Semi-Centennial Anniversary Book: The University of Nebraska, 1869-1919
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- Semi-Centennial Anniversary Book: The University of Nebraska, 1869-1919
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In 1908, with R. A. Lyman as head, a school of pharmacy was established as an adjunct of the medical college. Afterwards, in 1915, the legislature erected this school into an independent college. It is now about to enter a permanent home in the remodeled building which the chemistry department has recently vacated. The college of law was founded in 1892, and has remained unchanged in form and name to the present time. It attained its effective organization under Dean Roscoe Pound, who served it from 1903 to 1907, and was then called successively to the law colleges at Northwestern, Chicago, and Harvard. He is now dean of Harvard Law School. The present dean, Judge W. G. Hastings, acted as Chancellor of the University during 1918. At America's entry into the war practically all the students of the law college, and at least one of the faculty, entered the military service. With their return the college is again taking up its work with a normally large attendance. Important changes were made by the state legislature under the advice of the Chancellor and the regents of the University in 1909. By one such change the old "college of literature, science, and the arts" received the title "college of arts and sciences." The province of this college included the ancient and modern languages, history, economics, political science and sociology, rhetoric and English, mathematics, philosophy, and the physical sciences. It will thus be seen that its field was more clearly defined. The college of engineering was provided for at the same time, and was so constituted as to include all the departments of engineering, drawing, certain phases of mathematics and natural science. It was organized first under Dean C. R. Richards, now of the University of Illinois, and since 1912 has been in charge of Dean O. V. P. Stout. In 1908 provision was made for a teacher's college, thus adding a new field for the work of the University. A college high school was created, and senior college students were trained as teachers under the principal of the school and his assistants. The registration has been large, and the -
Doubtless the foundation had been laid for real progress, but the word university can hardly be used for the institution before that date, and it was not until after 1908 that the full organization of all colleges was made. Though the largest attendance during these years—1877-1908—was in the college of literature, science and the arts, yet the enrollment in the industrial college was relatively large. All the teaching, however, except in certain phases of agriculture, took place on the city campus and not at the Farm; and as a rule a large proportion of the students of the two colleges were in the same classes. These facts led many to hold that the real attendance in the college of agriculture was very slight, and hence that a reorganization ought to be made. This was effected, and since 1909 a remarkable growth and development in the agricultural departments have taken place. The agricultural college was clearly defined, and its students were taught at the Farm by professors and instructors of agriculture. The field was made very broad and included full four-year courses in many branches, all calculated to give preparation for practicing or teaching in matters connected with farm work or home industrial life. The college now had as its head a dean of agriculture, A. E. Burnett, an able man of exceptional merit and great organizing capacity. The medical college was opened in 1883, and remained an organized college until 1888, when it was closed, in part on account of expense and in part on account of state criticism. In 1902 the medical college was revived under the deanship of Professor H. B. Ward. Under the new arrangement the first two years of the medical course were pursued in the laboratories at Lincoln and the last two in the clinical courses of the Omaha Medical College. In 1913 the whole medical college was removed to Omaha to take advantage of the better hospital facilities of the larger city. At this move, the Omaha Medical College was absorbed and reorganized by the University itself. The medical course at present involves a six-years' curriculum of which the first two, or pre-medical years, are pursued at Lincoln -
of the industrial college was to connect the agricultural work with science, engineering, and mechanics, in order to save, and thus develop, agricultural work. It was as dean of this college that Dr. Charles E. Bessey gave to the University the best years of his life; and though he outlived the college itself, he did so only to step into still higher rank, and into a still higher place in the regard of the University of the state. Had the union of agriculture with science and mechanics not taken place when it did it is almost certain that the agricultural college would have been removed to some other section of the state. Even after the growth of the industrial college, demands were made for the establishment of an agricultural college away from Lincoln and the University. In 1885 an attempt was made to divide the industrial college and remove the agricultural section. This movement was repeated in 1889, and the plan probably failed of realization in the legislature only from lack of time. The first important increase in the number of professors took place in 1877 when the total rose to fifteen. Later, with the establishment of the various colleges and with the growth of the student body, a rapid development took place. By 1890 there were nineteen on the academic faculty, twenty-two on the industrial faculty, eight in the Latin school, three in fine arts, and nine on the working staff of the agricultural experiment station. There was a good deal of overlapping, indeed, for there were altogether only thirty-two teachers in the University. By 1912 the faculty had increased to 238 professors and assistants, with ninety others in the pay of the University in various capacities. The plan adopted 1877 for reorganizing the colleges of the University remained the legal form until 1908-09. During the years 1877 to 1908 all the colleges provided for in the act of 1877 except that of fine arts were founded. In the earlier part of this period the development of the University was mainly in the arts college. After 1883 new departments were organized, and development began to spread to other fields. But it was not until the '90's that any remarkably rapid growth began to take place. -
