Then the Presbyterians built Knox College, at Gallesburgh, in 1838, and the Episcopalians built Jubilee College, at Peoria, in 1847. After these early years colleges have rained down. A settler could hardly encamp on the prairie but colleges would spring up by his wagon. The State now has one very well endowed and equipped university, namely, the North-western University, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety instructors, over 1,000 students, and $1,500,000 endowment.

Rev. J. M. Peck was the first educated Protestant minister in the State. He settled at Rock Spring, in St. Clair County, 1820, and left his impress on the State. Before 1837 only party papers were published, but Mr. Peck published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of Bluffdale, published essays and tales showing genius. Judge James Hall published the Illinois Monthly Magazine with great ability, and an annual, called The Western Souvenir, which gave him an enviable fame all over the United States. From these beginnings Illinois has gone on till she has more volumes in public libraries even than Massachusetts, and of the 44,500,000 volumes in all the public libraries of the United States, she has one-thirteenth. In newspapers she In 1850 she issued

stands fourth. Her increase is marvellous. 5,000,000 copies: in 1860, 27,500,000; in 1870, 113,140,000. In 1860 she had eighteen colleges and seminaries; in 1870 she had eighty. That is a grand advance for the war decade.

This brings us to a record unsurpassed in the history of any age,

THE WAR RECORD OF ILLINOIS.

I hardly know where to begin, or how to advance, or what to say. I can at best give you only a broken synopsis of her deeds, and you must put them in the order of glory for yourself. Her sons have always been foremost on fields of danger. In 1832-33, at the call of Gov. Reynolds, her sons drove Blackhawk over the Mississippi. One call was enough. When the Mexican war came, in May, 1846, 8,370 men offered themselves when only 3,720 could be accepted. The fields of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz, and the storming of Cerro Gordo, will carry the glory of Illinois soldiers long after the infamy of the cause they served has been forgotten. But it was reserved till our day for her sons to find a field and cause and foemen that could fitly illustrate their spirit and heroism.

Illinois put into her own regiments for the U. S. Government 256,000 men, and into the army through other States enough to swell the number to 290,000. This far exceeds all the soldiers of the Federal Government in all the war of the Revolution. Her total years of service were over 600,000. She enrolled men from eighteen to forty-five years of age when the law of Congress in 1864-the test time-only asked for those from twenty to forty five. Her enrollment was otherwise excessive. Her people wanted to go, and did not take the pains to correct the enrollment. Thus the basis of fixing the quota was too great, and then the quota itself, at least in the trying time, was far above any other state.

Thus the demand on some counties, as Monroe, for example, took every able-bodied man in the county, and then did not have enough to fill the quota. Moreover, Illinois sent 20,844 men for ninety or one hundred days for whom no credit was asked. When Mr. Lincoln's attention was called to the inequality of the quota compared with other States, he replied, "The country needs the sacrifice. We must put the whip on the free horse." In spite of all these disadvantages Illinois gave to the country 73,000 years of service above all calls. With one-thirteenth of the population of the loyal States, she sent regularly one-tenth of all the soldiers, and in the peril of the closing calls, when patriots were few and weary, she then sent one-eighth of all that were called for by her loved and honored son in the White House. Her mothers and daughters went into the fields to raise the grain and keep the children together, while the fathers and older sons went to the harvest fields of the world. I know a father and four sons who agreed that one of them must stay at home: and they pulled straws from a stack to see who might go. The father was left. The next day he came into camp, saying "Mother says she can get the crops in, and I am going, too." I know large Methodist Churches from which every male member went to the army. Do you want to know what these heroes from Illinois did in the field? Ask any soldier with a good record of his own, who is thus able to judge, and he will tell you that the Illinois men went in to win. It is common history that the great victories were won in the When everything else looked dark Illinois was gaining victories all down the river, and dividing the Confederacy. Sher

west.

man took with him on his great march forty-five regiments of Illinois infantry, three companies of artillery, and one company of cavalry. He could not avoid going to the sea. If he had been killed I doubt not the men would have gone right on. There was hardly an Illinois regiment in the field that did not have brains enough to set up and run any Government on earth. Lincoln answered all rumors of Sheridan's defeat with "It is impossible; there is a mighty sight of fight in 100,000 Western men." Illinois soldiers brought home 300 battle flags. The first United States flag that floated over Richmond was an tested her courage in the supreme trial. to the fiends at Andersonville. Let us cover our faces as the shadowy skeletons of these silent and uncomplaining heroes-our mothers' sons-pass by to join the company of the glorious dead. The sight is not a means of grace. God grant that just retribution may be averted from the chivalry, who might have prevented this most cowardly and most beastly brutality of all history!

