USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 4
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The corner-stone of the University was laid with imposing formalities, Novem- ber 17, 1882, at Austin, in the presence of several thousand spectators, many of them from distant parts of the State. Honorable Ashbel Smith, president of the regents, delivered an address, which was followed by appropriate remarks by Governor Roberts and Attorney-General McLeary.
The Academic and Law Departments having been already organized by the regents, the University was formally opened in the main University building, Sep- tember 15, 1883. in presence of a large audience of citizens of Austin and other places in the State. As on the previous occasion, Dr. Smith was the principal speaker, and was followed in addresses by Dr. Mallet, chairman of the University faculty ; Governor Ireland, and others. An interesting feature of the occasion was the presentation, in appropriate terms by Mr. Dudley G. Wooten, of a bust of ev- Governor Roberts, tendered to the University by the artist, Elizabet Ney.
VOL. II .-- 29
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
The members of the faculty, who were all present, were Professors J. W. Mal- let (chairman), Leslie Waggener, William Le Roy Broun, M. W. Humphreys, R. L. Dabney, and H. Tallichet, of the Academic Department, and O. M. Roberts and R. S. Gould, of the Law Department, both of whom had been chief justices of the Supreme Court of Texas. Among the prominent gentlemen who were not appli- cants, but were solicited to accept chairs in the faculty, were Judge Cooley, of Michi- gan ; Professor Le Conte, of California, and Professor W. T. Harris, since United States commissioner of education, each at a salary of four thousand dollars.
The system of instruction adopted in the University is a combination of what is known, with reference to regular or special courses, as the elective and class nicthods. The four class distinctions-freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior- represent four years' study in the Academic Department. There are three courses, leading to separate degrees in arts, letters, and science ; and four special courses, directed mainly to engineering, to chemistry, to geology, and to physics, and tend- ing to the same degree as the general course in science. There are also post- graduate courses. The degrees awarded are those usually given by American universities, with the exception that no honorary degrees are conferred. The sys- tem of distinct schools gives students the advantage of measurably directing their studics into channels pertaining to their intended avocations or professional pursuits. A number of fellowships have been established by the regents, entitling students to whom they are awarded to a salary each of three hundred dollars while assisting to teach as " fellows" in the University.
The University, as required by the law under which it was organized, is open to male and female students alike and is conducted on the simple co-educational plan wherein the students of both sexes attend together in the class and lecture rooms without any special separate provision being made for either, further than the selec- tion of a lady member of the faculty as adviser and guardian of the young ladies, - a position which is very satisfactorily filled by Mrs. H. M. Kirby, of Austin.
A popular step taken by the regents, at the suggestion of the faculty, is the provision for correlating the University with the public schools by admitting gradu- ates of the schools without special examination at the University when the appli- cants are from approved schools. This action had a tendency to better feeling between the friends of the free schools and the University.
The annual catalogues of the University show the following attendance of students from the beginning :-
Sessions.
Academic.
Law Department. Medical Department.
Total.
ISS3-S4
166
52
218
1884-85
152
55
207
ISS5-86
J38
60
198
1886-87
170
73
243
ISS7-SS
176
73
. .
2.49
ISSS-Sg
IS7
90
.
277
ISS9-90
230
78
.
308
1890-91
201
76
2So
1891-92
273
92
23
388
1892-93
251
77
25
353
1893-94
249
106
127
482
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LANE-THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
The attendance of young lady students varied from about forty to sixty each session until the establishment of the School of Pedagogy, in 1891, served to in- crease the number to about one hundred on account of the large attendance of lady teachers as students.
The catalogues of the Agricultural and Mechanical College being published separately from those of the University, the attendance at the College is not in- cluded in the above list. If added, it would swell the registry of matriculates in the University and all its branches for the session of 1893-94 to an aggregate of seven hundred and ninety-four students.