fered were as follows: "moral science" by Chancellor A. R. Benton; "ancient languages" by Professor A. H. Manly, "English literature and rhetoric" by Professor O. C. Dake, "physics and natural science" by Professor S. Aughey. The above professors, and Principal G. E. Church, taught whatever mathematics and modern languages were given in that year. It is interesting to notice that there were only twenty college students in attendance this first year: one junior, two sophomores, five freshmen, and twelve irregulars. In the following years the growth was very slight; yet the figures given indicate that on the whole the life of the University was slowly improving. The students enrolled for the years from 1871 to 1877 were 20, 46, 43, 48, 66, and 67 respectively, while those present in the Latin school were 110, 77, 57, 69, 198, 161. The agricultural college, the second college to be organized, was started in 1872 with S. R. Thompson as dean and professor of theoretical and practical agriculture. In 1874 the present agricultural farm was acquired, and during the year 1874-75 its first student body, fifteen in number, entered the University. Again it is interesting to notice that years passed before any significant growth took place. In fact, the number of students in the new college decreased until in later years a reorganization took place. The students the college of agriculture from 1875 to 1881 numbered as follows: 15, 13, 16, 9, 9, 12—thus showing that a purely agricultural state did not as yet afford popular support to a purely agricultural school. Nebraska formed a new state constitution in 1875. Under its provisions a new board of regents was elected by the people. They had power to make changes in university organization, and this gave to the institution an adaptability that it had not before possessed. Their action in 1877 changed the titles of the colleges and reduced the number to five, as follows: "first, a college of literature, science, and the arts; second, an industrial college embracing architecture, practical science, civil engineering, and the mechanic arts; third, a college of law; fourth, a college of medicine; fifth, a college of fine arts." The main purpose -
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES To the honor of Nebraska, at the very beginning of its life, its citizens were ready to act in full harmony with the rising tide of higher education. The Hon. Augustus F. Harvey, who drafted the University Charter, was interested in a university rather than a college, and with a chancellor rather than a president as its head. His aim was to combine in one organization all lines of higher education, and he planned to include in the University of Nebraska, located at Lincoln, advanced work in the fields of language and literature, law, medicine, art, science, manual training, and agriculture. By this unity he hoped that the educational expenses of the state would be lessened, and that the opportunity for all students to find the fields in which they had the greatest interest and ability would be increased. The act as it was passed in 1869 provided for six colleges, which indicated the fields of education in mind at that time: "first, a college of ancient and modern literature, mathematics, and the natural sciences; second, a college of agriculture; third, a college of law; fourth, a college of medicine; fifth, a college of practical science, civil engineering, and mechanics; and sixth a college of fine arts." Naturally it took many years to work out the very extensive and complex plans of the charter of 1869. One smiles now as he looks back on the simplicity of the first years of the new institution, but he soon sees in those simple beginnings the promise of greater things. University Hall, the first building erected, and the only one on the campus until 1886, was practically completed by September, 1871. On Thursday, September 7th, of that year, the University and its preparatory or "Latin" school held their inaugural meetings, and the life of the University of Nebraska began. Only one college—not six—was opened, "the college of ancient and modern literature, mathematics, and natural sciences." The Chancellor and six professors had been selected, but only five of the seven were present during the year 1871-72. The courses of study of- -
the most efficient methods were introduced. In his academic career Professor Church displayed the great native ability which for many years has made him the brilliant judge of the superior court in Fresno, California, where he is still leader of the bar. It remains to offer a tribute of honor and affection to the noble woman who was first of her sex to hold a teaching position in the University of Nebraska. Miss Ellen Smith entered the faculty in the spring of 1877. In various capacities—as "instructor in Latin and Greek," "principal of the Latin School," "custodian of the library," and "registrar"—she served the University for twenty-four years zealously and efficiently (1877-1901). Her toilsome life was consecrated to the conscientious performance of duty. She was the very type of womanly faithfulness and humanism. She was loved by the students, even by those whom she rebuked for their shortcomings; and she was respected by her colleagues, even by those whom as registrar she frankly scolded for laxity in rendering their official reports. Her staunch personality was the very symbol of probity and moral courage. Her example was a precious influence in the academic life. Let us honor the work of Ellen Smith as a rich earnest of the equal share which women shall have in building the future university when the sex-line shall not be drawn in determining either the choice or the rewards of its servants. GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD. -