Illinois flag. Illinois She gave 875 victims

It is a relief to turn from this scene to another, in which the great state of Illinois is sending messengers to every. field and hospital, to care for her sick and wounded sons. She said, "These suffering ones are my sons, and I will care for them."

When individuals had given all, then cities and towns came forward with their credit to the extent of many millions, to aid these men and their families.

Nothing can be said or done in honor of Illinois soldiers better than to repeat the story of their deeds. As we gaze upon the luminous page of their history the first form that comes out of the smoke of battle and rises in the chariot of fire before our weeping eyes, is that one solitary hero, who, at the first tap of the war drums, sprang from the couch of his ease and the home of his comfort, armed amid the gathering darkness of impending peril took a hasty farewell of wife and loved ones, and went forth to hunt for masked batteries in the darkness and to die, if need be, rather than survive his imperilled liberties; who actually bared his bosom to storms of iron and rows of glistening steel; who did press over the breastwork and rush over slippery fields, and stand mute under hostile guns; who did actually stand in death's highway that the Republic might be saved. I see first of all, and, in the impartial

judgment of infinite equity, above all, the one solitary hero of the war, the Common Soldier. Honor to whom honor is due.

Next I see the women of America, in the person of the mother. This is she who was in the heat of battle every hour; who never knew what each caller had come to break to her; who seldom slept on a dry pillow when the babe she had nursed might have none for his dying head; who, with a heroism never needed by the soldier in action, dressed her boy with reference to having his body robbed after the battle, and who said, like the Spartan mother handing her son his shield, "With it, or upon it." When the awards are made for actual service, this one shall not lack monument or crown or throne.

I do not lose sight of another character, upon whom rested the care and burden of responsibility; who shared the trench with the soldier, and fared on the same half biscuit; who was watching and planning while the soldier slept. I do not lose sight of the officer, who deserved all the honor he received. Illinois furnished her full Ishare of these burden-bearers. See what a list of heroes: one general-all the country needed-seven major-generals, eighteen brevet major-generals, forty-five brigadier-generals, and 120 brevet brigadier-generals. See what names they bear to posterity! Two Titans to-day in the Senate: J. A. Logan, who faced 20,000 majority in his own district in Egypt, and carried it all over to the loyal cause; who moved on the field of battle like a thunderbolt; whose voice rings in the Senate with no uncertain sound, who sees the core of things, and calls them by their right names; who first comprehended the situation when restored rebels had seized upon the Government; who adds to the courage of the soldier and the wisdom of the statesman the loyalty of a patriot and the faith of a Christian.

By him stands stout Senator Oglesby, whose victories and wounds do him perpetual honor. Here too, is the present Governor of Illinois, J. L. Beverage, who, in the storm of battle, was wont to say as he rode up and down in the thickest of the fight, "There is a God in Israel ". -a man whom the State is glad to honor. May I pause to name such men as Rawlins, who organized the armies, and secured victory in advance? Governor Palmer, General White General Wallace, General M'Arthur, Colonel Mulligan, and Wil

liam Pitt Kellogg? Party spirit will die, and the future will Surely this list could be continued with satis

vindicate this man.

faction, but I desist.

I am now brought to another name that needs no mention here. I wish to speak with due deliberation, and for the hour lift myself out of the smoke and heat of party politics, up into the pure air and clarified visions of impartial history. Studying the theme from that stand-point which respects only achievements and weighs only results, I stand in the presence of the one supreme military commander of this century, ULYSSES S. GRANT, THE TANNER OF ILLINOIS. History will not forget that this man fought more than a score of great battles, and won more than a score of great victories, before he went to the East to turn the tide there in favor of the Union; that he never turned his back on the foe; that he only, of all our commanders, never lost a battle; that he gained nearly all the great victories that were gained; that he made his way to the supreme command with no aid but his sword, and held it to the end without a blunder or a defeat.

On these facts impartial history will do what we all did when our brothers and sons were with him in the field-give him the first place of honor and confidence. This is no place for party discussion, and I shall not trespass on the proprieties of this hour. This I will say, that, when the annoyances of the day are passed, and posterity studies our sorrows, the great outlines of his administration will not dim his military glory; and his treaty of Washington will be held by the confederated Republics of all lands, gathered in the coming future, as the first great achievement that made their peaceful relations possible-as we now hold the Declaration of Independence.

Nothing is more useless in the work of life than a hiltless sword. It is all edge and metal, with no way to utilize its power. All you can do with it is to hang it up in your Memorial Hall, to await the worship of your grandsons. So it is with ex-Presidents. Full of edge and metal, they lack use. Place them, then, in the Halls of History, and a grateful posterity, inheriting liberties so bravely defended, will venerate each scar, and niche, and rust spot from foeman's blood. Illinois turns from the past to the future, confidenly awaiting that supreme judgment that must place upon the