a TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



names may never be written high on the scroll of fame, you may never 

 eat and drink with princes, nor dwell in "lordly halls;" yet your deeds 

 sliall never perish. Their influence shall live forever. Although the 

 decree may never go forth that you are to tread halls of senates, and be 

 contaminated with fetid odors of political atmospheres, yet a nobler 

 destiny is yours. By the magic of your power the fields shall clothe 

 themselves in garments of beauty, and the desert shall blossom as the rose. 



It has been said that he who causes two spears of grass to grow where 

 only one grew before, is a public benefactor. The man who plants a tree, 

 provided it is not a soft maple, is nobler than he who taketh a city. His 

 deed shall live after him, bringing joy, and not sorrow. He who, by his 

 art, shall make the earth bring forth her increase in its greatest abund- 

 ance, is a public benefactor. He who shall teach his neighbor how to 

 destroy the army of noxious insects that are preying upon his fruit and 

 his grain, is a public benefactor. The man who shall instruct his fellow 

 men how to make their homes beautiful and attractive, the abodes of 

 comfort and contentment, is the greatest of benefactors. You, Mr. Pres- 

 ident, stand as the representative of a society of such men. We welcome 

 you as public benefactors. We hail you as noble teachers of the people. 

 A higher civilization, a grander culture, a sublimer ideal of a better life, 

 bid you God speed in your unselfish and important work. 



Not many years ago this beautiful State of Illinois was seemingly a 

 vast wilderness. The traveler, in passing from its northern to its southern, 

 from its eastern to its western boundaries, would discover scarcely the 

 semblance of civilization. Only here and there, scattered on the broad 

 open prairies, might be seen the dwellings of the tillers of the soil. How 

 wonderful the change I Where wild nature held unlawful sway, you now 

 behold the footprints of the husbandman. What, let me ask, has wrought 

 this so radical change ? It is culture. What has erected the beautiful 

 homes that are scattered everywhere throughout the length and breadth 

 of our State? The hand of culture. Whence came these cities and 

 villages, where but yesterday the prairie wolf roamed and lived unscared ? 

 By the hand of culture. How came these fields of beauty, burdened with 

 growing corn and waving grain ? By the hand of culture. What has 

 filled our granaries and homes with the comforts and necessaries of life ? 

 It is the industrious hand of culture. 



Twenty years have completed the full measure of their cycles ; twenty 

 times have seed time and harvest come and gone, since this Society had 

 its birth. Who, Mr. President, shall tell the good it has accomplished? 



