USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 3
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Governor Roberts's idea, in which he was strongly supported by influential members of the legislature and by able writers of the press, was to start the University and let it develop itself with such aid as the State could afford or saw proper to extend, without waiting for some indefinite period for vast resources to be accumulated to inaugurate it on some grand plan, which might never be practicable. He favored legalizing the one hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars in State bonds before referred to belonging to the Univer- sity, but which had been declared invalid, and urged that two million acres be added to the one million aeres of land previously donated by ASHBEL SMITH. the State for the University's endowment, and, further, personally appeared before the State teachers' convention at Mexia in 1880, to prevail upon it to consider the matter of devising a plan to put the institution at once into practical operation. His plan was subsequently formulated at a second meeting of the association, which at the governor's instance met at Aus-
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tin, and through a committee of the association a bill was prepared and submitted to the legislature for organizing the University. This is the bill which, with some changes credited mainly to Representative Hutcheson, of Harris, and Senator Ter- rell, of Travis, is said to be the one finally enacted, under which the University is now being operated. As finally drafted, the bill was probably based, for some of its provisions at least, upon the draft presented by the teachers' committee, one feature of which, however, differed from the enacted bill, by providing for a presi- dent of the University, and another opposed the erection of " dormitories, profes- sors' houses, and iness halls." The University regents, a few years ago, resolved to petition the legislature for authority to appoint such an officer, but no further action seems to have been taken in the matter.1 As to the question of co-education of the sexes, Governor Roberts states that the suggestion was made by him to the teachers' convention at the same time he advised the establishment of normal schools. The "bonds of doubtful validity," which he wanted to be legalized, were issued in lieu of United States bonds, donated by the State to the University in 1858, and held to be invalid during the Republican administration of the State on suspicion that they had been used for raising funds in aid of the "war of the rebel- lion." Comptroller Bledsoe had classed them as "worthless," but Comptroller Darden referred them to the legislature, and they were validated in 1883 by legisla- tive decision that they had been used for frontier protection from the Indians and Mexicans, and therefore were not liable to the inhibition on account of the Civil War.
As has been noticed, in 1839 the Congress of the republic of Texas provided for locating the capital of the republic, to be named the "City of Austin," and for selecting a university site on the same grounds ; and further set apart fifty leagues (two hundred and twenty-one thousand four hundred acres) of land for the " estab- lishment and endowment of two colleges or universities." The first Constitution of the State, that of 1845, made no mention or provision in the matter, nor was there any material effort made by the legislature to establish a university, until, in 1855, a bill to provide for the "erection and support of a State university" was introduced and warmly discussed in the sixth legislature. The issue was whether there should be one or more universities, or, differently expressed, any university at all, and what action was proper for such an enterprise. Appropriations ranging from three hundred thousand to one million dollars were proposed. One member, Mr. Russell, distrusted the propriety of the movement for lack of transportation, and argued that they should first provide for internal improvements. Mr. Flanagan contended that "the time had come when the State could afford to support two universities such as the honor of this great State demanded." Mr. Bryan urged the economics of a university, " to unite the people and save the great expense of educating our children among those who were enemies to our institutions." Sena- tor Maverick went so far as to argue that if we got a university it would soon have to be "abated as a nuisance ;" that " the whole thing was wrong ;" that we did not want "either one or two universities ;" that " the schools must first be established for the general wants of the people before we advance to academies and univer- sities ;" that "if a university was put on foot when not demanded or properly con-
' A president was provided for in 1895, and George T. Winston was elected to that office in 1896 .- EDITOR.
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stituted, it would be sure to set itself up as a secret, malignant enemy of the people ;" that "it was curious that we must begin with a university, -so nice, so fine, and so religious!" Mr. Armstrong opposed colleges or universities as "hot-beds of immo- rality, profligacy, and licentiousness," and " having a tendency to create aristocracy and class legislation among the people," and preferred a "practical and efficient system of common schools, in which the exercises shall alternate between labor and study, so that the body of the student may be developed in proportion to the advancement of the mind."
The legislature was sharply divided between the single university and the dual plan, and at first the majority was evidently agreed that it was the proper time to act, if a university was needed, while there were ample funds remaining in the treas- ury from the five million dollars in United States bonds paid to the State in 1852 for the Santa Fé purchase. A substitute bill, however, was offered appropriating one million dollars of these bonds as an additional fund for the common schools, instead of for the University, and finally the whole matter was referred to the com-
MEDICAL. COLLEGE AT GALVESTON.
mittee on education and went over without final action during that session. The subject was revived in the seventh legislature, in 1857, when the debate was again interesting as an exhibition of the temper of the legislature and the sentiment of the people at that time. Mr. Kittrell, chairman of the House Committee on Education, spoke at length in support of a report of the committee recommending " the estab- lishment of a State university as soon as practicable," and stated that he had just learned that the Senate committee had recommended a liberal appropriation in land and money for this object, and that there was still in the State treasury five hundred thousand dollars unexpended balance of the United States bonds not needed for any other purpose.
