new laws, however, prospective teachers had to pass examinations show- ing qualifications for the teaching of all the seven branches named in the laws. County commissioners found this work of examining candidates especially burdensome because so few were able to come up to the requirements. "It is a common occurrence for persons to apply who have taught school for years, and cannot answer the simplest questions, such as chil- dren twelve years old ought to answer, and generally can answer readily," wrote a conscientious commissioner.10
There was at all times a dearth of available teachers in the west. A considerable percentage of those already engaged were New Englanders or easterners, and in view of the grow- ing demand the National Educational Society through their
8 Illinois State Register, March 20, April 3, 1856; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 2: 52-68; 16: cxcii ; Laws of 1857, p. 295 ff.
9 Cook, Educational History of Illinois, 85-86; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 2 : 8-9, 68-69.
10 Ottawa Free Trader, May 3, 1851; N. H. Abbott to French, March II, 1852, French manuscripts.
235
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
agent, ex-Governor Slade of Vermont, sought to transfer to the west well-trained classes of eastern young women as mis- sionaries in the cause of education. In the period after 1847, when Slade secured the cooperation of the Illinois Education Society in the work of securing places for his protégés, he made regular visits to the state, bringing sixteen young women to Illinois in 1847 and eighteen in 1848, thirty per cent of the entire number sent west. The fourteenth class of teachers was sent west in September, 1853, and the work continued through the decade. The complaint of western advocates of education was that the young women were not brought on fast enough and that "instead of teaching other folk's children, [they] soon find employment in teaching their own." 11
This importation of teachers naturally aroused objections from various quarters. Certain democratic politicians, includ- ing the great Douglas, who came to Illinois himself as a Vermont Yankee schoolmaster, pointed out the danger that these selected emissaries of abolitionism would try to convert the youth of Illinois into the likeness of "canting" "freedom- shrieking" New England demagogues.12 Moreover, Secre- tary of State Cooley in his educational report of 1851 sug- gested that such teachers were bound to bring in a spirit of condescension growing out of their lack of sympathy with western habits, customs, and feelings. In both instances such ungenerous criticism proved unwarranted but furnished an argument for a local supply of teachers. The colleges of the state were heavily drawn upon but were never able to supply the demand, nor were their graduates specifically trained for the teaching profession. This situation finally led to the found- ing of a normal school at Bloomington, but the decade closed while its first classes were preparing for graduation.
In spite of the limited supply, teachers continued to be entirely too meagerly compensated, although salaries nearly
11 Illinois Journal, November 28, December 1, 1848; Illinois State Register, December 2, 1851, August 4, 1853; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 16 : clv ff. It was found that they made excellent wives and mothers, two-thirds of them settling down to domestic life before a period of five years elapsed.
12 Belleville Advocate, February 18, 1857; Ottawa Free Trader, March 15, 1851.
236
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
doubled during the decade, averaging in the case of male teachers about $35 a month. For financial reasons the general prejudice against "female teachers " began to decline, as they never received much more than half what was given to men. With the increasing professional spirit among Illinois teachers, county institutes were organized and in some places were aided by county appropriations. The State Teachers' Institute was organized at Bloomington in December, 1853; in accordance with its decision an educational publication entitled the Illinois Teacher, edited by members of the institute, made its appear- ance in 1855. From the outset it exercised an important influence on educational thought.
Higher education made some notable gains during the decade. Public high schools were established at Chicago, Ottawa, and Canton, though voted down as premature in Quincy ; school associations undertook to provide similar facil- ities in Petersburg, Belleville, and other towns. A general act for the incorporation of academies and seminaries of learning became a law in February, 1851; academies and seminaries increased in number and improved in the facilities offered to their patrons.13 The old established colleges of the state were in such a prosperous condition, especially the denominational schools, that many friends of education came to believe that the time when it was necessary for the state to foster a college had forever passed. Illinois College at Jacksonville suffered a $25,000 loss by fire in 1853, but the amount was replaced by local subscription and the institution continued out of debt with a generous endowment; $50,000 was added to its resources as a result of a two years campaign started in 1858. Shurtleff and Knox colleges were the other more flourishing older institutions - Knox with buildings and grounds worth $120,000 being " said to be the third institution of learning in point of wealth, in the United States." 14
13 The Ottawa High School Journal was published by the schools of that community, Ottawa Free Trader, May 16, 1857. A gymnasium was provided for the boys of the Chicago high school. Chicago Press and Tribune, May 27, 1859; Laws of 1851, p. 85-87.
