Memphis State University - DeSoto Yearbook (Memphis, TN)

Page 10 text:

Fifty Golden Years 1912 1962 Soon after the turn of the twentieth century, an old plantation died. Its inevitable fate was to become part of the growing city of Memphis, whose grasping boundaries stretched only two miles from its fields. Yet those forty-eight acres were destined to become more than a few ordinary city lots, for while they lay waiting in the Southern sun for the fatal subdivision, a minor war was being waged in Tennessee. Cities and counties, armed with pointed editorials and heavy arguments, were fighting to gain a promised state school. Memphis and Shelby County w ere the victors, and the old plantation became the birth-site of an institution now known as Memphis State Universih . The first of many names for the school was the West Tennessee State Normal School, an educational institution devoted especially to the preparation of teachers for the state ' s public schools. The former plan- tation land, along with an additional thirty-two acres, was cleared and leveled, plowed and planted, for it was to produce not onlv vegetables and pastures for the new school ' s Department of Agriculture, but a brand new crop as well: teachers. Buildings were constructed: an administration building, a three-winged, three-story women ' s dormitory con- taining one hundred-ten bedrooms (men were to be housed in the basement rooms of the administration build- ing), and a two-storv brick residence for the president. ■mi ■ltd i »l it I! R It H U Tl Flff |k KK If BE E IE IE II t t § - mmim- . I [ 1 [ ' ffaMftmtmt a fi i m m. ' « 2

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Golden Anniversary 1912 1962 DEDICATION With admiration and gratitude for those people of the past who dedicated themselves to the foundation of a great institution, with respect for the people of the present who are contributing to the growth of a great university, and with hope for people of the future who will further the progress of an even greater university, this Golden Anniversary Edition of The DeSoto is respectfully dedicated.

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In charge of the construction and the planning, as well as the nomination of the faculty, the issuing of bulletins, and the preparation of a curriculum, was the recently appointed president. Professor Seymour Allen Mynders. He had been largely responsible for tbe passage of the General Education Bill of 1909 which created the school, and his enthusiasm for the project only increased with his appointment. On Tuesday. September 10. 1912. the dreams of President Mynders and of countless other staunch support- ers of the new institution were realized when West Tennessee State Normal School opened its doors and began its first regular term. The faculty totaled seventeen and the student body approximately two hundred. By the end of the first year, however, the original enrollment had jumped to nine hundred-nine. Those first students at Ole Normal. as the school was affectionately called, had fulfilled the following- requirements: 1 ) open and free to white males and females not under sixteen years of age and who had finished at least the elementary school course prescribed by the public schools of the state. 2) letter of good moral character from a responsible person. 3) good health — strong physically and free from chronic defects that would prevent satisfactory work. 1 ) no tuition charge to residents of Tennessee. Only fee collected is a registration fee of two dollars per term. Non-resident students pay twelve dollars per quarter plus the two-dollar fee. 5) sufficient scholastic requirements from high school or previous college.