Mr. Jennings, who favored the report, took occasion to argue that the medical department should be located at Galveston or Houston, and that the literary de- partment should not be at Austin, adding : "I have three sons, and I say it in the presence of God and my country, that I would kt them be uneducated stock-raisers and mule-drivers before, in the effort to become well educated, they should learn
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the accomplishments of Congress Avenue." He wanted the literary department fixed on some "virgin league of land."
Mr. Norton protested against taking the land and money of the people,-four hundred thousand dollars and four hundred and forty-two thousand eight hundred acres of land,-as the Senate proposed, to establish one mammoth university for the benefit of a privileged class, that the children of the rich may be educated and those of the poor neglected. He would favor appropriating the entire fund con- templated for the University to the common schools of the State. The speaker of the house, Mr. Locke, did not believe the people were ready for a university, and opposed its establishment. Several members spoke in favor of having but one, and deprecated the proposition of two universities as "rival institutions that would foster sectional feeling and discord among the people." It was even argued that the institution was antidemocratic, -not for the greatest good to the greatest num- ber ; that it would be a magnificent failure and an intolerable burden upon the people ; that its establishment would be legislating for a special class, and that class the favorites of fortune, who were the only ones that could and would take advan- tage of such an institution, and who were able to take care of themselves ; that it would not be right, in case there should ever be a division of the State, for one section alone to possess this mammoth enterprise, reared and maintained by the common blood and treasure of the whole State ; that the question should be more thoroughly canvassed before the people and their voices be heard, as they are the ones to furnish the money to build the University ; and that the common-school system should be placed upon a firm basis before "vesting the people's money and domain in any enterprise of doubtful expediency."
The bill relating to the establishment of a State University came up again in the legislature in 1858, when the pending question in the house being its final passage, and the ayes and noes being demanded, several members asked to be ex- cused from voting. The constitutional objection, too, was raised that the bill em- braced the substance of a proposition which had been rejected. It finally prevailed, however, by a vote of forty-eight yeas to thirteen nays, and, as enacted into law, appropriated the fifty leagues of land set apart for the "establishment and endow- ment of two colleges or universities" to the "establishment and maintenance of the University of Texas," and also set apart and appropriated to the same purpose "one section of land out of every ten sections which have heretofore been or may hereafter be surveyed and reserved for the use of the State under the provisions of the act of January 30, 1854, entitled 'An Act to Encourage the Construction of Railroads in Texas by Donations of Land,' and under the provisions of any general or special law heretofore passed granting lands to railroad companies, and under the provisions of the act of February 11, 1854, gramting lands to the Galveston and Brazos Navigation Company." These provisions were never observed on account of the intervention of the Civil War ; but, on the contrary, the main grant of the "tenth sections" was annulled by the Constitution of 1876, which reappropriated all the grants before made except the tenth sections, for which it made only partial restitution by substituting one million acres to the University. An act of April 20, 1883, made further, but still far from complete, restoration by a donation of another million acres to "the University and its branches, including the branch for colored
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youths," giving at the same time and in the same act one million acres to the free schools. Not only was the University thus deprived of a large portion of its en- dowment, but in several instances large amounts of its funds had been imperiously diverted by the legislature, and only in one instance was such spoliation prevented by executive action in the University's behalf. This was in 1861, when Gov- ernor Lubbock vetoed a bill appropriating University funds for the mileage and per diem of the members of the ninth legislature, An act of the same session of 1883 legalized $134, 472. 26 in bonds issued to the University by the State, but previously held to be invalid, and a certificate of the comptroller of the State's indebtedness to the University for $10, 300.41, and further provided that the sum of $256, 272.59 of that half of the proceeds of the sale of bonds not belonging to the common-school fund shall be transferred to the University fund in payment of said certificate and bonds, and the accrued interest on said bonds to the first day of August, 1883, of which $45, 104. 22 belong to the available University fund. after which said certifi- cate and bonds shall be fully discharged.
