Brigham Young University - Banyan Yearbook (Provo, UT)

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12 J-||.-vi 1 1 i rt ,1 1 Y 1% 1 ' ' Il iiiii bb ' ■iaSAMBIIIBSifSii ifer.--;; . .■ vi : ? ; : : - ' ------ ■ The College Building also to create the faculty — both, be it said, o«t of very raw material. No doubt the venerable educator had been much and often pained by the rawness of his young assistants. To improve them in general scholarship, he arranged that each should teach as great a variety of branches as pos- sible — thus compelling self-improvement. Then, also, he contrived to give them an hour of his time after school on some high school study. It was thus that they got for instance, an elementary knowledge of the modern languages. By the time school was ready to open in the fall of 1884, the board had leased about three-fourths of the floor space of the Z. C. M. I. warehouse, near the depot, and partitioned off into rooms suitable to the wants of the school. This building like the Lewis Block, had proved to be a premature business venture; and so again the school found at hand a home fitted to its needs, with but little outlay of means. These quarters proved really more commodious than those in the first building had been; which fact accounts for the school remaining housed there for the next seven years and a half. To thousands of students now beset by the hard realities of life, the old warehouse will ever be associated with the dearest memories of youth; proving thereby that the power of a school in shaping character does not depend upon elaborate buildings, nor ornate fur- nishings, but rather upon the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere within its walls. To put it in the language of President Garfield in a tribute to the power of his own beloved teacher: Dr. Hopkins and a fallen log in the woods would, at any time or place, constitute a great university. As the years wore on. Dr. Maeser ' s system of Education was justified by such splendid results, that seminaries and stake academies were established everywhere throughout Zion, and he was himself chosen as General Superintendant of Church Schools; a position he held from the year 1890 until his death. Prof. Benj. Cluff succeeded him as president of the institution, the change occurring on the removal of the school to the new building, [12]

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All the city had been aroused, and next morning the students were moving everywhere about the smoking embers. There seemed to be no note of hope left in the subdued conversa- tion of the little groups here and there. The only question seemed to be how soon they could get ready to start for home. Presently Brother Maeser, whose white hair and dignified bearing had already made him venerable, mounted a chair, and called the crowd to order. There was hope shining out in his fine, strong face and courage in the ring of his voice. Bidding the students not to lose heart, he invited them all to a meeting in the Stake tabernacle. Here the lesson of the fire was impressed upon us? and we were told, not only that the school would go on, but that steps had already been taken to erect new and suitable quarters. Events moved rapidly that day? President Smoot had just completed the bank building on the corner of Academy avenue and Center street? and although the First National Bank corporation, the Smoot Drug Company, and various office renters, were ready and eager to move in, the grand old man moved them all off, to give a free home to the homeless school. By the following morning black-boards had been made and placed in the walls, and desks and benches filled all the rooms. That the institution should, in the face of so overwhelming a calamity, lose only one day of regular work, was al- ways thereafter a source of tender pride to its first great teacher. But the bank building proved inade- quate for more than the normal, academic, and commercial departments. It became a question, therefore, whether or not to discontinue the grades. At this point an- other public-spirited gentleman came to the rescue. Mr. L. L. Jones had just com- pleted a new store on the site now occupied by the Piovo Meat Packing Co., and here the rest of the school found shelter? the intermediate departments below, the prim- ary and preparatory above. As is well known Dr. Maeser had not only to develop the school itself? he had The mgh school Buiming [11]

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Janwary 4, 1892. Under his able generalship, the school took tremendous strides forward. Without losing the spirit so characteristic of Dr. Maeser ' s management, it became at once a modern school, and in touch with the best colleges east and west. The new building now known as the High School building, dates its beginning from the year of the fire. Such was the feeling of sympathy for the institution, that $2000 were taken in as subscriptions within a few days after the greatest loss — enough to buy the ground and lay the foundations. Here the work halted for six years. To President Cluff belongs the honor of renewing the agitation for its completion, and to President A. O. Smoot for furnishing the means. Not one man in ten thousand would have mortgaged his home and personal property, as he did, to borrow money for such a purpose; and even though the Church, a year or two afterwards, assumed the indebtedness, this fine building, the first real home of the institution, — since it was the first shaped to its needs, — stands today a monument to the man who did more than the Founder himself, in the matter of means and self-sacrificing devotion, to make the Brigham Young University possible. The future of the institution was, at this time, very modestly estimated. For instance, in one of his last addresses before the school, President Smoot made the remark that he hoped to see the day when one hundred normal students would be enroll- ed. Before the century closed that number had quadrupled, and there was a like in- crease in other departments. Indeed, the difficulties connected with raising funds to pay for the High School building had hardly been met, when the school clamored for more room. However, the immediate occasion of starting the movement for a new building was the fact that on October 16, 1896, the Board for- mally founded a college department, offer- ing the bachelor ' s degree. Agitation for another building immedi- ately began; and at a banquet the following spring President Cluff strongly urged upon the Board the need of more room. But so [13] The Training Building and Gymnasium