University of Texas - Cactus Yearbook

“" I am no advocate of the University system . . . Universities are the ovens to heat up and hatch all manner of vice, immorality and crime. " Senator James Armstrong Jefferson County, Sixth Legislature, An 1858 act of Congress provided for the establishment of the University of Texas but because of the Civil War, the act was never ac- tually implemented. Still, the groundwork for The University had been laid an endowment of $100,000 and grants of land continued to ex- ist in the form of a University trust fund. On Nov. 17, 1875, the Committee on Education issued a mandate in Congress for the establishment of The University which had been so long debated. Mr. J. E. David of Brazos, who was at that time director of the state ' s agricultural and mechanical college, introduced the following resolution: " The legislature shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of a State University, for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences . . . The University lands and the proceeds thereof, and all moneys belonging to the University fund, and all grants, donations and appropriations that may hereafter be granted by the State, shall be and remain a permanent fund for the use of the State University. The interest arising from the same shall be annually Mirabeau B. Lamar, President of the Republic of Texas, was an eatly University advocate ^ > ,MS % & ' k .*fe * ' % CITY or APST1 l ' ITAL or TXXAS The Colorado River in the foreground, this early map depicts what Austin, the new capital of Texas, looked like in 1844. Note Congress Avenue down center portion of the map. 6 The University ' s First Century ”