Oregon State University - Beaver Yearbook (Corvallis, OR)

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PROEM E PRESENT THE ORANGE to the students, friends, and admirers of O. A. C. with the hope that our consistent efforts have at least produced some rare fruit that will be pleasing to the literary or artistic palates of our readers. The incessant toil and expenditure of energy necessary for the production of this volume has been more of a delightful pleasure than a task. We believe with Carlyle that “a book which comes from the heart will contrive to reach other hearts,” and believing this, we have striven unceasingly to put the best that is in us between the orange covers of this book. All the choicest ambitions of our hearts have been suppressed and held back that we might find time to devote to The Orange. It has been our common concern; the one fixed ideal of the Junior Class. Whether or not it has come up to our ideal, we will leave to your kind and lenient consideration, dear reader. If, within its pages, you find something truly worthy of commendation, some true work of art, some real gem of literature; if it brings back to you some happy scene, some pleasant memory; if the heart of some wayward Alumnus is made to beat again for 0. A. C.; if again the true spirit of 0. A. C. is made to surge through your veins, we shall feel that we have not labored in vain.

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THE EVOLUTION OF 0. A. C. HE DISCUSSION of the evolution of the Oregon Agricultural College harks back to the sixties, the beginning of an era of prosperity and industrial development in the history of Oregon. “A homeseeking” class of people, rather than “gold-seeking,” were pouring into the state. The tendency of the time leaned toward agricultural development and intellectual advancement. To this disposition of the period 0. A. C. owes its existence and present location, in part. In 1862, Congress appropriated 90,000 acres of land for the support of an Agricultural College, with the condition that the college be in operation by 1867. Under this act a denominational school of the M. E. Church (South), already existing at Corvallis, was charged with the management of the Agricultural College. By so doing, the land grant was secured, and the expense of erecting a new building was saved. In this simple old structure, the pioneer students of O. A. C. were introduced into the mysteries of scientific farming. In 1867, the institution boasted of twenty-two students. From this embryonic stage the growth of the Agricultural College has been phenomenal. A decisive point in its development was the Old College of M. E. Church (South)