Reversing the Curse

Agricultural Millennialism at the Illinois Industrial University

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3205251
AutoresBrett H Smith (Hong Kong Baptist University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2004
Volumen73
Número4
Páginas759-791
Fecha de publicación2004-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaChurch History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0009640700073042
OpenAlexW2104885133
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas64

In the spring of 1868, sixty-eight students gathered to become the first matriculants of the Illinois Industrial University. They had responded to a summons by the state legislature to engage in a bold new mission of publicly funded mechanical and industrial education, a move which would, Illinoisans hoped, bring lavish prosperity to their fellow citizens and themselves. Like other colleges of the period, utilitarian and democratic rationales motivated the I. I. U. leadership to establish their school. Quoting their commission by the Morrill Act, the trustees said the university's "chief aim" was to educate "the industrial classes" by teaching "such branches of learning as are related to Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and Military Tactics, without excluding other scientific and classical studies." And yet, there was an even more radical and compelling vision among the I.I.U. faithful, one which was distinctively theological: "The hope of the Trustees and Faculty," they said, "is that the Institution will produce ... men of Christian culture ... able and willing to lend a helping hand in all the great practical enterprises of this most practical age

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