The University suffered great loss to its endowment not only on account of . the large quantity of lands which it owned in excess of the million acres substituted by the Constitution of 1876, but on account, also, of the greatly inferior quality of the substituted lands. Alluding to these facts, Judge Terrell, in a speech in the State Senate in April, 1882, on the bill then pending to set aside two million acres of land for the University, said : "Had that law (act of 1858) not been disturbed by the Constitution of 1876, the University would now own three million two hundred thousand (3,200,000) acres of land, instead of having to apply to the legislature for a donation, which in effect would be but so much restitution of its original endow- ment. At the very time when the effort was made to despoil it of its endowment by a clause in the Constitution of 1876 (the effect of which those who made that instrument could not foresee) there was then due to the University one million seven hundred thousand (1,700,000) acres of land ; but by the Constitution of 1876 all the alternate sections reserved by the State out of grants to the railroads, including every tenth section given to the University, were appropriated for public free schools, and one million acres only were given for the endowment of the University." The bill to appropriate the two million acres to the University did not pass, but was substi- tuted in the eighteenth legislature by the act of April 20, 1883, which, as before stated, appropriated instead only one million acres to the University and one million to the free schools.
The opposition in the legislature, even at this period and later, was almost as remarkable as it was in the sixth and seventh legislatures, but more. perhaps, on account of favoritism for the Agricultural and Mechanical College than from hostility to the University. At one session, for instance, one member (since a strong friend of the University ), while a vote was being taken for an appropriation for the college from the University fund, could not refrain from exclaiming, "Remember the farmers' college!" meaning the "A. and M. College," as it is generally briefly designated. Another member, who was more a partisan of the college than a friend to the University, argued that the legislature could "starve the University out of existence or demolish it by tearing down its walls and levelling it to the ground ;" and in the twentieth legislature, in I888, when the simple question involved in
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discussion was the repayment of University funds used by the State for other than the purposes of the University, a proposition which was so plain to the Senate as to induce that body to pass its bill appropriating over two hundred thousand dollars to repay the money with interest, a member of the House contended that "the State did not owe the University a cent," it being, he argued, "a case of justified diver- sion of funds intended for one purpose, but changed to another by subsequent enactment," -an argument which seemed to have its effect, at least in the House, which voted a " loan" to the University, giving the appro- priation that designation, and conveniently disposing of the claims in lump to avoid admitting that they constituted any debt of the State, and yet requiring that the loan shall be "in full settlement and satisfaction of all the claims of the University." As thus expressed, it was subsequently enacted into law in the general appropriation bill of the special session. The loan had been sug- JOHN SEALY. gested by Representative Prendergast, and was accepted by Senator Simkins, who was at the time one of the University regents, as being the only concession likely to be obtained.
Senator Pfeuffer, while president of the board of directors of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, was the author of a scheme for the establishment of "dis- trict colleges" as " feeders for a university," and in 1884 he introduced a bill ac- cordingly, to provide for their support from the University fund, which, had it passed, would have scattered and depleted the fund, and, in the opinion of the advocates of the University, instead of " feeding" would have " bled the University to death." The bill was defeated at a subsequent session of the legislature, and after its defeat the author of it made a remarkable speech as a matter of personal privilege in the Senate, March 31, 1885, in which he undertook to disparage the University as compared with the College, but in a vein of satire that would apply to any institution of mere fanciful methods or imperfect means of instruction, and was, in fact, if applicable to either, as pertinent to the College as to the University. The University, however, had been in operation long enough for the people to realize something of its advantages, and that it was not " district colleges as feeders," but the direct benefits of the University itself, that were needed for the superior education of their children at home. In the grand march of an empire State in political importance they felt that Texas should keep step to the music of educational progress in other States, and hold her sons and daughters at home, by bringing the University of Texas fairly into competition by its innate excellence with the great universities of the country. It was time, as Governor Roberts had expressed it, that "Texas, like other States, should rear its own men in every stature of manhood, of intelligence, and of culture, according to their capacities and upon its own soil, and thereby engender and preserve an intense
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homogeneousness in the character of its population, which must result in the con- centrated power and elevated prosperity of the whole body politic in association."
For years prior to this, a number of prominent men in and out of the legisla- ture, among them Ashbel Smith, John Cardwell, S. H. Darden, A. W. Terrell, and General Wigfall, some of them already mentioned, as well as Governors Coke, Hubbard, Lubbock, Throckmorton, Roberts, and some of the earlier State execu- tives, and others in authority or of special influence, had more or less favored the establishment of the University .- some of them, indeed, while it was a mere concept in the public mind, or, at best, an uncertain quantity in political estimation. Gov- ernor Ireland seemed to favor the establishment of several State colleges and then a University.
The organization of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, in 1875, long before the University got into operation, in 1883, and as a branch of the University,
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JOHN SEALY HOSPITAL AT GALVESTON.
but under a separate board of control, created considerable and repented friction in legislation, on account of difference between the directors of the College and regents of the University, due to the efforts of the latter to prevent what they regarded as unreasonable appropriations for the College from the available resources of the Uni- versity. This feeling was not even measurably mollified till 1891, when the con- trolling bodies of the hitherto and still separately managed institutions joined in a mutual appeal to the twenty-second legislature for desired appropriations for the College and the University. As its organization stands, the College is still managed independently of any special supervision of the University regents. Its catalogues of students are published separately from those of the University, but as "the technical branch of the University."