try. In addition, for several years, he taught the classes in German and devoted his remaining spare time to the collection of an herbarium of the flora of the state. Professor Aughey was a lovable personality. He possessed a vast amount of miscellaneous knowledge; but the enormous burden laid upon his shoulders by the University did not tend to foster scientific precision. H. E. Hitchcock, "professor of mathematics," was for his time an accomplished scholar. He was called from the same chair at Knox College where he graduated in 1846. He was a devoted teacher, a good citizen, a generous neighbor, a strong moral force in the community. "Professor Hitchcock," writes H. W. Caldwell in his excellent history, "was accurate, systematic, and always at his post;" surely a tribute of which a teacher may well be proud. Perhaps the most interesting, not to say picturesque and eccentric, character in that little band of institution-builders was the Rev. Orsamus C. Dake, the first "professor of rhetoric and English literature" and the first dean of the Arts College. He possessed the scholarly tastes and the refined manners of a typical clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He represented the aesthetic element in the teaching force. He loved literature as a fine art; and his lofty ideals, keen sensibilities, and poetic imagination are revealed in his two volumes of verse, the Nebraska Legends and Poems (1871) and the Midland Poems (1873). These little books are the first contribution of the University to genuine literature; and they constitute a worthy monument to the great souled humanist who shed refining influence on the academic life during his brief term of service; for he died in 1875. A remarkable personality of a quite different type was George E. Church, "principal of the Latin School" and, after 1874, first "professor of Latin language and literature." A man of powerful intellect and commanding presence, Professor Church was easily the most "modern" scholar and the best trained teacher in the University. Under his hand the foundation of the Latin department was solidly laid. After his return from Germany in 1878, -
education should be religiously, even ecclesiastically, directed was still strong; but it was in process of transition to the ideal of its entire secularization. Chancellor Benton had just the qualities of heart and mind, the breadth of humanism, needed in the transition stage. While he was an enlightened and faithful representative of orthodox Christianity, he was able firmly to grasp the new ideal of public education as the safeguard of society. He was tolerant in his daily walk and conversation. He was a refined gentleman; a scholar accomplished in the humanities of his day. Furthermore, he was a good teacher; for he was both chancellor and professor of "intellectual and moral science," besides finding time on the side to teach classes in Latin, Greek, and history. He was able to co-operate with his colleagues in their great task. As a result, during his term of service (1871-1876), the University of Nebraska was solidly planted. It passed rapidly through the first and critical stage of institutional growth. It struck its roots deeply in the affections of the people. As a faithful and efficient social servant, as a conscientious and prudent institution-builder, the name of A. R. Benton is enrolled among the most honored and the most beloved makers of the commonwealth. It is with feelings of intense pleasure that I recall the personalities of the little group of teachers constituting the first faculty of the University. The "professor of ancient languages and literature" was A. H. Manley, a refined, gently-speaking scholar of the old regime. S. R. Thompson, "professor of theoretical and practical agriculture," and after 1873, "dean of the college of agriculture," did the best he could at a time when in the United States the college of agriculture as an institution had not yet discovered its right functions nor its proper methods. Samuel Aughey, graduated at Pennsylvania College 1856 and recently (1867-1871) in the employ of the Smithsonian Institution, was placed in charge of a veritable settee of subjects. His professorship of "chemistry and natural sciences" was sufficiently broad, even for pioneer days, embracing all the instruction given in botany, zoology, geology, and chemis- -
the Chancellor's office—for a long time the only "office"—was the embryo of Administration Hall. The beginnings of the University library were sufficiently humble. Its germ-cell was room 202 on the second floor. For fifteen years that cramped space served as stack-room and reading-room combined. The annual expenditure for books was not lavish. According to the report of the librarian for the year ending June 8, 1881, seventy-two bound volumes had been added during the period; while the entire library then consisted of 2,781 bound volumes and 700 pamphlets: about two-thirds the size of the present "Howard Reference Library" for the department of Political Science and Sociology. Such were the scanty materials with which the first faculty undertook the hard and delicate task of building a university on the Nebraska plains. They were not men of wide national repute. Several had had experience in small denominational colleges. Not one was of transcendant [sic] ability. Most of them were persons of strong character and high ideals. The dominant conservatism of the group was a real safeguard in undertaking the then bold experiment of determining the methods, planning the curriculum, and starting the traditions of a secular a public, University for a pioneer society. One naturally turns first to the man at the helm. It was fortunate for the state that Dr. A. R. Benton was called to the high task of organizing and first administering the Chancellor's office. In 1871, when he took charge of the work, public sentiment was not clearly in favor of the state support and control of college education. Many feared that harm would follow from the secularization of higher education. The state university as an institution was still on trial in the United States. Furthermore, as yet, public opinion strongly favored broad cultural courses of instruction. True, there was already a demand for more generous recognition of the sciences as a necessary foundation for the world's work; but the enormous differentiation of the department—subjects which now fill the register was then hardly dreamed of. The traditional belief that higher -