14 Alton Courier, January 19, 1853; Sturtevant, Autobiography, 274-276; Quincy Whig, January 17, 1853; Presbytery Reporter, 4: 304; 5:284-285. See J. Blanchard to Turner, October 19, 1848, Turner manuscripts; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, July 14, 1857.
237
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
No less than two dozen institutions of higher learning were incorporated in the period from 1848 to 1860, of which six or eight succeeded in becoming permanent colleges. Illinois State University was the ambitious name of a Lutheran insti- tution incorporated and located at Springfield in 1852, to replace the Lutheran college at Hillsboro; it started out inauspiciously, however, in spite of the able administration of its president, Reverend Francis Springer. Several other ambitious undertakings struggled along to final success. Illinois Wesleyan University, incorporated in 1853, began to get in running order by the close of the decade. Northwestern Uni- versity was incorporated on January 28, 1851, as a Methodist educational enterprise. A site was selected on the lake front eleven miles north of the city of Chicago, and a university was planned which they hoped would become the equal in every respect of Yale and of Harvard, with a law department and biblical institute. Efforts at the start were confined to the department of literature, science, and arts. This promising enterprise was slow in getting started; instruction opened on November 5, 1855, with a faculty of two and hardly more than a dozen students, and two years elapsed before Reverend R. S. Foster assumed charge as president.15 On January 30, 1857, the old University of Chicago was incorporated. Sena- tor Stephen A. Douglas was able to subserve his own interests in land speculation and at the same time to pose as a patron of learning by offering to contribute ten acres of his holdings in the suburb of Cottage Grove to the projected Baptist Uni- versity in Chicago on the condition that a fund of $100,000 should be raised for the erection of a college building and the endowment of the institution. Douglas was just then under fire from the republicans for denouncing the opposition of the clergy to his position on slavery. On July 4, 1857, the corner stone of the main building was laid; Reverend J. E. Roy in his prayer sent up a petition "for our poor colored brethren in bondage, even though Judge Douglas himself is present among us ; " and I. N. Arnold, the orator of the day, a zealous republican leader, delivered an antislavery address taking
15 Wilde, Northwestern University, 1 : 166-168.
238
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
exception to the policies of Douglas, who was seated near him on the stand. But with his surrounding lots increased in value some $20,000 by the location of the new building, Douglas could afford to remain silent amid these evidences of ingrati- tude.16 Born in this atmosphere of political controversy and delayed by the financial crash of 1857, the university opened in temporary quarters; but under the aggressive leadership of President William Jones a department of law was organized and went into operation in the fall of 1857, shortly after the dedication of the new buildings. For many years the univer- sity led a precarious existence and did not find a place among the more important educational institutions of Illinois.
Many of the traditional earmarks of college life began to appear as the increasing attendance at all institutions.brought together larger groups of students. Rates of tuition and living expenses were generally very moderate; a collegiate education could easily be acquired at from $80 to $100 a year. This was possible because the faculties were groups of patient, long- suffering, philanthropic enthusiasts serving for a bare living; McKendree College, the oldest institution in the state, paid to the instructors of eighty students, in house rent and in salaries, less than $1,500 a year. Other institutions made more generous compensation for teaching, but were frequently in arrears. Although the professors were said to be hard taskmasters, making excessive demands for intellectual work and turning out dyspeptic looking graduating classes, the stu- dents had the requisite physical energy for the traditional affrays with local town boys.17
The strong New England atmosphere of educational cir- cles and the idealism of the instructional staffs made the colleges of the state hotbeds of antislavery feeling. Reverend Howard Malcolm was elected president of Shurtleff College, the Bap- tist institution in Upper Alton, after he had been compelled to resign the presidency of the college at Georgetown, Ken- tucky, because of having voted in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery. President Blanchard of Knox was one of the most
16 Our Constitution, July 11, August 22, 1857; Ottawa Free Trader, July 11, 1857; Rock River Democrat, August 11, 1857.
17 Chicago Daily Journal, January 11, 1850; Alton Courier clipped in Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 29, 1854; Alton Courier, February 21. 1854.
