USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 38
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thrust into his mouth as a gag and lashed with a dozen or more blows until the blood ran down his little lacerated back." If he could not im- bibe the Christian doctrine in any other way, it was injected into him with the points of the lash.
Mexico did better for education in California than Spain. The school terms were lengthened and the vacation shortened proportionally. Gov- ernor Echeandia, a man hated by the friars, was an enthusiastic friend of education. "He be- lieved in the gratuitous and compulsory educa- tion of rich and poor, Indians and gente de rason alike." He held that learning was the corner-stone of a people's wealth and it was the duty of the government to foster education. When the friars heard of his views "they called upon God to pardon the unfortunate ruler un- able to comprehend how vastly superior a re- ligious education was to one merely secular .* Echeandia made a brave attempt to establish a public school system in the territory. He de- manded of the friars that they establish a school at each mission for the neophytes; they prom- ised, but, with the intention of evading, a show was made of opening schools. Soon it was re- ported that the funds were exhausted and the schools had to close for want of means to sup- port them. Nor was Echeandia more successful with the people. He issued an order to the commanding officers at the presidios to compel parents to send their children to school. The school at Monterey was opened, the alcalde act- ing as schoolmaster. The school furniture con- sisted of one table and the school books were one arithmetic and four primers. The school funds were as meager as the school furniture. Echeandia, unable to contend against the enmity of the friars, the indifference of the parents and the lack of funds, reluctantly abandoned his futile fight against ignorance.
One of the most active and earnest friends of the public schools during the Mexican era was the much abused Governor Micheltorena. He made an earnest effort to establish a public school system in California. Through his efforts schools were established in all the principal
*Bancroft's California Pastoral.
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towns and a guarantee of $500 from the ter- ritorial funds promised to each school. Michel- torena promulgated what might be called the first school law of California. It was a decree issued May 1, 1844, and consisted of ten articles, which prescribed what should be taught in the schools, school hours, school age of the pupils and other regulations. Article 10 named the most holy virgin of Guadalupe as patroness of the schools. Her image was to be placed in each school. But, like all his predecessors, Micheltorena failed; the funds were soon ex- hausted and the schools closed.
Even had the people been able to read there would have been nothing for them to read but religious books. The friars kept vigilant watch that no interdicted books were brought into the country. If any were found they were seized and publicly burned. Castro, Alvarado and Val- lejo were at one time excommunicated for read- ing Rousseau's works, Telemachus and other books on the prohibited list. Alvarado having declined to pay Father Duran some money he owed him because it was a sin to have anything to do with an excommunicated person, and therefore it would be a sin for the father to take money from him, the padre annulled the sen- tence, received the money and gave Alvarado permission to read anything he wished.
During the war for the conquest of California and for some time afterwards the schools were all closed. The wild rush to the gold mines in 1848 carried away the male population. No one would stay at home and teach school for the paltry pay given a schoolmaster. The ayunta- miento of Los Angeles in the winter of 1849-50 appointed a committee to establish a school. After a three months' hunt the committee re- ported "that an individual had just presented himself who, although he did not speak English, yet could he teach the children many useful things; and besides the same person had man- aged to get the refusal of Mrs. Pollerena's house for school purpose." At the next meeting of the ayuntamiento the committee reported that the individual who had offered to teach had left for the mines and neither a school house nor a schoolmaster could be found.
In June, 1850, the ayuntamiento entered into
a contract with Francisco Bustamente, an ex- soldier, "to teach to the children first, second and third lessons and likewise to read script, to write and count and so much as I may be com- petent to teach them orthography and good morals." Bustamente was to receive $60 per month and $20 for house rent. This was the first school opened in Los Angeles after the conquest.
