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

Page 31 text:

J UDGE A.¥Ti ERRELL Among the gnat mm who hdfci to founi and develop The University of Texas, none was more versatile than ]uige A. W. Terrell. He was hy profes ' sion a lawyer, his office being, as he admitted, the State of Texas: He served that State as District fudge, as State Senator, and as Rational Representative. He was a great orator as his speech of 1 882 for TTie University shows. As a legislator he fathered more good laws than any other one man has ever done in the history of Texas legislation. It was not surprising that the author of tlie Free School Laws showU hafe been asked hy Governor Roherts to help pass the hill authorizing the founding of a state university. After the institution was founded. Judge Terrell was primarily responsible for securing for The University the gift from the State in 1883 of the second one million acres of land, without the income from which the recent expansion of The Unii;ersit)r ' s plant would have heen impossible. After serving as Ambassador to Turkey unoer President Cleveland, fudge Terrell was fittingly appointed a Regent of The University he had helped to bring into being. Nfit only in the history of The University of Texas, but in any record of education in this State as a whole, the name of this dominant and benevolent man must stand near the head of the list of those who have loved and fought for enlightenment.

Page 33 text:

Graduates The Second Congress of the Republic of Texas AUIiOHgk tli£ ncci for pufclic education had hem ruog- mzcd I7 tlic ear y Texas seilUrs — tlie failure of the Mexican regime to provide it constituting one reason for their revolt — tlic first official suggestion for an institution of university rank occurred on hlpvcmicr 20, 1837, in a bill introduced hy Kelsey A. Douglass in the SeeoHtl Congress of tlie RefuMic of T exas. Meeting m a large unroofed frame huilding in Houston, in tfte rdin and the cold, the body took no definite action on tkc liill at this time. But it is sigmjicant to linow that Texas statesmen were hoping and plan ' nmg for a great institution 0 higher learning long before their successors ivere able to realize their dream.