The title and purposes of the University of Texas were expressed in the Con- stitution of 1876, which declared that "the legislature shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the maintenance, support, and direction of a University of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled 'The University of
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Texas,' for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences, including an agricultural and mechanical department."
Despite all obstacles retarding its organization, the University finally got into operation, not under the acts of 1858 and 1866, but under the provisions of the Constitution of 1876, abridging as that did the landed donations to the University, and the act of March 30, 1881, and subsequent legislation, up to the date of its prac- tical inauguration by temporary use of rooms in the State capitol, in September, 1883, till the University's building was sufficiently completed for occupancy, January 1, 1884.
In 1866, Governor Pease appointed, as the law then required and designated them, "Ten Administrators of the University of Texas." The appointees were Charles S. West, George B. Erath, Henry F. Gillette, William G. Webb, Robert Bechern, P. W. Kittrell, Gustave Schleicher, William S. Glass, J. W. Ferris, and F. S. Stockdale. The number was subsequently re- duced to eight, and in 1872 Governor Davis appointed, as the board, James H. Raymond, S. Mussina, C. R. Johns, M. A. Taylor, Ham- ilton Stuart, S. G. Newton, E. G. Benners, and J. R. Morris. In 1873 Governor Davis ap- pointed a new board, consisting of Edward Degener, James H. Starr, A. II. Bryant, George WV. Smyth, James W. Talbot, John W. Harris, Hamilton Stuart, and John C. Raymond.
The "Board of Eight University Re- gents," as the law subsequently designated them, was the one authorized by the University Act of 1881, and was appointed by Governor Roberts and confirmed by the Senate, as fol- lows : Thomas J. Devine, James W. Throck- THOMAS D. WOOTEN, M. D. morton, Richard B. Hubbard, Ashbel Smith, James H. Starr, A. N. Edwards, James H. Bell, and Smith Ragsdale. Dr. Ashbel Smith was chosen president and Regent Edwards secretary at the first meeting of the board, held November 14, ISSI, in Austin. Dr. Smith held his position to the time of his death, January 21, 1886, when he was succeeded by Dr. Thomas D. Wooten, who has been unanimously re-elected each year since that date. Mr. Edwards remained secretary of the board for a short while, and was succeeded by Mr. A. P. Wooldridge, who, during his long service which followed, was about equally active with the regents in getting the University organized by devoting attention to the details of the work so necessary for success. He resigned the secretaryship in June, 1894, to take effect the following September, and J. J. Lane, of Austin, was elected to succeed him. Among the gentlemen who were successively appointed to fill vacancies as they occurred in the regency up to the present time were : T. M. . Harwood, Thomas D. Wooten, M. L. Crawford, A. T. Mckinney, E. J. Simkins, George F. Moore, B. E. Hadra, George T. Todd, Seth Shepard, 1 .. C. Alexander, George W. Brackenridge. A. J. Rose, T. C. Thompson, W. L. Prather, F. W. Ball, Robert F. Cowart, and Amory R. Starr.
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Dr. Wooten, as president of the board since 1886, and as the only member resident at the University, has been particularly zealous and instrumental in its suc- cess and advancement. It is not too much to say that to his labors, fidelity, and loyal devotion the University owes more than to any other individual regent who has served on the board ; and, indeed, more than to any other one man in Texas.
Regents Smith, Harwood, Simkins, Clark, Todd, and Shepard and Secretary Wooldridge were particularly useful, on account of their early and continued mem- bership in the board, in pressing the claims of the University before the legislature. The new members, Brackenridge, Thompson, Prather, Ball, Cowart, and Starr, were also commendably earnest in their work ; and Mr. Brackenridge has been noted for his individual liberality in gifts to the University. Other appointees either did not accept or served but a short time. Mr. Ragsdale was a regent only about a year, on account of his election as proctor of the Uni- versity. Messrs. Simkins, Mckinney, and Todd were at different times members of the legisla- ture, and in that capacity did good service in the University's behalf.
The location of the University, required by the act of ISSI to be made by a vote of the people, was a matter of great competition and heated controversy all over the State, resulting in fixing the main establishment, including the Academic and Law Departments, at Austin, and the medical branch at Galveston, where the Medical College has lately been organized. Austin was also chosen, as the law required, by a vote of the people for the branch (not yet organized) for the education of the colored youth of the State, and the Agricultural and A. P. WOOLDRIDGE. Mechanical College at Bryan had already been designated in the Constitution as a branch of the University. Thus were the relations of the University and its several branches established.
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