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Page 22 text:
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Page 21 text:
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Early Days at Berkeley This short article is for the purpose of giving a few personal reminiscences of the early days of the University, and is not in any sense a history of the institution. Being what it is. please pardon the introduction in many places of the pronoun, first person, singular. The College of Calif ornia. which antedated the establishment of the State Uni- versity by ten years, was located in Oakland, at Twelfth and Franklin Streets, and was housed in a little reddish brown building of five rooms surmounted by a square belfry. There were in California at that time six schools, at each of which it was possible for a young man to prepare for college. The first and largest of these was the College School, more familiarly known as Brayton ' s. in Oakland, and located on the parcel of ground bounded by Twelfth. Fourteenth, Franklin, and Harrison Streets, four blocks in area. The same interests that had established the College of California maintained the College School. The five other schools included the Boys ' High School in San Francisco, the Grass Valley High School, the California Military Academy in Oakland, familiarly known as McClure ' s Academy, located on the hill between Telegraph Avenue and Broadway, at Twenty-ninth Street. Santa Clara College, and the University of the Pacific, located between San Jose and Santa Clara. The writer of these few remembrances was attending McClure ' s early in the fall of 1869 and engaged in preparing for Princeton. He had never heard of the con- gressional land grant for the establishing of colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, and knew nothing of the proposed opening of the University of California, to which had been ceded all the interests of the College of California and of the College 17
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School. This transfer included the front blocks of land and the buildings in Oakland together with the site in Berkeley now occupied by the University. Thoughts of edu- cational opportunities went back to the Atlantic Coast. Three days before the opening of the University I received a letter from my mother informing me that the University of California was about to open its doors, and advising me to try the entrance examinations, for a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. etc. I immediately went to the little reddish brown building, put in an application to be permitted to take the entrance examinations, and got a schedule. Then there were a couple of days of heavy cramming to review the subjects required for entrance to the course in Civil Engineering. About thirty young men appeared for the first examination which was in arith- metic, algebra and geometry, and was presided over by a very handsome young man, of perfect military bearing, who had. a few years before, been graduated from the United States Military Academy. You know him. The examinations in grammar, in geography, in history and in other subjects followed. Twenty-five of us survived the tests, and became the first freshmen class in the University of California. There were three other classes that had been adopted from the College of California: a senior class of three, a junior class of five, and a sophomore class of two. Thus the University was launched upon its career with a faculty of ten. and a student body of thirty-five. The first name upon the University roll is that of Clar- ence T- Wetmore, of Oakland; a young man named Baker from San Jose, is second, and your humble servant, registering from Visalia, has the honor of being number three, who at the time of registering was so flustered that he forgot when he was born. A gentleman by the name of Fisher. Professor of Chemistry, was Dean, but Professor Joseph Le Conte (he of blessed memory) supervised the registration, and had a cheery word for each new-comer as he inscribed his name in the great book. I must tell an incident of the coming to college of one of the freshmen: L. L. Hawkins, whose home was in Amador County, and on the other side of the crest of the Sierra. Hawkins had been working all summer, as a cowboy, for a cattle man in the mountains near his home. When the young man decided to come to Oakland to take the entrance examinations for admission to the University, he informed his employer and asked for his pay. Only a part could be paid in coin, so the employer told Hawkins that he might go into his manada of horses and take any one he wished to offset $30 of the account. Hawkins went out among the horses, selected a perfectly built roan four-year-old that had never had a rope on him except when, as a colt, he had been thrown and branded. In speed he was the leader of the band. After some little racing over the hills he was gotten into the corral, lassoed, worked up to the snubbing post, blindfolded, his ears tied down, and the hackamore and saddle put on in proper style. The reatta was released, coiled and tied to the saddle. Hawkins, mounted, released the ears, raised the blind, and found that he was astride of the hardest bucking horse that he had ever ridden. The horse was so strong, however, that he kept his feet. After a few minutes of hard bucking around 19
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