Labor's Millennium: Christianity Industrial Education and the Founding of the University of Illinois: 124 (Princeton Theological Monograph)

Historians have traditionally interpreted the American land-grant higher-education movement as the result of political and economic forces. Little attention has been given however to any explicit or implicit theological motivations for the movement. This book tells the story of how the Christian belief of many founders of the University of Illinois motivated their educational theory and practice. Constructing a social gospel of labors millennium (their shorthand for Gods kingdom being enhanced through agricultural and mechanical education) they initially proposed that the university would impart a millenarian blessing for the larger society by providing abundant food economic prosperity vocational dignity and a charitable spirit of sacred unity and public service. Rich in primary-source research Smiths account builds a compelling case for at least one such institutions adaptation of an inherited evangelical educational tradition transitioning into a new era of higher learning that has left its mark on university life today.