University of Nebraska Lincoln - Cornhusker Yearbook (Lincoln, NE)

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: v c uj R w H u s r p e LIBRARY struction and administration. The total value of all grounds, buildings and equipment is $2,156,116.00, as given in the Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Regents to the Governor. This includes buildings and improvements on the experimental substations at North Platte, Valentine, and ScottsblufT, but excludes land located under acts of Congress of 1862 and 1864 for agricultural college and State University endowments. Such rapid growth is peculiar to State universities which are, comparatively, a present day conception. In greatest strength they are found in the States of the Middle West and on the Pacific slope. The general history of the growth of the University of Nebraska may be told, perhaps, by statistics concerning its officers of administration and instruction, the number of graduates, and the enrollment of students. arious interesting de- ductions from these may be drawn by the reader. The real history of the University cannot be told by one who has known it intimately but one-fifth of the time of its existence. A perusal of all of the minutes of the Board of Regents would not enable one to write it fully and com- pletely as it should be written within the next ten years. Some of the hardships of the early days and since are known to but few, who might be discredited if they told the true history in these later days of rapid growth and prosperity. Willing to be placed under oath that many intensely interesting things were told the writer and affirmed as absolute facts, one or two bits of history are here :: -2 24

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CHEMISTRY HALL may be seen bv the table herein showing the distribution of the number of students enrolled in 1909-1910. The next Legislature (1877) revised the act of 1S69 in accordance with the provisions of the new constitution. By an amendment of 1899 of the original act of 1869 a tax of one mill upon the grand assessment roll of the State is provided for the support of the Uni- versity. Added to this are the incomes from land (90,000 acres), leases and sales under the land-grant act of Congress of 1862 for the benefit of the In- dustrial College (erected in 1909 into the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineer- ing by the State Legislature), and under the enabling act reserving seventy-two sections of land (44,800 acres) for the State University ; interest on permanent fund investments ; and the money grant by the act of Congress, commonly known as the Morrill Act, August, 1890, and by the Hatch Fund Act of 1887. and the Adams Act of 1906 supplemental thereto. In addition to this are the fees paid by students for various purposes. Under the revised act of 1877, as slightly amended by the Legislature of 1909, the University of today is organized and operating. Its present annual cost of maintenance is S713.632.50, and from the old Uni- versity Hall erected in 1870, which still proudly commands from the center of the group on the city campus, the University has materially increased until it now numbers over twenty-five buildings exclusively used for purposes of in- 23

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T jg r j il H ;gTT MECHANIC ARTS HALL FIRE offered with the hoi)e that rcseareh work may be begun by many interested be- fore onr grand old men have carried much with them that could never be recovered. The first duty of the first professor of agriculture, as charged by the Board of Regents, was to plant trees and arrange walks on the campus. At a time when furnaces were verv costly, if obtainable, five were placed in the basement of University Hall at great expense. The cost was even more con- siderable when it was learned that the furnaces consumed coal voraciously without giving up heat. This made it incumbent upon the janitor and student assistants to carry fuel, both day and night, to keep fire in the stoves placed in the individ- ual rooms. To properly discharge this duty it was necessary to live in the build- ing. Rooms were provided on the topmost floor. There also the first student editor — of the Hesperian — and his associates found lodging. This gave rise in later day to the rumor that a part of University Hall was used as a donnitory, but rooms were never let in regular manner. The first laboratory work done in the University was in Chemistry held in one-half of the room that is now occupied by the post office (Station A) in old University Hall. The lecture room was the one now used jointly as such by the departments of Political Economy and Commerce and Political Science and Soci- ology. The next laboratory work was begun in Botany in the spring of 1885 in the small room on the third floor now used as an office by the department of Romance 25