University of Kentucky - Kentuckian Yearbook (Lexington, KY)

Page 7 text:

Kentucky State A. and M. Colleg'e But few people in Kentucky have realized that the Kentucky State College has grown into a great university. In 1880 the college, with a faculty of six instructors, offered but one course of study. Its home was a modest building hardly as large as the residences of many of our citizens, and less than one hundred names appeared on its roster of students. But in spite of the most violent opposition and most determined efforts to end its career, its progress was steady and it growth rapid until now its success is recog- nized as complete. To-day more than thirty-five professors and instructors, equal in learning and ability to those in any university in America, are teaching in some twelve or thir- teen schools or departments that constitute the college; over six hundred students are receiving at a cost to themselves which is merely nominal, as thorough and com- plete training in arts and letters, natural sciences and in civil, mechanical and elec- trical engineering as is afforded by the oldest and best institutions in the country. The campus and buildings afford a home for the college, which is not only large and commodious but extremely beautiful. Some eight or ten handsome structure arranged along perfectly smooth and graceful drives and walks in the midst of the spacious lawns of Kentucky’s own blue grass and splendid shade trees— such is the sight that meets the eye of the young Kentuckian when he leaves the train that brought him from his home in a distant county to seek to fit himself for a grapple with the toil of life by taking advantage of the opportunity his State has given him in her college at Lexington. Every department is equipped with the machinery and appliances necessary for complete and thorough instruction and is under the direction of an active, earnest and accomplished teacher. Lecture rooms, laboratories, libraries, shops, foundries, operating rooms—all commodious and convenient—afford the means of the most efficient work. Such is the result of twenty years of college history. From a mere struggling high school, it soon earned the position of worthy rival to the older colleges of the State, and in 1890 had become their admitted equal. To-day the others have been passed, and the State College stands without question pre-eminent over her former rivals. With such a history in the past the future cannot be open to doubt. The time has passed when citizens of Kentucky must send their sons and daughters out of the State to seek education—the best to be had. Happily, political and religious dissensions have been avoided. The Governor in appointment of trustees and the trustees in the selection of professors and instructors, and in the employment of various kinds of necessary labor, have wisely ignored political affiliations and religious opinions, and about this institution, which is in a peculiar sense the property of the people, there has been drawn a line which none has dared to cross with disturbing acrimonies of political and religious differences. The prospect is bright for the continued growth and advancement of the col- lege, and we may hope that another ten years will find every available site on the campus covered with buildings, every department broadened and strengthened and better equipped, new departments added and thousands instead of hundreds deriv- ing the benefits of the wise munificence of the State. s' A