monwealth. For fifteen years—until 1886 when the first chemical laboratory was ready for use—the old central building on the city campus—in recent years known as "University Hall"—was the sole domicile of the University of Nebraska. In popular phrase it was "The University." Of a truth that modest structure deserves the respect, the reverence, of the people of the state, as it has the honor and love of the men and women—many builders of the commonwealth—who caught inspiration within its walls. What those two ancient Halls at her campus gate are to Harvard, the venerable University Hall should be to our own institution. Let it not be touched by any destroying hand. Let it stand as long as nature may suffer it to endure as monument to the courageous souls who with slender means during lean years and perilous crises laid the spiritual foundations of Nebraska's chief temple of learning. In the little rooms of that old structure were fostered into vigorous life many of the "departments" which now find their homes each in a separate building or even in several buildings; while some of those departments have expanded into "schools" and "colleges." Thus, for a decade and a half, chemistry found a home in 104, the little northeast room on the first floor. Physics, under Professor Collier, was housed in 102 and 103 just opposite. At a later time rooms 103 and 104 became the cradle of the college of Engineering; for there, in the eighties, Professor C. N. Little developed a vigorous department of Civil Engineering, one of whose early products was Dean Stout, now head of the college. History, the first of the social sciences to be organized, got its start in 204, the northeast corner room on the second floor; while in 205, the adjacent room, the office and the collections of the State Historical Society were sheltered for six years, 1885-1891. In that same tiny, ill-lighted cubicle, in 1889-1891, Dr. Amos G. Warner, Professor Howard W. Caldwell, and the writer organized a joint seminar of history and economics; the first graduate seminar to be founded in the University of Nebraska. The genesis of the department of philosophy took place in room 112 on the first floor; and this same room, for may years -
EARLY FACULTY AND EQUIPMENT The imagination is sometimes kindled by contrasts in the bigness of human achievements. Assuredly the struggling infant of 1871-2 and the bouncing youngster of 1919 offer a sufficiently striking contrast. Then—and for fifteen years thereafter—the "plant" consisted of a single building. Now the city campus has twenty-one buildings; while at the "Farm"—where during the first decade a small frame cottage and a rude barn served to "house" the college of agriculture—there are at present, big and little, thirty-two structures. Then the full faculty list comprised seven names. Now the pay-roll of the University numbers 800 persons, 313 of whom are professors, instructors and others with "fixed stipends." During the first year were registered 130 students, all but 20 of whom were in the two sub-freshman years, called the Latin School. The total sank to 123 in the second year and to 100 in the third. At the close of a decade, in 1882, the entire student body, including 67 pupils in the Latin School, numbered but 284 souls; whereas in 1916-17, at the end of the forty-fifth year of active work, the roster of the University, including "schools" and "extension" students, enrolls a grand total of 5,405 men and women. A like contrast is revealed by the expanding budget. During the first year the total expenditure for all activities of the institution, including repairs and the "beautifying" of grounds, was $26,840.69; in the eight years (1879-1880)it had fallen to $25,197; while during the present biennium, including building, the University is costing sum of $4,000,000. Huge as this figure seems, it should be speedily increased to $6,000,000 per biennium, if salaries and equipment are to be raised to their just level. Still bigness is not everything. "Mark Hopkins on a log" may not accurately express the modern ideal of a university. The epigram does, however, contain a precious kernel of truth. It exalts the vital quality of the teacher's personality. A very humble habitation in which lives a great soul may mean much for the spiritual life of a com- -
for higher education. Chancellor Canfield's rival interest, which was to make the lawmakers of Nebraska know the worth of its chief institution, cost him the hardest joke of his four years' incumbency. At a luncheon given in his honor at the Commercial Club, on his leaving for Ohio, he spoke reminiscently of his work, and mentioned incidentally that he had traveled for the University not less than 200,000 miles. The moderator thanked him for furnishing, on the eve of his departure, a definite report on the mileage of his visits to the Capitol during legislative sessions. The specific requirements for admission to the Freshman class were, at this time, except that Virgil was not included for Latin or Xenophon for Greek, essentially the same as now. Two semesters' further study in each of these languages was soon after added. Greek was taught in a considerable number of high schools, Latin in all, Latin through six semesters was prerequisite for all the scientific groups, including the Engineering and the Agricultural. Present standard requirements in science date from the same years. Preparation in French and German was accepted in part fulfillment of language conditions as early as 1900, and allowed in full substitution after 1911. Other optional subjects were later added, finally raising the number of necessary points to thirty. Research studies were introduced at about the same the time in Botany, Chemistry, and Physics, and what was called "original work" in languages and History. A new member of the teaching force had offered courses, with mistaken perspective, in Sanskrit and Gothic in the Calendar of 1883—an anticipation realized by classes in each subject under another instructor five years later. The first fruits of academic expansion were given to the public in the opening number of University Studies, issued in the summer of 1888. This included an article on "The Eighth Verb-Class in Sanskrit," and a mathematical discussion concerning "The Transparency of the Ether." The latter was reproduced, in an abridged form, in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie of the following year. L. A. SHERMAN. -