239
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
active abolitionists in the state. In 1848 he took part in the campaign as elector on the free soil ticket and engaged in other antislavery activities that finally aroused one of the conserva- tive professors to organize a party in the board of trustees, of which he was himself a member, to oust Blanchard from the presidency. A stirring contest took place, with the board nearly evenly divided; but the fortuitous vacancy of six places in that body gave opportunity for adding six "good, honest, upright antislavery men" to safeguard Blanchard's position for the future. President J. M. Sturtevant of Jacksonville College took the stump in 1856 for Fremont and "bleeding Kansas;" the entire faculty there, notably Professor Jonathan B. Turner, were aggressive antislavery men. In 1857 they went so far as to expel a student who persisted against the advice of one of the professors in giving a political anti-republican address upon a public occasion. This, however, seemed too much like a sacrifice of that freedom of utterance that these educators claimed for themselves, too much like the prostitution of educa- tion to partisan politics.18
With the growing general interest in education, attention had turned to the rapidly accumulating "university and semi- nary fund" reserved out of the income from the federal land grant of 1818. By 1850 it had reached nearly $150,000, and there was a general demand that practical use be made of the money. The denominational colleges proposed that this fund be divided among them and that they be erected into a univer- sity subject to the visitation and control of a board of state regents, recommending honorary degrees " to be conferred by
18 Alton Telegraph, September 21, 1849; Illinois State Register, April 8, 11, 1857; Sturtevant, Autobiography, 279-282 ; also Turner manuscripts. J. Blanch- ard to Salmon P. Chase, June 30, 1849, Chase manuscripts. The Illinois State Journal, April 15, 1859, undertook to justify the faculty declaring that "the tendency of the teachings of all our Colleges was to Republicanism," that almost all men of letters were republicans; "do you propose to fill the professor- ships with bogtrotters from Tipperary, in the same way that you fill the Police and the Post Offices?" it queried. Blanchard resigned in 1858 and after two years of pastoral work accepted the presidency of Wheaton College. This insti- tution founded by the Methodists was in 1860 transferred to Congregational control by the election of a majority of orthodox Congregational members of the board. "This was done," according to Blanchard, " on condition that their testimonies against slavery and secret societies should be kept good, which condition has been faithfully fulfilled by the present Board." Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1867.
240
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the University of Illinois in conclave assembled." 19 This arrangement, which would have a state as well as a collegiate dignity, was preferred to the placing of the fund at the dis- posal of any existing college or to the erection of a new com- peting institution. In furtherance of such an arrangement the college heads met at Springfield in the fall of 1849 and 1850 to influence legislation. President Blanchard of Knox College proposed that a common school professorship for the educa- tion of teachers, and perhaps an agricultural professorship, might be annexed to the various colleges out of their respective shares in the funds.20
The establishment of chairs of agriculture were proposed largely to offset the propaganda carried on by that exemplary democrat, Jonathan B. Turner of Jacksonville College, in favor of a state agricultural or industrial university. As a veteran student of the educational needs of Illinois, he claimed that the existing system of collegiate education was entirely un- adapted to the needs of the industrial classes who comprised over ninety-five per cent of the entire population of the state: the colleges virtually shut out the mass of the people and, like Oxford and Cambridge, confined the advantage of a liberal education to the few. Turner proposed that, in addition to the usual branches, the system of education should be adapted to the particular callings of the industrial classes, especially that of the agriculturists. In October, 1850, he brought his plan to the attention of Governor French and suggested that he be given an opportunity to address the legislature on the subject.21
Turner soon secured a favorable hearing from a large por- tion of the people of the state and organized an active propa- ganda to secure the authorization of his project. He was a prophet without honor in his home city of Jacksonville; neither of the rival local papers gave him any real support. The Morgan Journal edited by Dr. E. R. Roe, later teacher in the
19 See Richard M. Young to French, November 23, 1849, E. Wentworth to French, December 13, 1847, June 23, 1849, French manuscripts; see also Illinois State Register, April 14, 1848.
20 J. Blanchard to French, December 23, 1850, French manuscripts; J. Blanchard to Turner, October 19, 1848, Turner manuscripts.