"The first American school in San Francisco and, we believe, in California, was a merely pri- vate enterprise. It was opened by a Mr. Mars- ton from one of the Atlantic states in April, 1847, in a small shanty which stood on the block between Broadway and Pacific streets, west of Dupont street. There he collected some twenty or thirty pupils, whom he continued to teach for almost a whole year, his patrons paying for tui- tion."*
In the fall of 1847 a school house was built on the southwest corner of Portsmouth square, fronting on Clay street. The money to build it was raised by subscription. It was a very mod- est structure-box shaped with a door and two windows in the front and two windows in each end. It served a variety of purposes besides that of a school house. It was a public hall for all kinds of meetings. Churches held service in it. The first public amusements were given in it. At one time it was used for a court room. The first meeting to form a state government was held in it. It was finally degraded to a police office and a station house. For some time after it was built no school was kept in it for want of funds.
On the 21st of February, 1848, a town meet- ing was called for the election of a board of school trustees and Dr. F. Fourguard, Dr. J. Townsend, C. L. Ross, J. Serrini and William H. Davis were chosen. On the 3d of April fol- lowing these trustees opened a school in the school house under the charge of Thomas Douglas, A. M., a graduate of Yale College and an experienced teacher of high reputation. The board pledged him a salary of $1,000 per an- num and fixed a tariff of tuition to aid towards its payment; and the town council, afterwards,
*Annals of San Francisco.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
to make up any deficiency, appropriated to the payment of the teacher of the public school in this place $200 at the expiration of twelve months from the commencement of the school. "Soon after this Mr. Marston discontinued his private school and Mr. Douglas collected some forty pupils."*
The school flourished for eight or ten weeks. Gold had been discovered and rumors were coming thick and fast of fortunes made in a day. A thousand dollars a year looked large to Mr. Douglas when the contract was made, but in the light of recent events it looked rather small. A man in the diggings might dig out $1,000 in a week. So the schoolmaster laid down the pedagogical birch, shouldered his pick and hied himself away to the diggings. In the rush for gold, education was forgotten. December 12, 1848, Charles W. H. Christian reopened the school, charging tuition at the rate of $10. Evi- dently he did not teach longer than it took him to earn money to reach the mines. April 23, 1849, the Rev. Albert Williams, pastor of the First Presbyterian church, obtained the use of the school house and opened a private school, charging tuition. He gave up school teaching to attend to his ministerial duties. In the fall of '49 John C. Pelton, a Massachusetts school- master, arrived in San Francisco and December 26 opened a school with three pupils in the Bap- tist church on Washington street. He fitted up the church with writing tables and benches at his own expense, depending on voluntary con- tributions for his support. In the spring of 1850 he applied to the city council for relief and for his services and that of his wife he received $500 a month till the summer of 1851, when he closed his school.
Col. T. J. Nevins, in June, 1850, obtained rent free the use of a building near the present inter- section of Mission and Second streets for school purposes. He employed a Mr. Samuel New- ton as teacher. The school was opened July 13. The school passed under the supervision of several teachers. The attendance was small at first and the school was supported by con- tributions, but later the council voted an ap-
propriation. The school was closed in 1851. Colonel Nevins, in January, 1851, secured a fifty-vara lot at Spring Valley on the Presidio road and built principally by subscription a large school building, employed a teacher and opened a free school, supported by contributions. The building was afterwards leased to the city to be used for a free school, the term of the lease running ninety-nine years. This was the first school building in which the city had an ownership. Colonel Nevins prepared an ordi- nance for the establishment, regulation and support of free common schools in the city. The ordinance was adopted by the city council September 25, 1851, and was the first ordinance establishing free schools and providing for their maintenance in San Francisco.
A bill to provide for a public school system was introduced in the legislature of 1850, but the committee on education reported that it would be two or three years before any means would become available from the liberal pro- visions of the constitution; in the meantime the persons who had children to educate could do it out of their own pockets. So all action was postponed and the people who had children paid for their tuition or let them run without schooling.
