University of Texas Austin - Cactus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

Page 17 text:

@M jg

Page 19 text:

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PREFATOKV REMARKS £HK .u ' cntk ' ro.idcr may iidt L ' xpcct tci lind licrcin an accurate analysis of the forces and spirit tliat ti o to make up the personality of the University of Texas. For if one sets about to define a I ' niversity, he is driven at last to confess that it is not the lioard of Reg-ents, not the Faculty (thoug-h wlio docs not recall individual members vh i have lieliexed tliat they consti- tuted it in cifc ct In (» •!; it is not the buildinii-s, e |uip- ment, laboratories; it is not e en the students them- selves. It is neither one nor all of these. It embraces while it transcends them. It is the unification around some one great idea — often embodied almost in perfec- tion in a single commanding- personality — which is a touchstone emitting- the white light of truth, a magnetic center of attraction, overwhelming in power, and moving always in straight lines of resistless persistence. The University of Texas has developed its bent. Its ideal object can hardly be said to have been individ- ualized. Our hero stands revealed only in misty out- lines. Possibly he is wise in thus slowly revealing him- self. He is very young — seventeen, come September. These last few years he has grown fast. ' IMie safest vent for his g-reat strength has not been found. He often mistakes enthusiasm for high purpose, sound for sense, noise for arg-ument. But one may feel sure that some day he will stand, clean of limb and possessed of high ideals, in clear and beautiful perfection, worthy of our devotion, because love and sacrifice gave him birth; and when he comes he will have his lips touched w ith the fire of truth and honor, and in his heart there shall be a fountain of perpetual youth. W, h-ure until it is m lave said witii some 1 flairs at the I ' niver- -oiiiiwliat proud and ■rlt, the University accuracy represents the tat sity of Texas. Young and 1 arrogant, tinctured with sc spirit, which does g-ive personality to this academic body, has developed more or less definite lines of growth that serve to indicate what it will become when its sinews are streng-theaied by timi ' . its character hardened by the fire of criticism, and its s iul ]iui-)4-e(l in the crucible of experience. If hints w ill serve, tlespile the close per- spective from which the subject must be viewed, we hope to show in brief outlines what characteristic feat- ures individualize the personality of the University of Texas. If we succeed in doing this, you will have seen the University ; for a personality is only a collection of ideas endeavoring to find comjilete realization in one trreat master ideal. LOCATION AND HISTORY Bel the field of description it may be well to refer brielly t i the location and history of the University. l ' orty years before the foundations of the Main University were laid. President Lamar selected the present site at Austin. The hill on which now stand the Main Building, University Hall, and the Chemical Laboratory was then covered with large liveoak trees. During the Civil war, when the Federals had captured ston, a body of Confederate troops cut down these (ialv because th; of an army engineer much of beautv and gi the listructions to the efense of the city. :1 have been added