University of Missouri - Savitar Yearbook (Columbia, MO)

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University. The legislature had passed an act, introduced by james S. Rollins, which provided that the University should be lo- cated in that one of the six most central counties which submitted the largest bid of land and money. At one time it looked as though the lead in subscriptions would be Wrested away from Boone County, but further contributions were cheerfully forth- coming, and Boone County was granted the University upon its bid of 31 17,921.75 Page 11 O From an old steel engraving of the University campus in 1870, showing the president? home, the academic hall, the observatory, and the scientzjic build- ing. Lake St. Mary appears in the foregound. This sum of money, accumulated in the wake of the panic of 1837 from an unde- veloped and unwealthy agricultural county, was indeed staggering. Many of the con- tributors were so unfamiliar with higher education as to speak of the University as the big school house. Many were com- pletely illiterate. Gne man, Charlie Burns, a Scotch well digger, gave five dollars, a

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In 1787 Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, the sine qua non of the Ameri- can system of government-fostered educa- tion. It proclaimed that schools and the means of education should forever be en- couraged. In 1820, pursuant to this de- cree, the government granted two town- ships of land in Jackson County to the new State of Missouri for the use of a seminary of learningfl The money eventually real- ized by the sale of this land could rightfully be called the original endowment of the University. By 1839 it amounted to 3100,- ooo. The State of Missouri, incidentally, did not contribute a cent to the support of O Carrying the news of the Boone County victory from Jejerson City back to Columbia. The citizens, after hearing their bid was highest put on a tremen- dous celebration. 1-T' -L? .- .-..-...., .Q ' v rx :... rug- ' x H lip. V. -z. 4:1 . J' 1 .nz- , X . K N , V - 1 - N 'i'.....-. '.i f g A ' l -75.-,1 . , , p -.: t-3 - ,T ' T at E it-' 1 r .i , V- X Nl. X V - T53 .5 gpgzezs 2... I 'ADT xx :zz W qvggg lg, , .is ...E-1. ',,f ' . f ll. ,,- ff ..l..- ,,....-. ..,.-. ...- 1 l l l w l the University until it was twenty-eight years old. The University was actually created by the Geyer Act, which was passed by the state legislature on February II, 1839. It was this establishing act, incidentally, which gives Missouri her title of the oldest state university west of the Mississippi. The next four months witnessed a hotly- contested struggle over the location of the Page I0

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sum which exceeded his total resources at any other one time. It was long the boast of such friends to the University as Major Rollins that every dollar of that sub- scription was paid and promptly paid. The first Board of Curators of the Uni- versity met in October, 1839, under a large sugar maple tree on the north edge of the present campus and decided that the first building should be erected immediately to the south, a site which then was practically surrounded by dense woods. Plans were drawn and accepted for a structure of un- usual proportions and stateliness, consid- O Old Columbia College 'was situated ou Sixth Street opposite the :ite of Parker Hospital. University classes were held in it until 1842 and again after the fire in 1892. ering the time and the sparseness of the population. At any rate, the cornerstone to the original Academic Hall was laid July 4, 1840, and classes opened the follow- ing year. This cornerstone, interestingly enough, survived the fire of 1892 and now rests in the gateway on the north extremity of Francis Quadrangle. On November 28, 1843, the University proudly announced the graduation of two young men and could take titleto being more than a pre- paratory school. The forties and fifties might well be lumped together in the history of the Uni- versity as years marked by slow expansion, l l l m..v.w1.'1- munvnf,Nff. .-.-. wt -mm.wr-mm-:ummm