The first school law was passed in 1851. It was drafted mainly by G. B. Lingley, John C. Pelton and the superintendent of public instruc- tion, J. G. Marvin. It was revised and amended by the legislatures of 1852 and 1853. The state school fund then was derived from the sale and rental of five hundred thousand acres of state land; the estates of deceased persons escheated to the state; state poll tax and a state tax of five cents on each $100 of assessed property. Congress in 1853 granted to California the 16th and 36th sections of the public lands for school purposes. The total amount of this grant was six million seven hundred and sixty-five thou- sand five hundred and four acres, of which forty-six thousand and eighty acres were to be deducted for the founding of a state university or college and six thousand four hundred acres for public buildings.
The first apportionment of state funds was made in 1854. The amount of state funds for
* Annals of San Francisco.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
that year was $52,961. The county and mu- nicipal school taxes amounted to $157,702. These amounts were supplemented by rate bills to the amount of $42,557. In 1856 the state fund had increased to $69,961, while rate bills had decreased to $28,619. That year there were thirty thousand and thirty-nine children of school age in the state, of these only about fifteen thousand were enrolled in the schools.
In the earlier years, following the American conquest, the schools were confined almost en- tirely to the cities. The population in the coun- try districts was too sparse to maintain a school. The first school house in Sacramento was built in 1849. It was located on I street. C. H. T. Palmer opened school in it in August. It was supported by rate bills and donations. He gath- ered together about a dozen pupils. The school was soon discontinued. Several other parties in succession tried school keeping in Sacra- mento, but did not make a success of it. It was not until 1851 that a permanent school was es- tablished. A public school was taught in Mon- terey in 1849 by Rev. Willey. The school was kept in Colton Hall. The first public school house in Los Angeles was built in 1854. Hugh Overns taught the first free school there in 1850.
The amount paid for teachers' salaries in 1854 was $85,860; in 1906 it reached $5,666,045. The total expenditures in 1854 for school purposes amounted to $275,606; in 1906 to $8,727,008. The first high school in the state was established. in San Francisco in 1856. In 1906 there were one hundred and ninety high schools, with an attendance of eighteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine students. Four millions of dol- lars were invested in high school buildings, fur- niture and grounds, and one thousand teachers were employed in these schools.
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC.
This institution was chartered in August, 1851, as the California Wesleyan College, which name was afterwards changed by act of the leg- islature to that it now bears. The charter was obtained under the general law of the state as it then was, and on the basis of a subscription of $27,500 and a donation of some ten acres of land adjacent to the village of Santa Clara. A
school building was erected in which the pre- paratory department was opened in May, 1852, under the charge of Rev. E. Banister as prin- cipal, aided by two assistant teachers, and be- fore the end of the first session had over sixty pupils. Near the close of the following year another edifice was so far completed that the male pupils were transferred to it, and the Fe- male Collegiate Institute, with its special course of study, was organized and continued in the ! original building. In 1854 the classes of the college proper were formed and the requisite arrangement with respect to president, faculty, and course of study made. In 1858 two young men, constituting the first class, received the de- gree of A. B., they being the first to receive that honor from any college in California. In 1865 the board of trustees purchased the Stock- ton rancho, a large body of land adjoining the town of Santa Clara. This was subdivided into lots and small tracts and sold at a profit. By this means an endowment was secured and an excellent site for new college building obtained.
THE COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA.
The question of founding a college or uni- versity in California had been discussed early in 1849, before the assembling of the constitutional convention at San José. The originator of the idea was the Rev. Samuel H. Willey, D. D., of the Presbyterian church. At that time he was stationed at Monterey. The first legislature passed a bill providing for the granting of col- lege charters. The bill required that application should be made to the supreme court, which was to determine whether the property possessed by the proposed college was worth $20,000, and whether in other respects a charter should be granted. A body of land for a college site had been offered by James Stokes and Kimball H. Dimmick to be selected from a large tract they owned on the Guadalupe river, near San José. When application was made for a college char- ter the supreme court refused to give a charter to the applicants on the plea that the land was unsurveyed and the title not fully deter- mined.