Professor Woodberry's designated subjects were Rhetoric and Anglo-Saxon. Old English was at that time taught as a college subject as far west as Grinnell, then known as Iowa College. In his earlier connection with the University, Professor Woodberry had offered a course in Ancient Law. A graduate of those days was heard of trying to pass along his acquaintance with Sir Henry Maine's text on that subject to a group of farmers at a country schoolhouse. He did not finish his course of lectures or his term of teaching. The same student before graduation sought on a certain occasion to explain a specific function of sight as undoubtedly a survival from the time when there were eyes over the whole surface of the body. He was evidently trying to work Spencer's formula of evolution from homogeneity to heterogeneity backwards as well as forwards. But it was not often that the wine of knowledge went to the head that way. With sounder and more deliberate preparation came a clearer notion of the values derivable from college training. The University Calendar for 1885-1886, under the subject of "Admissions," included this suggestive sentence: Candidates from the High Schools of Beatrice, Hastings, Lincoln, Nebraska City, and Plattsmouth will be admitted to the Freshman class without examination. Ten years later this list had grown to an exhibit of sixty-four names. Chancellor Canfield's success in filling the halls of instruction with college students was due to the plan of accrediting secondary schools, which had been put into effect in 1884. This delay of a dozen years in getting the University into relations with the public school system, of which it was theoretically a part, was not a little fostered from within the faculty. One of its prominent members, who had served previously as State Superintendent of Public Instruction, opposed use of the high school,—"the people's college," as means of preparation for the University. His successor, not at all of the same mind, came enthusiastically to the support of Chancellor Manatt, who, on arrival, had proposed the scheme. Chancellor Canfield following set the whole State agog, as we have seen, -
ADMISSION AND CURRICULA 'The way to begin is to begin.' This doubtless means that what one does to set about a beginning often breaks inertia and becomes peculiarly and vitally the beginning itself. It is hesitancy over the first step that has kept many a chapter of potential history unwritten. When a college is opened in a community where there are no students asking or waiting to be admitted, there are evidently other forces than evolutional in control. The great universities were severally the result of need, and not an effort to create it. In 1871 the University of Nebraska was emphatically the seeker and not the sought. Some of its first alumni came to be students through the advice, and indeed, in a sense, the solicitation, of its head. Thus was the higher education precipitated in Nebraska. There being no secondary education to serve for preparation, the University was forced to administer it to itself. For years in consequence its chief enrollment was in its Latin School. Until the middle eighties the University of Nebraska was spoken of in legislative debates as the Lincoln High School. There was little knowledge of it in the State at large until Chancellor Canfield, in 1891-1895, carried the evangel of opportunity to every considerable town and village. College classes were now filled to repletion, and preparatory courses were discontinued. Amusing stories of the period thus closed indicate that some of the early students were but feebly 'fitted.' Professor Woodberry, acting as examiner, is said to have astonished applicant by asking merely, 'Can you read,' and by reporting to him, after proof of that accomplishment, 'You pass.' This admission was, of course, to the Latin School. There is evidence that Professor Woodberry found little fault with the quality of the students that reached him eventually in the college. Nowhere was greater promise discovered or developed than under his exacting standards. -
University Hall, the original home of the University, of late years held together, to ensure its safety from falling, by steel uprights, is still the home of the Arts College, the oldest of the colleges. Its recitation rooms and offices, which house classes in history, language literature, and rhetoric look time-stained and battered, in comparison with the new and attractive quarters of the natural sciences, the technical sciences, the social sciences, and the vocational and agricultural schools. But those who teach in the old building are glad to do so; indeed they take pride in doing so. They feel a deep love for it, for University Hall is the historic building, among those on the campus, and the classes reciting in it are those first desired by the founders of the institution. The University of Nebraska reflects, in the stages of its development, the shifting conceptions of the province of a state university that characterize the decades since its foundation. The primary purpose of the founders of the University was to provide a liberal or cultural education for the youth of the state, in order to make of them—as it has made of them—more rounded and valuable citizens. With the growth of the institution in scholarship, and the development of its graduate school, came a consciousness of the historic mission of a university, namely to preserve and if possible to add to the learning of the world, that asset of civilization. This may be called the function of the university proper, as distinguished from the secondary school and from the college. Last to be reflected in its development is the present-day conception of a state university as an institution of public usefulness, where training may be had in all lines, cultural, aesthetic, scientific, vocational, commercial, which the people of the state, who are its supporters, may desire. LOUISE POUND. -