The following gentlemen have filled chairs as professors, or associate or assist- ant professors, during various periods, in the University :---
First faculty, elected. in 1883 : J. W. Mallet, Leslie Waggener, William Le Roy Broun, M. W. Humphreys, R. L. Dabney, and H. Tallichet in the Academic Department, and Oran M. Roberts and Robert S. Gould in the Law Department.
Elected in 1884 : In the Academic De- partment, George Bruce Halsted, James F. Ilarrison, and Edgar Everhart. In 1885, Alexander Macfarlane and Alvin V. Lane. In 18SS, J. R. S. Sterrett, George P. Garrison, Thomas U. Taylor, Robert T. Hill, and W. W. Fontaine. In 1889. Frederick W. Simonds and Thomas Fitzhugh. In ISyo, Morgan Callaway, Jr., and Walter Lefevre. In 1891. Sylvester Primer and (in the School of Peda- gogy, organized in 1891) Joseph Baldwin. LESLIE WAGGENER. (The organization of a school of pedagogy in the University was first suggested in 1887, in an address by Professor Jacob Bickler, of Austin, president of the Texas Teachers' Association, which convened in Dallas. )
In 1892 the following were elected : In the Law Department, Benjamin H. Bassett ; in the Academic Department, Harold N. Fowler, Charles L. Edwards, and (ad interim ) Edwin W. Fay ; and in 1893 the following : In the Academic. Department, William J. Battle ; in the Law Department, Thomas S. Miller and R. L. Batts, and, as law-lecturers, John W. Stayton, R. R. Gaines, J. L. Henry, and Thomas J. Brown, justices of the Supreme Court of Texas, who performed the service gratuitously.
Professor Bassett was about to assume the duties of his chair, but died soon after his election, in consequence of fital injuries resulting from a fall on the steps of his hotel in Austin. In 1894 several important changes were made in the faculty on account of some of the professors resigning and others being retired by special action of the regents, and as a result the following gentlemen were elected to fill vacancies : Sidney E. Mezes, David F. Houston, H. W. Harper, Austin L. McRae, and W. W. Norman.
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
Appointees as "instructors," not including those promoted to professorships, were J. J. Atkinson, E. E. Bramlette, I. H. Bryant, and J. H. Ray, appointed in 1883 ; Charles F. Gompertz and Mrs. Helen M. Kirby, in 1884 ; Carlo Veneziani and John P. Nelson, in 1886 ; Sam J. Jones, in 1887 ; J. Magnenat and A. C. Jessen, in 1888 ; Miss Jessie Andrews, in 1889 ; Gillespie Lewis, in 1891 ; L. R. Hamberlin, in 1892 ; J. A. Bailey and R. A. Thompson, in 1893 ; and Arthur Lefevre and E. P. Shock, in 1894.
Several members of the faculty of the Medical Department at Galveston were elected in 1891 and others in 1892. The first proctor of the University was Pro- fessor Smith Ragsdale, eleeted in 1883, and succeeded in 1885 by Captain James B. Clark. A summer normal school was held in the University during the vacation of 1887, when several members of the University faculty assisted in the lectures.
In 1889 the legislature passed two special acts legalizing donations for pro- fessorships and scholarships in the University of Texas or its branches, so as to accomplish and protect the objects of donors. The aets appear together, and, singularly enough, are almost identical as they are published in the laws of 1889, -- one of them having been introduced by Representative Brown and the other by Senator MeDonald.
An act of 1891 provides for granting licenses to graduates of the Law Depart- ment of the University to practise in the courts of the State, upon presentation of their diplomas from the University and certificates of good character from the com- missioners' courts of the counties of the residence of the applicants.
The twenty-first legislature was the first to make special appropriations from the general revenue, independent of the University fund, for the "direet support" of the University, and subsequent legislatures have followed the precedent. Able arguments were prepared in the matter by Judge Gould and Senator Maxey.
