100 Early Work in North America 



at the nearby county seat of Rockford and earned most of his way 

 through. Twenty-six years old when he graduated from the State 

 Normal University, he began to serve two years as superintendent 

 of the Urbana public schools; and in 1867 Major John Wesley 

 Powell, appointed to the chair of natural history and geology of 

 the Illinois Industrial University, selected Burrill to accompany 

 him as botanist of his first expedition to the Colorado Rocky 

 Mountains. 



His teacher in botany had been Dr. J. A. Sewall who was also 

 curator of the museum of the State Natural History Society at 

 Normal. Dr. George Vasey, who in 1872 became botanist of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, was presiding officer 

 of this society the year Burrill graduated from college. Two other 

 members were Dr. B. D. Walsh, state entomologist, and Professor 

 Jonathan B. Turner of the state university to whom often has 

 been accredited a role of leadership in securing enactment of the 

 Morrill Act of 1862. BurriU's " interest in systematic botany stim- 

 ulated by contact with these men," Dr. Hottes has said,^^ "no 

 doubt was responsible for the collection and identification of the 

 local flora of Champaign county, made while he was superin- 

 tendent of the Urbana Public Schools. This collection, together 

 with a small part of that of the Powell Colorado expedition, 

 formed the nucleus of the present University [of Illinois] 

 herbarium." 



Powell's first Colorado expedition proving the need of a further 

 exploration and survey of the Colorado River of the West, the 

 Major chose this over a career of teaching and Burrill received in 

 1869 his appointment as assistant professor of natural history at 

 the university. His first appointment in 1868 was to teach algebra 

 but within a few months his subject was changed to natural 

 history and botany; and by 1870 he was promoted to professor of 

 botany and horticulture.^" 



Eugene Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture of the 

 University of Illinois from 1895 until 1922, and closely associated 

 with Burrill, has written that he was a man 



of the Darwin type, indeed he resembled him closely in many of his 

 features. He had the same attitude toward new facts and possibilities. 

 He was essentially university-minded, and as vice-president and for a time 



"^ Op. cit., 6. " J. T. Barrett, op. at. 