the last public scare, although several thousand dollars have since been spent in replacing the inner foundation walls in making other necessary repairs. Undoubtedly the faulty construction of the building delayed the growth of the University considerably; certainly it used up much of its funds that were greatly needed elsewhere. A complete history of the University on its academic side, till 1900, by Professor Caldwell, is published in the Circulars of Information of the United States Educational Bureau for 1902, as part of his article on "Higher Education in Nebraska." The University opened with the single college of literature, science, and the arts. It offered courses in Latin, Greek, and the sciences. The first faculty consisted of Allen R. Benton, A. M., LL. D., chancellor and professor of intellectual and moral science; A. H. Manley, professor of ancient languages and literature; Henry E. Hitchcock, A. M., professor of mathematics; O. C. Dake, professor of rhetoric and English literature; Samuel Aughey, A. M., professor of chemistry and natural science; George E. Church, A. M., principal of the Latin school; S. R. Thompson, professor in the department of agriculture. The first duty of the professor of agriculture is said to have been to plant trees and to arrange walks on the campus. The first students to attend the University were the following: Freshmen, Frank Hurd, Tecumseh; Uriah M. Malick, Camden; H. Kanaga Metcalf, Rock Creek; W. H. Sheldon, Percival, Iowa; Mary W. Sessions, Lincoln; sophomores, Wallace M. Stephens, Nebraska City; William H. Snell, Lincoln; junior, J. Stuart Dales, East Rochester, Ohio. Mr. Dales and Mr. Snell were the first students to receive degrees, granted them in 1873. In addition to the regular students already named, there were twelve irregular students and 110 students in the preparatory school, making a total of 130 students in attendance during the first year. Fifty Years later, the University has students not only from Nebraska and from every state in the union, but from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and from many countries of the European continent. -
sion, headed the procession. In the evening a grand banquet was given. Governor Butler made a few remarks and Mr. Wheeler a short speech. Then Attorney General Seth Robinson gave an address on 'Popular Education,' but as most of it concerned Greece and Rome, and very little of it related to Nebraska, any farther reference to it may be omitted here. The banquet—thanks to the good people of Lincoln—was enjoyed by fully a thousand people, dancing being indulged in from 10:00 until 4:00 o'clock. This was the beginning, but the end was not yet, as Lincoln people well knew. The regents visited the building and after inspection, approved the plans of construction on January 6, 1871, but before a student had ever entered its doors, the cry was raised that it was insecure. On June 13, 1871, three professional architects were employed to examine the building thoroughly. Their report was made June 23 and pronounced the building safe for the present and probably for years to come. The probability, they thought, could be made a certainty by a few repairs that would not be very expensive. These repairs were made and September 6 the university was opened with an enrollment of about ninety students the first week. However, the rumor of the insecurity of the building would not down; so March 18, 1873, a special meeting of the regents was called to consider further repairs. After a report from another set of architects, a new foundation was ordered to be put under the chapel. The foundation walls, as they were torn out were to be examined by an architect under the direction of the attorney-general, J. R. Webster, who reported that the foundation had not been in accordance with the contract. The Chancellor in his report of June 26, 1877, to tear down the building and to erect a new one at the cost of $600,000, $40,000 of this amount to be raised in Lincoln. Work was to commence immediately at securing the above amount. The citizens of Lincoln, however, were not satisfied, so they sent to Chicago and Dubuque for architects who examined the building and pronounced it easily repaired. A committee of Lincoln citizens met the regents on August 15. A new foundation with some other repair was ordered, and the bill of $6,012 was paid by Lincoln. Various attempts to secure an appropriation to reimburse the city have been made, but all have ended in failure. At the same time the roof was repaired at an expense of $1,625, but the water still found its way through, till finally in 1883 a slate roof was put on and the 'leak' was stopped. Just after the reconsideration of the resolution to tear down the building, a committee came from Nebraska City to present a bid for the re-location of the University at that point. This was -
The record narrates that on June 25, 1874, Moses H. Culver and his wife in consideration of $6,050 in cash and $11,550 payable in four years, deeded to the regents the farm of 320 acres which is known as the University farm, distant about two and one-half miles from the main campus. When provision was made for the erection of University Hall, the first university building, through an act "providing for the sale of unused lots and blocks on the town site of Lincoln and for the erection of a State University and Agricultural College," it was stipulated that the building was not to exceed in cost $100,000. An account by Professor H. W. Caldwell, in a paper read before the State Historical Society in 1889, of the building of University Hall and of its early history is so interesting as to deserve quotation at length: On June 5, 1869, the sale of lots began and the first day 105 lots were sold for about $30,000. The next day The commonwealth [the predecessor of The State Journal] remarked that 'now the completion of the State University and Agricultural College is assured.' Eleven days later the paper announced the arrival of Mr. R. D. Silver, who would immediately put in a large plant for manufacturing brick for the university—the capacity of the plant to be 12,000 brick a day. The plans of Mr. J. M. McBird, of Logansport, Indiana, were accepted on June 2, and on August 14, The Commonwealth contained an editorial description of the plans for the now building, classing the style of architecture as Franco-Italian. The same issue of the paper announced that the excavation for the basement of the university was completed. On August 18, 1869, the contract for the erection of the building was let to Silver and Son for $128,480; soon afterward the troubles which followed the university for so many years began. Even the Brownville Advertiser, a good friend of the university thought the policy of letting a contract for $28,480 more than the appropriation unwise. The State Journal came to the defense of the regents, arguing that it was better policy to begin the erection of a building of sufficient size and well suited to its uses, even if it were necessary to have an additional appropriation, than to spend $100,000 upon a building that would soon have to be torn down because unsuited to the needs of the future. The cornerstone was laid on September 23, 1869; two days after a glowing account appeared in the columns of The State Journal. The exercises were in the hands of the Masons with Major D. H. Wheeler as master of ceremonies. A brass band from Omaha, imported for the occa- -