The Medical College .- The inauguration of the Medical College at Galveston, as a branch of the University, is the result of liberality on the part of citizens at Galveston, and of the city authorities in co-operation with the action of the State, whereby the Medical Department has not only been put into operation sooner than it otherwise would have been, but the University has secured an elegant property, known as the "John Scaly Hospital." The hospital was originally a gift from Mr. Sealy, who named "the City Council of Galveston and the regents of the Uni- versity of Texas, jointly, for and on behalf of the Medical Department of the Uni- versity of Texas, to manage and conduet the hospital for the benefit of sick and destitute persons." With the consent of the executors of the trust, it was donated to the State, on condition that the legislature would agree to appropriate fifty thou- sand dollars towards erecting at once at Galveston the Medical College building of the University, which the vote of the people had decided should be located there "as soon as practicable." The conditions proposed were accepted on the part of the State, and, at the next meeting of the legislature, in 1889, Galveston offered to donate twenty-five thousand dollars upon the further condition that the State would appropriate a like amount for the purposes of the institution, which proposition was also accepted, and all that the terms required was consummated. Representative Gresham, of Galveston, was particularly instrumental in gaining the co-operation of the legislature necessary to secure the benefits of the Scaly bequest. The hospital
453
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occupies the same block with the college building, both of which are elegant struc- tures, finely equipped and admirably located on the Gulf shore. 'A nurses' training school is a feature of the institution.
The first annual session of the College began October 1, 1891, and closed March 22, 1892, with a carefully selected faculty provided, of which Dr. J. F. Y. Paine, of Galveston, is the dean. Others serving as professors were Drs. H. A. West, Ed- ward Randall, William Keiller, A. G. Clopton, S. M. Morris, Allen J. Smith, James E. Thompson, and James Kennedy, and, as lecturers, Drs. R. W. Knox, H. P. Cooke, R. C. Hodges, George P. Hall, David Cerna, Cary H. Wilkinson, and George H. Lee ; lecturers on medical jurisprudence, T. J. Ballinger, succeeded by Robert G. Street ; demon- strator in anatomy, Dr. Thomas Flavin ; provost, James P. Johnson.
DR. J. F. Y. L'AINE.
In addition to the donation of the hospital from the John Sealy estate, the University has been favored with other handsome benefactions, including "Brack- enridge Hall," the gift of George W. Brackenridge, a banker of San Antonio and one of the University regents, and withal a gentleman of fine literary culture and princely estate. The hall was fully equipped at his own expense for mess-quarters and eco- nomie living for the University boys ; and it has been intimated that Miss Brackenridge, of San Antonio, contemplates making similar pro- vision for the girl students.
Independent of Colonel Brackenridge's liberality as above, and in some other instances to the University, his advice as a successful business man has been of good service, and shows the wisdom of selecting such men for the regency of the institution. He was of different politics from Governor Ireland, who appointed him, and wrote the governor that it was "the only office in his gift or in the gift of the people that he would accept." In a recent letter, in answer to inquiry as to his continued interest in the University. he stated that for the present he was too much engaged in protecting large interests to consider any proposition requiring · a considerable expenditure of funds, and added : " It was my intention, and is yet, to offer facilities of some kind to deserving students desirous and capable of acquiring higher education. The existing and pressing need of our social and political system is to have a more educated body
454
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
of law-makers and administrators. The present tendencies are to chaos, and it is better and more humane to prevent it with brains than with brute force."
A large and valuable collection of rare coins, medals, and other articles of virtu was recently presented to the University by Mr. S. M. Swenson, a prominent banker of New York and formerly a citizen of Austin. The gifts were accompanied with an interesting historical letter by the donor, which the re- gents published as a University bulletin. Do. nations of books to the University library, which embraces some twelve thousand vol- umes, amount probably to two thousand or three thousand dollars in value, including some rare and very costly works presented by Mr. W. B. Isham, of New York, and a nice collec- tion also from Dr. E. W. Herndon, of Mis- souri. Colonel Brackenridge, at the meeting of the regents in September, 1894, presented to the University a large and valuable gift in its way of collections of sea-shells and other interesting articles.
