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

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II. cTHE STORY OF UTAH 7:5:5R. jOHN R. PARK was made president in 1869. He V was a great educator, and is called the Father of the University. The Park Building was named in his honor. The first president of the University was born in j TiHany, Ohio, in 1833. He was educated in the schools of his native town; Heidelberg College, Ohio Wesleyan . University and the University of New York City, where ik'the was graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1857. Re- turning home, he practiced his profession and taught school. In 1861 he left for the far West with California as his destination. Arriving in Utah that same year Dr. Park was employed by Bishop Isaac Stewart of Draper to teach the village school. The little school at Draper became famous. Itwas graded, a library of splendid books was purchased, a good museum estab- lished, and the boys and girls had remarkable facilities for their early train- ing. In 1868, Daniel H. Wells became chancellor of the University and he immediately began a reform in the curriculum and policy of the institution. George Q. Cannon, then editor of the Deseret News, was advocating through the columns of that paper the establishment of an institution of advanced standing. Dr. Park was employed' at a salary of $1,600 per year, and on March 8, 1869, the University was opened with Dr. Park as its president. The first catalogue gave courses of study, and announced the establish- ment of a good library. Instruction in the University included classical, normal, commercial, and preparatory courses, and for the first time, a model school was opened in connection with the Normal Department, in which boys and girls tiwould be prepared to enter immediately the college classes, and thus preclude the necessity of the present preparatory course? Military training and physical culture were also to be prominent features of the school, and literary societies were to be organized. Dr. Parks journal shows the general activities of the students of those days: how they celebrated the Fouth of july and took part in the exercises celebrating the completion of the Utah Central railroad.

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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.

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III. CTHE STORY OF UTAH UR ALMA MATER has had its great educators; men of broad schooling and fine tastes of sympathy and under- standing. They believed 1n the perfectness of humanity ; as an end. They saw greatness in the boy and girl, and were the teachers of the minds and spirits of youth. There were William M. Stewart, Dr. Orson Howard, Dr. joseph Toronto joseph L. Rawlins, Dr. joseph T. .. - Kingsbury, Dr. 111. Paul, and many others. They seemed to have realized Plato s 1dea1111Lovers not of a part of wisdom, but of the whole . . . . of awe11 proportioned and gracious mind . . . . noble, gracious, and friends of truth, justice, courage and temperance. The life of the University of Deseret during the career of Dr. Park cen- tered about the Normal School, which was organized as a department of the University in 1869. Throughout the years this school has been an im- portant factor in the educational activities of the State. During the period from 1888 to 1913, the one man who came to be the leader in educational effort and the training teachers was Dr. William M. Stewart, than whom no greater teacher was ever connected with the University. His life was cut short by death in 1913, but hundreds of University alumni through- out the West hold his memory sacred. A chair of mineralogy and geology was established in 1890, and in 1892, while Dr. Park was still president, a b111 was introduced into congress by Senator Shoup of Idaho, providing for sixty acres of the Fort Douglas military reservation for a University site. This bill was the result of a memorial, introduced by Representative Lund of the Utah Legislature on january 27, 1892. In 1896, through the efforts of joseph Rawlins, the present campus site was obtained by an act of congress. At the same time, a bill was introduced to change the name of the University of Deseret to the Uni- versity of Utah. This bill became a law at that session of the legislature. Interesting is the fact that this tract of land given by congress is the identical tract picked out by Brigham Young in 1850 for a university.