University of Southern California - El Rodeo Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

Page 23 text:

3(istorV of Qi. §. ©. IS the purpose- ot the writer to give in brief outline a history of the University of Southern California, comprising those schools which are, which were. Hid which were to have been. The early story of iJb ;! ' our University is as full of mar -els as a fairy tale. Projects arose like a mirage, to fade away as mys- teriously as they arose. Donations of real estate which promised vast sums failed to yield anything. Like everything else our University suffered from the boom. Nevertheless our school survived and has gained much since, so we may truly boast of being in a better condition than ever before. The writer has endeavored to give dates approximately true, but may have failed in some respects, owing to the difficulty of gathering scattered data, for very little of our history has ever been written. Twenty-five years ago it became apparent to the Church that Los Angeles was to become one of the great centers of the Pacific Coast. Before our great trans-continental railroads had reached our Land of Sunshine, messengers of civ- ilization put it into the heart of the Methodist Episcopal Church to make plans tor providing a school for Christian education. Accordingly, in May, 1875, Presiding Elder John R. Tansey called a convention to discuss the feasibility of establishing, in the words of the report, a school of high grade. A committee was appointed to look out for favorable conditi ons. The old brick church on Fort street, (now the First Church on Broadway) was secured, and O. S. Frambes opened the Los Angeles Academy, which continued until 1880. The Church elected such officers as were necessary to look after the school. Projects, which had begun as early as 1868, were on foot to organize a college in Los Angeles. Hon. Don Abel Stearns and Hon. R. M. Widney were planning to put Laguna Rancho (11,000 acres adjoining Los Angeles City) into a building and endowment fund for a University, but Mr. Stearns died suddenly before the plan was completed. One evening in May, 1879, Hon. R. M. Widney invited Re ' . A. M. Hough, Hon. E. F. Spence, and Dr. J. P. Widney to discuss plans for the Unixersity 17