During the administration of Governor Ross, in 1888, the State having received nearly one million dollars "indemnity money" from S. M. SWENSON. the Federal government for "frontier protec- tion," a strong effort was made, at the extra session of the twentieth legislature, to get a good share of the fund which went to the general revenue towards offsetting the "old claims" of the University existing before the war, and amounting, with the long-accumulated interest, to over four hundred thousand dollars, as submitted in a report called for by the governor ; in presenting which the regents, as President Wooten of the board expressed it, "trusted that the money borrowed from the University fund in the time of the emergency of the State would be returned at the time of the emergency of the Uni- versity." Governor Ross, in submitting this report of the regents, added : " It is not too much to say that justice to a great institution dlemands that some action be taken with a view to repay the funds of which it has been deprived by State agency for revenue purposes."
The claims in question were those which with other items embraced seventy- four thousand eight hundred and four dollars, received by the State in "Confed- erate notes" from sales of University lands, and included nearly one hundred and forty thousand dollars in interest, calculated on the above item alone, and were dis- missed by the legislature granting the University, as previously stated, the loan of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, which, though expressed as a loan, was in effect a donation to that amount. This action, which largely discounted the principal of the claims and almost wholly discarded the interest, was a compromise of various measures proposed in the University's behalf. One of them was a bill by Senator Armistead to repay divers amounts of University funds used by the
455
LANE-THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF TEXAS.
State, and aggregating, with interest, some two hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and eighty dollars ; another was by Representative Hudgins, of similar character and for about the same amount ; another was by Mr. Gresham to pay certain items of the claims and applying part of the money to the Medical College at Galveston ; and another was by Mr. MeGaughey to loan the University one hun- dred thousand dollars for an indefinite time and without interest out of the indemnity fund.
A bill giving the regents control of the University lands was defeated in the House after having passed the Senate. Senator Carter was the author of an impor- tant bill, which, however, did not pass, to increase the available resources of the University. Bills by Representatives Curry, Erskine, and Baker, to divide the public domain in fair proportions between the free schools and the University, also failed of consideration in either house. The local representatives at Austin, Messrs. Johnson, Smith, Moore, Hamby, McFall, and Wheless, generally advocated all measures pro- posed in the interest of the University.
Governor Ireland, in his message to the legislature in 1887, alluded in friendly terms to the University and recommended that University funds to the amount of twenty-two thousand four hundred and ninety-five dollars and seventy-five cents, used for the Prairie View School, should be returned. "The University," he said, "is in its infancy, but on a permanent basis. The faculty is an excellent one, and we look forward to the near approach of the time when our people will educate their children at home and the children of the State will crowd the walls of the University of Texas." As to the generally better feeling which ultimately prevailed towards the University, it was notable that Governor Hogg, in his second canvass, and the several candidates for governor, in 1894, deemed it worth their while to publicly express themselves in its behalf. There is notably, too, much less opposition to the University, from teachers in the church schools, than prevailed for some years after the institution was opened.
In 1893, Elisabet Ney, an artist of Europe, who had settled in Texas, and was the first lady matriculate in one of the leading art schools of Europe and had pro- vided an art studio at Austin, memorialized the legislature in behalf of establishing an "academy of arts" in connection with the University, stating : "The grounds for location of an academy of arts have been offered, and can be secured as a dona- tion to the State. The site offered is in convenient distance of the University of Texas, and such an academy could be established and equipped as a branch of the State University at comparatively small expense, -- say, ten thousand dollars. If the legislature should receive this proposition favorably, I will undertake to secure the necessary grounds and superintend the building and equipment of the academy, and when completed furnish instruction in sculpture free of charge." Her idea was to begin the enterprise with a building constructed with reference to such additions and improvements as would be required in response to the growing needs of pupils in the different departments of art, -- sculpture, drawing, painting, and music.