The Rev. Henry Durant, who had at one time been a tutor in Yale College, came to California
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
i11 IS53 to engage in teaching. At a meeting of the presbytery of San Francisco and the Con- gregational Association of California held in Nevada City in May, 1853, which Mr. Durant attended, it was decided to establish an acad- emy at Oakland. There were but few houses in Oakland then and the only communication with San Francisco was by means of a little steamer that crossed the bay two or three times a day. A house was obtained at the corner of Broadway and Fifth street and the academy opened with three pupils. A site was selected for the school, which, when the streets were opened, proved to be four blocks, located be- tween Twelfth and Fourteenth, Franklin and Harrison streets. The site of Oakland at that time was covered with live oaks and the sand was knee deep. Added to other discourage- ments, titles were in dispute and squatters were seizing upon the vacant lots. A building was begun for the school, the money ran out and the property was in danger of seizure on a me- chanics' lien, but was rescued by the bravery and resourcefulness of Dr. Durant.
In 1855 the College of California was char- tered and a search begun for a permanent site. A number were offered at various places in the state. The trustees finally selected the Berkeley site, a tract of one hundred and sixty acres on Strawberry creek near Oakland, opposite the Golden Gate. The college school in Oakland was flourishing. A new building, Academy Hall, was erected in 1858. A college faculty was organized. The Rev. Henry Durant and the Rev. Martin Kellogg were chosen pro- fessors and the first college class was organized in June, 1860. The college classes were taught in the buildings of the college school, which were usually called the College of California. The college classes were small and the endow- ment smaller. The faculty met with many dis- couragements. It became evident that the in- stitution could never become a prominent one in the educational field with the limited means of support it could command. In 1863 the idea of a state university began to be agitated. A bill was passed by the state legislature in 1866, de- voting to the support of a narrow polytechnical school, the federal land grants to California for
the support of agricultural schools and a college of mechanics. The trustees of the College of California proposed in 1867 to transfer to the state the college site at Berkeley, opposite the Golden Gate, together with all the other assets remaining after the debts were paid, on con- dition that the state would build a University of California on the site at Berkeley, which should be a classical and technological college.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
A bill for the establishing of a state university was introduced in the legislature March 5, 1868, by Hon. John W. Dwinelle of Alameda county. After some amendments it was finally passed, March 21, and on the 27th of the same month a bill was passed making an appropriation for the support of the institution.
The board of regents of the university was organized June 9, 1868, and the same day Gen. George B. McClellan was elected president of the university, but at that time being engaged in building Stevens Battery at New York he de- clined the honor. September 23, 1869, the scholastic exercises of the university were be- gun in the buildings of the College of Califor- nia in Oakland and the first university class was graduated in June, 1873. The new buildings of the university at Berkeley were occupied in September, 1873. Prof. John Le Conte was act- ing president for the first year. Dr. Henry Durant was chosen to fill that position and was succeeded by D. C. Gilman in 1872. The corner- stone of the Agricultural College, called the South Hall, was laid in August, 1872, and that of the North Hall in the spring of 1873.
The university, as now constituted, consists of Colleges of Letters, Social Science, Agricul- ture, Mechanics, Mining, Civil Engineering. Chemistry and Commerce, located at Berkeley; the Lick Astronomical Department at Mount Hamilton; and the professional and affiliated colleges in San Francisco, namely, the Hastings College of Law, the Medical Department, the Post-Graduate Medical Department, the Col- iege of Dentistry and Pharmacy, the Veterinary Department and the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. The total value of the property belonging to the university at this time is about $5,000,000
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and the endowment funds nearly $3,000,000. The total income in 1900 was $475,254.
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY.
