“Yale Band” - American Education

An informal association of seven theology students at Yale College who, before their ordination in 1830, pledged to devote their lives to “beating the drums for” and establishing formal education in the West. ASA TURNER, the Massachusetts-born leader of the “band,” established a church in Quincy, Illinois, the same year and, with fellow band member Julian Monson Sturtevant (1805–86), became a founding trustee of Illinois College. He devoted the next eight years to educational causes in Illinois before moving to Iowa where he assisted an “Iowa Band” that had formed at Andover (Massachusetts) Theological Seminary to help bring public education to Iowa. The Iowa Band led the campaign to establish public schools in Iowa and founded Iowa College, which later merged with Grinnell College.