the state into the union, set apart and reserved for the use and support of a state university seventy-two sections of land, thus making a total of 136,080 acres of endowment lands. The proceeds of land sales, under the acts of Congress just named, constitute the permanent endowment fund of the University. Legal provision was made for the leasing of these lands, along with the common school lands, by the state board of public lands and buildings. Under an act of the legislature of 1897, no further sales of university lands can be made. The principal arising from former sales is paid into the permanent endowment fund, to be invested securities, only the interest of which can be used for expenses. Unfortunately, before the legislature took action, in 1897, nearly all the endowment lands had been sold, or were under contract of sale. Income is also derived by the University from the money-grant act of Congress, known as the Morrill-Nelson act of August, 1890, in aid of the original land grant fund and to be used in the same way, and from the Hatch-Adams act of 1887, for the establishment of experiment stations. The other revenues of the University are derived from appropriations made by the legislature and from taxation. By an amendment, passed in 1899, of the original act establishing the University, a tax of one mill per dollar on the grand assessment roll of the state is now provided, to be levied annually for the support of the University. The act establishing the University provided for a model farm. The governor was instructed to set apart two sections of any agricultural college land or saline land belonging to the state, and to notify the state land commissioner of such reservation for laying out a model farm. Land so set apart was not to be used for any other purpose. In his message of 1871, Governor Butler recommended that as there were no such lands in an eligible situation, a section of state lands should be sold and the proceeds applied to the purchase of a farm of not more than 320 acres as near the University campus as possible. Selection was made, and the land so selected was purchased, and converted into the present University experiment station farm. -
The government of the University of Nebraska was placed by the original charter in the hands of a board of twelve regents, nine of them to be chosen by the Legislature in joint session, three from each judicial district. The nine regents were divided into three classes by lot, one person from each district to belong in each class. The term of office for the first class was two years, for the second, four years, for the third six years. The remaining three regents, the chancellor, the superintendent of public instruction, and the governor, were members ex officio. The first members of the first board were appointed by the governor. The present organization of the University was adopted in 1877, after the formation of a new state constitution in 1875. It placed the University under the control of six regents, to be elected, and made provision for its organization and administration. Section 10 of article 8, entitled "Education," in the constitution of 1875 reads as follows, remodeling in several sections the act of 1869. The general government of the University of Nebraska shall, under direction of the legislature, be vested in a board of six regents, to be styled the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, who shall be elected by the electors of the state at large, and their terms of office, except those chosen at the first election as hereinafter provided, shall be six years. Their duties and powers shall be prescribed by law, and they shall receive no compensation, but may be reimbursed their actual expenses incurred in discharge of their duties. The funds of the University are derived from various sources. An act of the United States Confirms of July 22, 1862, provided an endowment of land for the several states for the maintenance in each state of at least one college where branches relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts should be the main subjects of instruction. By the terms of this grant, instruction in military science must be given in these colleges. Nebraska's share in this land endowment amounted to 90,000 acres. These were selected in Antelope, Cedar, Cuming, Dakota, Dixon, L'Eau Qui Court (afterwards Knox), Pierce, and Wayne counties. The enabling act of April 19, 1864, providing for the admission of -
THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY The University of Nebraska was chartered by act of the Nebraska legislature in 1869. The bill providing for its charter, known as S. F. No. 86, "an act to establish the University of Nebraska," was introduced into the senate on February 11, by E. E. Cunningham of Richardson County. It was referred back, on the day of its introduction, to the committee on education, the chairman of which was Charles H. Gere, to be for many years the editor of the Nebraska State Journal, and a future regent of the University. The bill was returned to the senate on February 12 with amendments and on the next day it was passed and sent to the house. It was read in the house a first and second time under suspension of rules, and referred to the committee on schools. The bill was read for the third time two days later February 15, passed, end signed by Governor David Butler. On the last day of the legislative session of 1869, two years and six days from the date of the admission of Nebraska to statehood, the bill chartering the University became a law. As recorded in The Statutes of Nebraska for 1869, the law enacted That there shall be established in this state an institution under the name and style of "The University of Nebraska." The object of such institution shall be to afford to the inhabitants of the state the means of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various branches of literature, science, and the arts. The charter of 1868 provided for six departments or colleges: A college of ancient and modern literature, mathematics, and the natural science, i.e., a college of literature, the sciences, the arts; of agriculture; of law; of medicine; of the practical sciences, surveying and mechanics; and of the fine arts. The college of fine arts was to be established when the annual income of the University reached $100,000. Six years later, by an amendment passed in 1875, the college of agriculture was united with the practical sciences, reducing the six colleges to five. -