"When the intention of Senator Stanford to found a university in memory of his lamented son was first announced, it was expected from the broad and comprehensive views which he was known to entertain upon the subject, that his plans, when formed, would result in no ordi- nary college endowment or educational scheme, but when these plans were laid before the people their magnitude was so far beyond the most ex- travagant of public anticipation that all were as- tonished at the magnificence of their aggregate, the wide scope of their detail and the absolute grandeur of their munificence. The brief his- tory of California as an American state com- prises much that is noble and great, but nothing in that history will compare in grandeur with this act of one of her leading citizens. The records of history may be searched in vain for a parallel to this gift of Senator Stanford to the state of his adoption. * By this act Senator Stanford will not only immortalize the memory of his son, but will erect for himself a monument more enduring than brass or marble, for it will be enshrined in the hearts of succeed- ing generations for all time to come."*
Senator Stanford, to protect the endowments he proposed to make, prepared a bill, which was passed by the legislature, approved by the gov- ernor and became a law March 9, 1885. It is entitled "An act to advance learning, the arts and sciences and to promote the public welfare, by providing for the conveyance, holding and protection of property, and the creation of trusts for the founding, endowment, erection and maintenance within this state of universities, colleges, schools, seminaries of learning, me- chanical institutes, museums and galleries of art."
Section 2 specifies how a grant for the above purposes may be made: "Any person desiring in his lifetime to promote the public welfare by founding, endowing and having maintained within this state a university, college, school,
seminary of learning, mechanical institute, mu- seum or gallery of art or any or all thereof, may, to that end, and for such purpose, by grant in writing, convey to a trustee, or any number of trustees named in such grant (and their suc- cessors), any property, real or personal, belong- ing to such person, and situated or being within this state; provided, that if any such person be married and the property be community prop- erty, then both husband and wife must join in such grant." The act contains twelve sections. After the passage of the act twenty-four trus- tees were appointed. Among them were judges of the supreme and superior courts, a United States senator and business men in various lines.
Among the lands deeded to the university by Senator Stanford and his wife were the Palo Alto estate, containing seventy-two hundred acres. This ranch had been devoted principally to the breeding and rearing of thoroughbred horses. On this the college buildings were to be erected. The site selected was near the town of Palo Alto, which is thirty-four miles south from San Francisco on the railroad to San José, in Santa Clara county.
Another property donated was the Vina rancho, situated at the junction of Deer creek with the Sacramento river in Tehama county. It consisted of fifty-five thousand acres, of which thirty-six thousand were planted to vines and orchard and the remainder used for grain growing and pasture.
The third rancho given to the support of the university was the Gridley ranch, containing about twenty-one thousand acres. This was sit- uated in Butte county and included within its limits some of the richest wheat growing lands in the state. At the time it was donated its as- sessed value was $1,000,000. The total amount of land conveyed to the university by deed of trust was eighty-three thousand two hundred acres.
The name selected for the institution was Le- land Stanford Junior University. The corner- stone of the university was laid May 14, 1887, by Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford. The site of the college buildings is about one mile west from Palo Alto.
* Monograph of Leland Stanford Junior University. 16
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS
California supports eight State Normal Schools for the education and training of teachers for her public schools. The order and the date of the establishment of these schools are as follows: San Jose (first located in San Francisco), 1862; Los Angeles, 1881 ; Chico, 1889; San Diego, 1897 ; San Francisco, 1899; Santa Barbara, 1909; Fresno, 1911; Arcata, 1913. The first Normal for the training of teachers was a private institution con- ducted by Prof. George W. Minns. It was estab- lished at San Francisco in 1857. It was discon- tinued in 1863, at the organization of the first State Normal, Minns becoming principal.
The Legislature of 1862 passed an act authoriz- ing the establishment of a State Normal School "at San Francisco or such other place as the Legislature may hereafter direct." The school was opened in San Francisco in 1863 with an enrollment of five students and a course of study of only one year beyond the grade of the gram- mar schools. In 1871 the school was removed to San Jose, where a site had been donated. The first building was destroyed by fire. A new site was secured and a large and commodious building erected.
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