21 Turner to French, October 11, 1850, French manuscripts; French to Turner, January 29, 1851, Turner manuscripts.
241
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
state normal university, vigorously attacked Turner while pro- fessing to approve of his main purpose of educating the masses in a thorough manner. Nothing daunted, he went about the state spreading his gospel through lectures, addresses, and contributions to the various newspapers and periodicals. His active campaign was opened November 18, 1851, in a conven- tion at Granville which urged the establishment of an indus- trial university. Turner's hand was plainly visible in this move : he was made chairman of the committee which reported the resolutions that were adopted, he unfolded at length his plan for the establishment of the proposed institution, and he was placed at the head of a central committee appointed to call a general state convention of the friends of such an institution. 22
In spite of this propaganda Governor French, a friend and supporter of McKendree College, but a believer in agricultural education, recommended the division of the university funds among the several colleges in his message of 1852; but the house committee refused to report in favor of any specific disposition of the money. The second industrial convention met at Springfield June 8, 1852; some of the opponents of the scheme attended, notably Professor John Evans of Chicago, one of the founders of Northwestern University, Dr. E. R. Roe of Jacksonville, and Professor Cummings of Lebanon College; but the aid of men like John A. Kennicott of Chicago, who was selected to preside over the convention, and Wil- liam H. Powell of La Salle, its secretary, had been enlisted in favor of the plan; and a resolution to memorialize the legis- lature for a state industrial university was successfully passed. But opponents appeared on all sides among the friends of existing collegiate institutions; John M. Peck pronounced Turner's theory a "wild project," "fascinating, but imprac- ticable and useless." The great need of the day, it was held, was more academies and common schools; enough colleges already existed; farmers, moreover, would not send their sons to one great central school; as to state schools, had
22 Morgan Journal, January 10, 1852; Illinois Journal, February 12, Novem- ber 29, 1851, January 3, 1852; Prairie Farmer, February, 1852; Turner, Plan for an Industrial University for the State of Illinois.
242
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
they not always proved wasteful and imbecile as to literary instruction ? 23
In November, 1852, another industrial university conven- tion assembled at Chicago, and again preparations were made to place Turner's plan before the legislature. A committee consisting of Turner, L. L. Bullock, and Ira L. Peck was appointed to address the citizens of the state in its favor, while a memorial to congress asking for a grant of public lands to aid in the establishment of an industrial institution was later prepared by a committee headed by ex-Governor French. The convention adjourned to meet at Springfield on January 4 after the legislature convened. Meetings of farmers and mechanics were called at various points to be represented at this session; and delegates were present from Buel Institute, La Salle County Agricultural Society, the Northwestern Pomo- logical Association, and other groups. An "Industrial League of the State of Illinois" was organized to disseminate infor- mation by lectures, articles, and other literature.24
The idea of federal aid by a land grant had been pro- mulgated by Turner in an article in the Prairie Farmer of March, 1852, and had been taken up by the Springfield con- vention three months later. It became thereafter the most unique feature of the Turner plan for industrial education. Indeed, the only immediate result of this agitation was the adoption of a resolution by the legislature asking congress to appropriate 500,000 acres of lands to each state to aid in the establishment of an industrial university. Turner and his asso- ciates in this enterprise, moreover, entered into extensive corre- spondence with leaders in other states with the view of securing their cooperation for united action on the part of the states to secure such a donation of public lands from the federal government. Representative Washburne presented the Illinois resolutions in congress in April, 1854. Representative Richard Yates from the Springfield district, who had in 1851 and 1852 brought Turner's plan to the attention of the United States patent office and of the National Agricultural Society, now
23 Prairie Farmer, April-August, 1852; Peck to French, June 7, 1852, French manuscripts. The Eclectic Journal of Education of Chicago opposed Turner's plan.
24 Incorporated February 10, 1853, Laws of 1853, P. 514; Turner manuscripts.
243
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
prepared to secure congressional action and requested Turner to draft a bill. The industrial league, meantime, kept up an active propaganda; Dr. R. C. Rutherford was engaged to bring its proposition before the people of the northern coun- ties; and Turner was induced to give his energies entirely to the lecture field for several months, beginning December, 1853. An informal indorsement was secured from a mass meeting of the Illinois State Agricultural Society on October 6, 1854- Another convention was held at Springfield in January, 1855; its committee, in consultation with legislative committees, pre- pared a bill which gave every promise of adoption when it was discovered that as a result of defalcation the treasury was exhausted and the measure had to be postponed.25
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.