University of Utah - Utonian Yearbook (Salt Lake City, UT)

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E L NC WALK

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PHngQAL SQEENCE

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I. CTHE STORY OF UTAH qT is seventy-seven years since the University of Utah began with a score of half-starved, ragged boys and girls, who had trekked across the plains from their happier homes in Illinois. Looking forward into the years they realized that they had a problem to solve- that of the wilderness, the frontier, the Indians. . Something inspired them to hope; to look into the future t; 23:: with faith in their destiny. The days brought weariness; but that chnglng to a golden thread of hope for the future was never given up; and they never looked backward, but always forward. This is the spirit in which they founded our University. To the men of yesterday the day was hard; the tomorrow golden. The University of Deseret was founded February 28, 1850, by act of the first legis- lative assembly of our Commonwealth, and was opened in the home of John Pack, November 2, 1850. The teachers were Orson Pratt, A. M. Cyrus, W. Collins and the Chancellor, Orson Spencer. The first Chancellor of the University was Professor Orson Spencer, A. M. The following men made up the first Board of Regents: Daniel Spencer, Orson Pratt, john M. Bernhisel, Samuel W. Richards, W. W. Phelps, Albert Carrington, William 1. Appleby, Daniel H. Wells, Robert L. Campbell, Hosea Stout, Elias Smith, and Zurrubbabel Snow. An issue of the News announced the arrival of school books, brought across the plains by Wilford Woodruff. During the first winter, classes were held in the Thirteenth Ward meeting house, and through the fifties lectures were given on history, philosophy and science by Orson Pratt, Orson Spencer, and others. In 1856 came Rufus Cobb, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who taught classes in Latin and Greek. Those pioneers loved the classics, and when the University began its career under new conditions in 1869, the catalogue announced courses in Latin, Greek, French and German. High-minded were those pioneers of Utah. They worked in the soil, and placed their ideals in the stars.