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"The use of manual labor is one which never grows obsolete, and which is inapplicable to no person. A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a ba-is for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands. We must have an antagonism in the tough world for all the variety of our spiritual faculties, or they will not be bora.

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"In general, one may say, that the husbandman's is the oldest and most universal profession, and that where a man does not yet discover in himself any fitness for one work more than another, this may be preferred. But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that every man ought to stand in primary relations with the work of the world; ought to do himself, and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties; and for this reason, that labor is God's education; that he only is a sincere learner, he only can become a master, who learns the secrets of labor, and who by real cunning extorts from nature its sceptre."-Emerson, Miscellanies, p. 228–232.

"He must watch the elements: must understand the nature of the soil he tills, the character and habits of each animal that serves him as a living instrum nt. Each day makes large claims on him for knowledge and sound judgment. He is to ar ply good sense to the soil. Now these demands tend to foster the habit of observing and judging justly: to increase thought and elevate the man."

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"To the instructed man his trade is a study: the toils of his craft are books: his farm a gospel, eloquent in its sublime silence: his cattle and corn are te chers: the stars his guides to virtue and to God; and every mute and every living thing, by shore or sea, a heaven-sent prophet to refine his mind and heart. He is in harmony with nature, and his education goes on with the earth and the hours."-Theodore Parker's Miscellanies, p. 147-259.

"The chief interest of the country is the business of every citizen; and if statesmen had oftener remembered that the test of national welfare is the intelligence and prosperity of the farmer, States would have been more wisely governed and human society happier; for his pur suit touches the very springs of civilization and employs two-thirds of the human race."--George William Curtis' Address, 1865.

"The END of all education should be the development of a TRUE MANHOOD, or the natural, proportionate and healthful culture and growth of all the powers and faculties of the human beingphysical, mental, moral and social: and any system which attempts the exclusive or even inordinate culture of any one class of these faculties, will fail of its end-it will make mushrooms and monks, rather than manhood and men."-J. B. Turner, 1853.

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INTRODUCTION.

"AN ACT donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts," approved July 2, 1862, prescribes as one of the conditions of the grant, that

"An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of each college, recording any improvements and experiments made, with their costs and results, and such other matters, including State, industrial and economical statistics, as may be sur posed useful; one copy of which shall be transmitted free, by each, to all the other colleges which may be endowed under the provisions of this act, and also one copy to the Secretary of the Interior."

For the purpose of carrying out this requirement of the act of Congress, it was provided, under section 5 of "An act to provide for the organization and maintenance of the Illinois Industrial University," that—

"The Trustees may appoint, also, the Corresponding Secretary, whose duty it shall be, under the direction or with the approval of the Trustees, to issue circulars, directions for procuring needful materials for conducting experiments, and eliciting instructive information from persons in various counties, selected for that purpose, and skilled in any branch of Agricultural, Mechanical and Industrial Art; and to do all other acts needful to enable him to prepare an annual report regarding the progress of the University in each department thereof-recording any improvements and experiments made, with their costs and results, and such other raatters, including State, industrial and economical statistics, as may be supposed useful; not less than five thousand copies of which shall be published annually, and one copy be transmitted by said Corresponding Secretary, by mail, free, to each of the other colleges endowed under the provisions of an act of Congress, approved July 2, 1862, entitled "An act donating lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts;" one copy to the United States Secretary of the Interior; and one thousand copies to the Scoretary of State of this State, for the State Library, and for distributiou among the members of the General Assembly. Also, a Recording Secretary, whose duty it shall be to keep faithful record of the transactions of the Board of Trustees, and prepare the same for publication in such annual report."

These quotations from the National and State laws upon the subject, show with sufficient clearness the general duties and requirements of the Board of Trustees, and of the Corresponding and Recording Secretaries in reporting their acts. The very comprehensive wording of the statute concerning the duties of the Corresponding Secretary, however, make it desirable to get more precisely at the meaning of the framers of the State statute.

This law was originally drawn up by a committee consisting of Wm. H. Van Epps, Prof. J. B. Turner, A. B. McConnell, B. G. Roots and John P. Reynolds, appointed at the State Fair held at Decatur in 1864, and was presented to the Legislature as the expression of the views of the farmers of Illinois in 1865 and 1867. Although changed in other and important particulars, the general plan of organization and working was left untouched; and I therefore quote from Professor Turner, who doubtless had an important part in drafting the bill, his statement of the intended function of the University in its relation to practical agriculture and arts, and the duties of the Corresponding Secretary as a means of intercourse between academic science and practical art.

In an address delivered at the County Fair at Monmouth, October 4, 1866, Prof. Turner said:

"The charter implies that gratuitous experiments in agriculture and the arts should be annually made under direction of the Board, by the County Superintendents, of each crop or special interest, in all the counties in the State; and annual reports made to the Institution, and by it to all other Institutions of the kind in the Union, and to the central department at the Capital, according to the terms of the grant, and much in the same way as the monthly reports are now made from every county to the same department.

"For example: In each of the one hundred counties of Illinois, for one year, some simple, practical, definite experiment would be tried by an intelligent superintendent for that county, on the corn crop, on a small piece of ground: by another superintendent on the wheat crop: by others on diseases of cattle, and hogs, and flocks; by others on the green crops, the garden and orchard; by others on all sorts of mechanical tools, implements and machines; and on the new composition, In short, whatever the Trustees and strength and quality of materials, etc., etc. Faculty should wish to see put to a general, practical, thorough test, on all the varied soils, and affecting all the varied interests of each county in the State, would be ordered for practical trial on a small and cheap, but sufficient scale, in all the counties of the State, to forever settle that point, as a matter of absolute knowledge or science, and not as mere guess work. Thus the science of agriculture and the sciences of the mechanic arts, will advance, almost without cost, more rapidly toward a state of absolute perfection, than any other sciences ever did, or could, under ordinary conditions.

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