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Page 22 text:
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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
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Page 23 text:
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very substantial endowment for the purchase of books. Many donors have since appeared on our Library list, of whom we mention Mrs. Sarah P. Walsworth, Mrs. Mary A. Avery, J. K. Moffitt, C. P. Huntington, Louis Sloss, and by bequest Professor Geo. M. Richardson. Mrs. Emilia F. Ashburner gave in 1889 a $1500 tower clock for the Library building. It is to be noted that co-education was introduced into the University as early as the autumn of 1870, without opposition, by a very conservative Board of Regents. It seemed the only sensible course to take, in a state so far removed from eastern institutions established for young women. The next Constitutional Convention took care to make this privilege secure to the daughters of the State. In speaking of the University, we mean more than the central Academic Colleges at Berkeley. One integral department is at Mt. Hamilton, two in San Francisco. In that City are also four affiliated departments, each with its own board of direction. In 1873, the Toland Medical College, established in San Francisco by Dr. H. H. Toland, became the Medical Department of the University. In 1881 the Regents organized the College of Dentistry. Another integral department of the University is carried on at the Lick Observatory, created by the bequest of James Lick in 1875. The Observatory, with a small staff of astronomers, has done much brilliant work, and stands among the foremost in reputation. The fine reflecting telescope, given in 1895 by Edward Crossley of Halifax, England, is proving a very valuable addition to the working power of the Observatory. It was a notable expression of the international comity of scientific men. Of the less closely connected departments of the University, the College of Pharmacy was affiliated in 1873. The Law Department was founded by Judge S. C. Hastings in 1878. In 1892 the San Francisco Polyclinic became the Post-Graduate Medical Department. The California Veterinary College was incorporated and affiliated in 1894. The Mark Hopkins Institute of Art grew out of the San Francisco Art Asso- ciation, organized in 1871, and the California School of Design, founded December 29, 1872. In 1893 Edward F. Searles, of Methuen, Mass., deeded to the Regents the fine Hopkins home on California street for the exclusive uses and purposes of instruction in and illustration of the Fine Arts, Music, and Literature. The property was to be forever known as the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. In 1879 the University bore a successful test of the loyalty of the people to their highest educational institution. A Constitutional Convention had been called, whose composition reached down to the heart of the community ; and by its action the University was more securely intrenched than ever before. Article IX, Section 9, of the new Constitution declared the University a public trust, whose organi- zation and government were to be perpetually continued in their existing form. Regents Winans, Martin and Hager were members of the Convention. Our single alumnus, J. Richard Freud, did yeoman ' s service for his alma mater. In 1887 the Legislature passed the Vrooman Act, granting the University a continuing tax of one cent on every hundred dollars of the Assessors ' lists. The students at Berkeley then numbered about 300. This action was in line with that of certain other states, and was of supreme importance. It enabled the University to provide for its most pressing wants without depending on the fortunes of a biennial appeal. It was also a precedent for the Act of 1897, by which another cent was unanimously granted, after the student body at Berkeley had grown to 1500. These two subsidies have made possible a steady and healthful growth, but have not
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