Southwestern University - Souwester Yearbook (Georgetown, TX)

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THE ANNEX • Wesleyctn College, located in San Augustine, was the second educational venture of Texas Methodism. Its charter, of far more liberal provisions than those of the Ruterville charter, was granted January 16, 1844. • John W. P. McKenzie, whose health had failed from excessive ministerial toil, settled in Red River County, Texas, and opened a private school. From this modest beginning the school grew until at the time it was chartered as McKenzie Institute in 1854, it had an enrollment of over three hundred students. The school was not formally under the control of the church until 1859 when President McKenzie gave the property into the control of the conference.

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GAME TENNIS • The story of Southwestern University is built of untiring efforts and fragments of lives of courageous, unselfish, determined men. It is a story of sunny days and clouds, a story illuminated by splendid and unimpeded progress and checkered with dark periods which saw stagnation and retrogression, a story which commands respect, admiration and love for the institution and prophe- sies for it a glorious future. • In 1840 the Congress of the Republic approved the charter which founded the first college in Texas at Ruterville. Ruterville College, named for a mis- sionary to Texas — Dr. Martin Ruter, who had tried during the brief time be- tween his arrival in Texas and his death to establish a university — was the first of four institutions which, in 1873, were united to establish a central uni- versity of Texas Methodism. ■

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DR. MARTIN RUTHER DR. FRANCIS MOOD DR. CLAUDE CARR CODY • Soule University was opened at Chappell Hill on February 1, 1856, and by the twenty-second of the same month secured its charter. In 1868 Dr. Francis Asbury Mood was offered the presidency of Soule University which was, even then, doomed to short life by depression and rapidly spreading yellow fever epidemics. MARCHING TO CHURCH • Dr. Mood presented in 1869 a carefully prepared plan for a central university supported jointly by all the Texas Conferences. On February 1, 1870, the Board of Trustees of the proposed Texas University to be located at Georgetown, Texas, held its first meeting. With an enrollment of one hundred stu- dents Texas University opened in 1873. In 1875 this school was chartered as Southwestern Univer- sity, and in 1876 four students were graduated from the institution. • Amid much agitation, women were admitted to the University in 1878. They were not allowed to attend balls or dancing parties, skate, go home for Christ- mas holidays or take part in any event of dramatic ' nature. Every Sunday morning the girls were marched in a double file to church. Chaperones walked before them, behind them and to the side of them to see that no girl smiled, waved, or dropped a note to a boy. As an April Fool ' s joke in 1880 forty-four students, by a written agreement, refused to attend class. The entire group was dropped from the roll of the University and allowed to re-enter only after they had individually begged ,ih§J2aidon of the entire faculty. © The girls caused no little trouble. One night they lowered a huge basket from the second floor by means of sheets tied together. Every few minutes they pulled to see if the basket was heavy for they were expecting some boys to come for a party. Dr. Allen, who always carried a cane with which he punished any boy who dared cross the fence which surrounded the Annex, saw the basket and got in it. The girls unknowingly pulled him up. When they were ready to pull him over the window sill they saw who it was and let him fall. Either Dr. Allen didn ' t recognize the girls or the fall jarred his memory so badly that he forgot who they were for he never found the guilty party. • Until 1886 the women and men students were kept strictly separated. In that year, to solve the problem of class room space, the curators recommended that when thought necessary, the faculty may bring advanced and discreet women pupils to recite with the University classes. o In 1887 the faculty repealed the rule forbidding secret societies and recognized the three original fraternities. o With the beginning of the new century the voice of the student body was heard. In answer to a pe- tition from the student body asking for permission to participate in intercollegiate athletics the curators decided to allow intercollegiate athletics with the exception of football. KSSKffliMlijfr RUTERVILLE COLLEGE