University of Florida - Tower / Seminole Yearbook (Gainesville, FL)

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The University of Florida. A distinguished scholar in a recent speech referred to the University of Florida as the “baby in the family of State Universities—“a robust infant whose remarkable growth gave promise of an early and splendid manhood.” Another eminent writer has characterized it as the culmination of a movement begun in territorial days; the realization of an ideal framed by the pioneer settlers. Both conceptions arc true. From one point of view, the University is the youngest among the state universities of America; from another, it is the final stage in a process of educational evolution, which has extended over three quarters of a century. Even when Florida was a territory, her legislators dreamed of a great university, but it was not till the early fifties that this dream began to materialize. The first definite beginnings of higher education by the state were the founding of the East Florida Seminary at Gainesville, and the West Florida Seminary (afterwards the Florida State College), at Tallahassee. Through many years these institutions, begun in a modest manner, continued to flourish. Gradually they increased in equipment, faculty, number of students, and grade of work. In the eighties the Agricultural College was founded at Lake City. It grew rapidly and in 1903 was made the University of the state. A Normal School was established at DeFuniak Springs, and the South Florida College at Bartow. All these institutions sent out many graduates who have taken a leading part in the development of the state. This group of schools constituted the system of higher education maintained by Florida prior to 1905. In that year the State Legislature passed an act, usually spoken of as the “Buckman Act, which thoroughly revised this condition. The necessity for this revision was forcibly brought to the attention of the Legislators by the financial demands of the various institutions. The measure resulted not so much from a criticism of the individual schools, all of which were in a prosperous condition and ambitious for further development, as from the fact that the foundation and growth of each had been indei cndcnt of the others. Looked upon as a whole, they did not represent a single, unified system of education. The expense of maintaining a plant and teaching force for each was great. In some instances they were rivals in the same field of activity; in others, they were competing with the High School system. The Legislators, therefore, determined that these scattered and heterogeneous energies could Ik more economically and wisely expended if they were concentrated and projxrrly co-ordinated. They enacted the law of 1905. the central idea of which is the merging of the former institutions into a single endeavor and the placing of this under one management, the Board of Control.” As a result, the State has today two institutions, co-ordinated in their work, but fully differentiated by the sex of their students: the University of Florida at . 19 PUBLIC LIBRARY BARTOW. FLORIDA

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Gainesville and the Florida State College for Women at Tallahassscc. These, in turn, form a system of higher education clearly distinct from the province of the High School system; and in the near future the two systems will be thoroughly articulated with each other. The educational system of Florida has emerged from a state of heterogeneous, extravagant, and unsatisfactory confusion to one of homogeneous, economical and satisfactory order. Thus arose the University of Florida. It is a continuation of the former schools and looks upon their histories and their graduates as a part of itself; it is a new birth, rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the older schools, founded in the wisdom gained from j ast experience and in the light of the most advanced ideas and ideals of what a state university should be—a lusty infant which with its twin sister at Tallahassee, saw the light in the year 1905. When compared with the largest and the richest of the state universities, its student body may be small, its equipment meager, its resources slender; but the University of Florida has no ajxdogics to make for the manner of its founding, nor for the progess it has made in the five years of its life. Its foundations were laid on the solid bed-rock of honest educational ideals and its future development is merely a matter of time. It has no desire to apj ear more than it is— a comparatively small school, doing efficient and honest work in its field. Like the map of its campus, the plan of organization is laid out with a view to expansion. The University is divided into four colleges: the College of Arts and Sciences; the College of Agriculture; the College of Engineering; and the College of Law. These colleges require an equivalent of the eleventh grade of the High Schools for entrance and give full four year courses for graduation with the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Science. The university demesne is located at the western extremity of the progressive and beautiful town of Gainesville. It is reached by a broad avenue of macadamized street and cement pavement, an extension of the principal thoroughfare of the town. Its more than five hundred acres of level, fertile land stretch out in splendid extent along this road. A large part of this property is utilized by the Agricultural Experiment Station and is under cultivation. The ninety acres adjacent to the town are devoted to the Campus. The Campus itself has a wide. driveway running from its eastern to its western extremity. It is covered with pines which cluster together in stately profusion and picturesque growth. Rows of hardwood trees have been planted, and in the course of a few years will furnish abundant shade. At the western end lie the athletic fields and the tennis courts—spacious, level, and well clayed. Next conic the group of buildings which have so far been erected. Then follows an unbroken stretch of level pine land, where those who love the institution can already see the various buildings which the future years will bring to complete the magnificent scheme of development outlined by the managing board. The present buildings, five in number, form a pleasing architectural group. The Main Building, containing administrative offices, dining hall, library, chapel, 21