The legislature took no definite action on the memorial, but the Art Association at Austin brought the matter of establishing a school of liberal arts at Austin to the attention of the University faculty, which unanimously adopted resolutions pre- sented by the chairman, that "in their opinior such an academy of arts for instruc-
456
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
tion in music, painting, and drawing, as was proposed, would be of great service to the entire State in cultivating not only an appreciation of the beautiful, but an ability to apply the principles of art to works of use and ornament ; and that it would sup- plement the present work of the University by supplying instruction in important branches of manual and mental training, for which at present no provision has been made." The resolutions further expressed the hope that the efforts being made to enlist the co-operation of liberal friends in securing a permanent endowment for the academy may be crowned with complete success ; and it may be added that if the opportunity presented is not realized, it may be many years before such a desirable and important institution is established in Texas.
Various attempts were made in the legislature to reconcile the difficulties which so long existed between the University and the Agricultural and Mechanical College, such as a bill giving the University regents entire control of the University and all its branches, including the College, and full management of all the lands, and a very comprehensive measure proposed by Representative McGaughey, since State land commissioner, entitled "An Act to pay the old indebtedness of the State to the University, and to give the regents control of the University lands ; to better estab- lish the relations between the University and its branches, by placing them all under a new board of management, and giving them each additional and separate land endowments out of the Pacific Railway reservation as a compromise ; and making provisions for acceptance of donations from Galveston and the executor of the Sealy estate for the early establishment of the Medical Department of the University at Galveston." One object of this bill was to increase the land endowment of the Agricultural and Mechanical College to an extent that would be satisfactory to the friends of the College, as an independent endowment of its own, to be accepted in lieu of any future appropriations to the College from the funds of the University. This went as far as any action of the legislature could well go, to make the interests of the College and the University separate and clearly distinct, so as to prevent dis- cord between them. The College having been made a branch of the University by the Constitution, such relation could only be changed, so as to make them entirely independent of each other, by a vote of the people on a constitutional amendment. The bill, however, was not even reported back to the House.
The impolicy of State control of University affairs, or mistaken management in at least one important instance, seems to have been demonstrated by the imperious action of the State land board some years ago. For a long period what was known as "free grazing" was tolerated or seemingly at first could not well be prevented by the State, and as a consequence great herds of cattle, horses, and sheep were " free grazed" over the University lands, in common with those of the free schools and the general domain of the State, till finally the owners of the herds were forced by the "land-enclosure act" to enclose their ranges and lease the lands required for grazing their stock. At a time when the fands were most in demand for leasing (the school lands preferably to those of the University on account of superior quality and loca- tion ) the State land board refused to allow the regents to lease six hundred thousand acres of the University lands at five cents an acre, because the board had estab- lished six cents as the minimum for all State lands, and would not relax the rule, although the University land was too small a matter compared with the immense
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domain of the free schools to affect competition. Thus, the University lost thirty thousand dollars, annual rental of the land.'
The University had before this suffered by the State neglecting to collect over fifty thousand dollars due for arrears of interest on land notes, although the State used large amounts of the proceeds of the lands without attempting to return the money. The heaviest deal against the University, however, was the conversion by the Constitution of 1876 of a vast quantity of the first donated and most valuable lands of the University to the free-school fund. As an estimate of the spoliation, ex-Land Commissioner Walsh, in a recent statement furnished by him, summed up what the University should have had if the intentions of the early law-makers had been observed, as follows :---
Fifty leagues at $1.50 per acre . $332, 100 Ten years' interest at ten per cent. 332, 100
One million seven hundred and fifty thousand acres at $5 per acre . . 8,750,000 Interest on deferred payments (say, twenty-five per cent. aggregate) . 2,187,500
Total® $11,601,700
"It is doubtful," he said, "if the University will realize ten per cent. of this amount from land donations. Twelve million dollars will probably not more than cover a close estimate."
Commissioner Walsh further stated that he called the attention of General Darnell and other prominent members of the convention of 1875 to the fact that the million acres proposed to be substituted to the University for the railroad alter- nate lands would not be an equivalent by a rate of five to one, either in quantity or quality, for the original grant, but the convention seemed determined to make the substitution in the interest of the free public schools. General Darnell, in fact, suggested to him that "a million acres of land were enough for any kid-glove institution."
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