University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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poness monument,! f- oce

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Salient Points in Retrospect. tOM the first year of our statehood the word University was familiar to many Californians. The Constitutional Convention of 1849 charged the Legislature to care for a permanent fund for the support of a University. Such a fund was soon to be in hand, as in 1853 Con- gress granted the State certain sections of land for that purpose. In 1862 came the much greater Federal offer of the Morrill Act. This Congres- sional donation was formally accepted by the State in 1864. In 1866 an Act was passed to establish an Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Arts College. The Directors named located it in Alameda County, in 1867. In that year this plan was modified by the action of the College of California, an institution chartered in 1855 and opened in 1860. This College had buildings and grounds in Oakland, but had already acquired an ideal site at Berkeley. The Trustees now proposed to disincorporate and to turn over the property and good will of the College to a broader University. They stipulated only that a College of Mines, a College of Civil Engineering, a College of Mechanics, a College of Agriculture and an Academical College, all of the same grade as corresponding eastern colleges, should be included in the new University. The site thus trans- ferred is the University site now so highly prized. In procuring the union of these various interests, Governor Low was active in cooperating with the College Trustees. The Act to create and organize the University of California was introduced by Hon. John W. Dwinelle. It was approved March 23, 1868, by Governor Henry H. Haight. Instruction in the University began on the old College premises at Oakland, in the autumn of 1869. In 1873 the classes were transferred to Berkeley, where two buildings (South and North Halls) had been erected by a State appro- priation. For this appropriation the University was largely indebted to Hon. Edward Tompkins, a Regent, who was a member of the State Senate. Before his untimely death, he gave a foundation for the Agassiz Chair of Oriental Languages and Literatures. This was an example too seldom followed. The D. 0. Mills Professor- ship of Philosophy stands alone as an additional full endowment for instruction. The lamented Harold Whiting left to the University $20,000 for the promotion of his favorite studies. Dr. Henry Durant was our first President, the man who laid the foundations for the older College of California. President D. C. Oilman ' s incumbency was all too brief, as he was lured away in 1875, to begin his unique service at Baltimore in shaping the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. John LeConte came next, who as the first appointed Professor had been called to direct the first year ' s work of the University. The earliest donations for buildings came from Henry D. Bacon and A. K. P. Harmon. The first, conditioned on a State appropriation, secured the present Library building ; the second, the indispensable Gymnasium. The valuable Pioche collection was early given to the Library, and Michael Reese gave our single but