University of Oregon - Oregana Yearbook (Eugene, OR)

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JHUJ-KIUGM-L Brhurmv Glasses

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J' THE OREGANA 1 let the legislature do as it wishes, and get a new site, a citizen suggested in a letter to the Eugene City Guard. Here another stand was made by the supporters of the University. One argument advanced shows that living expenses at the University today are not much more than they were expected to be in 1874. Free tuition for one student from every county in the state and one additional student to be designated by each member of the legislative assembly will bring a large number of people to live in Eugene, supporters of the movement suggested through news- paper columns. Each of these students will during the course of the year spend from 95300 to S600 in Eugene City. Friends of the University went about the work of raising funds for the completion of the building and the paying off of the debt incurred against it with renewed vigor. The following quotation from the Eugene City Guard illustrates one means adopted by Eugene people in 1874 that they might have a State University: The sociable and ball on Monday evening in aid of the State University 'panned out' fully as well as the most sanguine expected. The net proceeds netted 3200.7 Thanks were extended to the brass and string bands which .furnished music for the event. wk wk 'lf ik Eugene people, because of the showing already made. were able to get a favorable vote on a measure before the legislature in 1874 to extend the time for the completion of the University building to 1877. All manner of financial campaigns were tried then in order to raise the necessary sum to open the University in accordance with the new requirement of the legislature. The campaign was extended to the surrounding country and the argument was advanced through the press that the University would benefit greatly the entire county by furnishing a better market for produce in Eugene. Members of the University Union then began a personal subscription campaign from farm to farm, taking stock and produce where money was not available and selling on the market to help pay off the debt on Deady hall. Success in this campaign resulted the next year in a visit to the University site by Governor Grover, Secretary of State Chadwick, Treasurer Brown, constituting the state board of land commissioners. The University building was inspected and accepted in the name of the State of Oregon on July 13, 1875. ' The Board of Directors-the Board of Regents had not yet been provided for by law-voted to open the first year's work the third Twenty-lhroe E I xl

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dlld THE OREGANA - Monday in October, 1875, and elected the following men to the faculty of the University of Oregon: President, John W. Johnson, a graduate of Yale University who had for seven years been principal of the Portland High School. Professors, Mark Bailey, of McMinnville College, Thomas Con- don. of Pacific University, of Forest Grove. Preparatory department-Mrs. E. Spiller, principal, and Miss Mary E. Stone, assistant. In 1876 the state legislature voted 310,000 a year to be given the University for two years, and created the Board of Regents for the University, whose duty was to guard the interests of the University and to care for the seventy-two sections of land given for the support of a State University at the time the state was admitted to the Union. Judge M. P. Deady, after whom the first University building was later named, was appointed a member of the first Board of Regents by Governor Grover, and served as chairman. By the expenditure of the two 810,000 appropriations voted the University, the second story of Deady hall was ready for occupation in October, 1877. Mrs. Ellen Condon McCornack, one of the three surviving members of the first University of Oregon graduating class in 1878 has given an account of the event. It is interesting to see the pretty evidence of the Oregon Spirit shown in the action of one of the enthusiastic University girls, and also in the tone of an article written by Mrs. McCornack: The Commencement exercises of 1878 were held in the third story of Deady Hall, the whole floor having been fitted up for a large auditorium. The long platform on the north side was beautifully decorated, for one of our enthusiastic University girls, teaching a spring term of school up on the McKenzie river, quietly emptied her trunk to its natural contents and, spreading a thin layer of damp leaf loam over its iioor, brought home a quantity of ferns and mosses and vines that added greatly to the decorations of the evening. For the first Commencement of 1878 was held in the evening of June 14. And the writer has always believed that the six hundred people gathered in the top of Deady Hall were more enthusiastic in their response because of the shadows of evening had softened the crudities of their surroundings, had mellowed the notes of the beautiful music and given a mystical touch that appealed to the imagination of the audience. Daylight appeals more readily Twenty-flvo E I