bago, Omaha, Otoe, Missouri, and Sacs and Foxes. The government had assumed control of them sometime before, for the protection of the immigrants. As for national affairs, at the close of the decade Andrew Johnson was in the president's chair, to be succeeded by General Grant. The University was established in the fifteenth year after the admission of Nebraska to territorial government, in the second year after its admission to statehood, four years after the close of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln, and seven years before the centennial of the foundation of the republic of the United States. The city of Lincoln, at which the University was located, had been fixed upon as the state capital hardly two years before. It had few more than a thousand inhabitants, no water except well water, few or no sidewalks; a gas plant was not yet begun, and the campus where the university building was to be built was raw prairie, far out of town. Legislatures had hardly begun to meet at Lincoln, as state legislatures, when the first bills for the establishment of a normal school and for a university were passed. Already in the territorial period many bills of this nature had been introduced but owing to the outbreak of the Civil War they had not borne fruit in tangible results. It is good to see in retrospect early conditions, for the state and for the city of Lincoln, if we are to realize the expansions of fifty years. In the first moment of its self-consciousness, the state planned for its sons and daughters an institution which, within a half-century, more than realizes the dreams of the pioneers who founded it, and is a monument to their courage and prevision. LOUISE POUND. -
of the fiber to hold to their purpose. They surrendered many things when they came to these plains. Ties of kinship, of friendship, and endearing associations bound them to older localities. It is only men of strong individuality who break such bonds, and face undaunted the self-denials and privations of frontier life. New regions are not sought by the weak or the timid or the dependent, but by those of stern make—men of unusual se1f-reliance, endowed with enthusiasm and with zealous ambition. For those who read the stirring narrative of life in Nebraska in the early days, an outstanding feature is the wish, so soon defining itself, to care for the mental as well as the material welfare of its citizens—the aspiration to provide as early as possible for their higher education. This is apparent in the expression of pioneer ideals in speeches and in newspapers and in a review of the bills formulated by early legislatures. The region had hardly been penetrated and institutions of civilization had hardly been established when the wish to build for the future found definite voice, and the foundations of a system of higher education were laid on broad and liberal lines. To particularize, the decade which saw the inception and establishment of the State University was the decade of the 1860's, when Nebraska had but just reached statehood, for Nebraska became a state only in 1867. In the preceding decade the route of the Overland Mail service had passed through the Nebraska prairies, and that interesting and picturesque mode of transportation, the Pony Express, from St. Joseph to Sacramento, routed through Kearney, was given up only in 1861. There was much freighting by oxen in the 1860's, and in the next decades, and many immigrants were still coming in "prairie schooners," or passing through to regions farther west. The only parts of the state at all well settled were the southeastern and the eastern, and some of the chief centers of population were Omaha, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth, Falls City, and Brownville. The total population of the state could hardly have outnumbered 100,000. There were still many thousands of Indians on Nebraska reservations, Sioux, Winne- -
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA THE BACKGROUND From the first, the pioneer plainsmen of Nebraska were not content to be absorbed only in the activities of the present. They were not only adventurers and workers; they were dreamers. They fixed their eyes upon the future; and they planned with a constructive capacity which in these days—when Indian questions are no more, when territorial and statehood aspirations have so long been realized, when innumerable cities have replaced the cabins and dugouts of earlier generations—we should hold in grateful memory. For the most part, the minds and energies of the contemporary generation are occupied with the manifold interests of the present. It is rare that we pause to give thought the pioneers who laid so strongly and so surely the foundations of our life today, and made possible its successes. Only an occasional chronicler of early institutions looks back over their struggles, and realizes, with reverent attention, the ideals and efforts of generations long in their graves. When we think at all of those who obeyed the dictum "Go West" and made their pioneer homes in the region which was to be the territory and afterwards the state of Nebraska, we picture them as men passing their lives in isolated districts, far from the centers of population, and preoccupied with the tireless work attendant upon the breaking in of a new country. We picture them as engaged in useful labors but as leading humble and routine lives, engrossed in pioneer tasks. We are likely to forget that they were a special breed of men, especially rich in ambitions and ideals,—richer in these, it may well be, than many of us who are their descendants. Like the colonists of New England, they had muc -
