Jonathan Baldwin Turner

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Turner was a student of classical literature at Yale University and an aspiring missionary who, upon graduating in 1833, set out to the wilds of Illinois. In 1833, Turner became a professor at the newly organized Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois, where Turner encountered Pottawatomie Indians, and witnessed terrible outbreaks of cholera. At Jacksonville, Turner soon found himself involved in the question of slavery, becoming the editor of a Jacksonville abolitionist paper, an assistant with the underground railroad, and, in the classroom, a vocal opponent of slavery.

The conservative town of Jacksonville soon forced the abolitionist Turner from his teaching post, charging him with inappropriately politicizing the classroom.

Turner left town and soon began to lead the Illinois Industrial League and to advocate for a publicly funded system to provide "industrial" education, suited for the needs of the working ("industrial") classes.

Turner faced stiff opposition from traditional colleges, as well as from those opposed to non-sectarian education. In 1853, his farm was burned to the ground. But Turner (who was deeply religious, although not orthodox) pressed hard, and generated considerable enthusiasm for his model of education. In 1862, the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act was passed, which, after the American Civil War, brought Turner's ideas to fruition in the public Land Grant Universities of the United States.

The precise importance of Turner's contribution to the establishment of the land grant university has been the subject of some dispute. Senator Justin Morrill was reluctant to credit Turner as the primary author of the movement, and some have argued that Morrill's contribution, as sponsoring senator, was more important. In fact, both the rabble-rousing populism of Turner and the more reserved statemanship of the Senator Morrill were necessary for the passage of the act that bears Morrill's name.

Turner was displeased with the political process that saw the University of Illinois (or "Illinois Industrial University," as it was originally named) located in Urbana, Illinois, far from the industrial workers of Chicago.

Turner spoke at the laying of the University's cornerstone, and his words: "Industrial Education Prepares the way for the Millennium of Labor," remain in stone above the University's main quadrangle.

In his later years, Turner devoted his energy to other causes. He became a strident opponent of corporations, and an advocate of the rights of the mentally ill, who suffered under terrible conditions in the asylums of the nineteenth-century. He also wrote religious tracts championing the liberal teachings of Christ, and criticizing Catholicism, Mormonism, and traditional religious institutions generally.

Turner died at the age of 93.