HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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little progress was made. Twenty-one years later (1827) the first successful attempt to found an advanced school was made by the indomitable Rev. John M. Peck, resulting in the establishment of his Theological Seminary and High School at Rock Springs, St. Clair County, which, in 1831, became the nucleus of Shurtleff College at Upper Alton. In like manner,' Lebanon Seminary, established in 1828, two years later expanded into McKendree College, while instruction began to be given at Illinois College, Jacksonville, in December, 1829, as the outcome of a movement started by a band of young men at Yale College in 1827-these several institutions being formally incorporated by the same act of the Legislature, passed in 1835. (See sketches of these Institutions.)
EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONS.-In 1833 there was held at Vandalia (then the State capital) the first of a series of educational conventions, which were continued somewhat irregularly for twenty years, and whose history is remarkable for the number of those participating in them who afterwards gained distinction in State and National history. At first these conventions were held at the State capital during the sessions of the General Assembly, when the chief actors in them were members of that body and State officers, with a few other friends of education from the ranks of professional or business men. At the convention of 1833, we find, among those participating, the names of Sidney Breese, afterwards a United States Senator and Justice of the Supreme Court; Judge S. D. Lockwood, then of the Supreme Court; W. L. D. Ewing, afterwards acting Governor and United States Senator; O. H. Browning, afterwards United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior; James Hall and John Russell, the most notable writers in the State in their day, besides Dr. J. M. Peck, Archibald Williams, Benjamin Mills, Jesse B. Thomas, Henry Eddy and others, all prominent in their several departments. In a second convention at the same place, nearly two years later, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and Col. John J. Hardin were participants. At Springfield, in 1840, professional and literary men began to take a more prominent part, although the members of the Legislature were present in considerable force. A convention held at Peoria, in 1844,
