The University of California

Vol. XXVII, No. 2.

November, 1899.

WILLIAM R. BAIRD, Editor;

63 West Sad St., New York.

JAMES T. BROWN, Business Manager;

363 W. 2oth St., New York.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Illustrated .. Willard G. Parsons .. 77

JAMES HARLAN. Frontispiece 97

A LEGEND OF WOOGLIN George E. Fitch . . 100

EDITORIALS 108

CHAPTER LETTERS AND NOTES 113

PERSONALS , : . . 1 34

THE GREEK WORLD 1 39

DIRECTORY
OF THE FRATERNITY.

District I. New England.

Chief:

Hat-yard (H),
Brown (K),

Bpston (Y),
Maine (B H),
Amherst (B I),
Dartmouth (A O),
Wesleyan (M E),
Yale(*x),

George F. Wales,
Lawrence Bullard,
Morris A. Bolt on,
William W. Coles,
Samuel D. Thomson,
Nathaniel L. Goodrich,
Louis L. Crone,
A. Lloyd Cooper,
Frederick;. Nash,

73 Tremont St., Boston, Mass.
B 0 n House, 59 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, Mass
No. i Hope College, Providence, R. I.
B 0 n Rooms, 26 Pemberton Sq., Boston, Mass.
B 0 n House, Orono, Me.
B 0 n House, Box 39, Amherst, Mass.
Hanover, N. H.

B 0 n House, Middletown, Conn.
White Hall, New Haven, Conn.

District II. New York and New Jersey.

Chief:

Rutgers (B r),
Cornell (B A),
Sterens (2),
St. Lawrence (BZ),
Colgate (B 0),
Union (N),
Columbia (A A),
Syracuse (BE),

Williston Manley,
William P. Allen,
Harry A. Hitchcock,
Charles D. Chasteney
Clarence E. Hemenway,
Herbert F. Evans,
Charles J. Bennett,
Knowlton Durham,
Louis D. Pulsifer,

Canton, N. Y.

B 0 n House, New Brunswick, N. J.
B 0 II House, Ithaca, N. Y.
B 0 n House, 1130 Garden St., Hoboken, N. J.
B © n House, Canton, N. Y.
B 0 H House, Hamilton, N. Y.
B 0 n House, 28 Union Ave., Schenectady, N. Y.
B 0 H Rooms, 519 W. izsd St., New York City.
B 0 n House, 113 Waverley Place, Syracuse, N.Y.

District HI. Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Chief:

Wash.-jeff'n (r),
Dickinson (A 2),
Johns Hopkins (AX),
Pennsylvania (*),
Pa. State Coll. (A Y),
Lehi^h (B x),

H. Walton Mitchell, 1015 Park Building, Pittsburg, Pa.

Girard B. Edwards, B 0 n House, Washington, Pa.

Frank C. Daniel, Box 254, Carlisle, Pa.

H. Clay Miller, B 0 n House, 1314 McCullah'St., Baltimore, Md.

Neilson Sharp, B 0 n House, 3533 Locust St., Phila., Pa.

Charles H. Raub, B 0 n House, State College, Pa.

Luther D. Menough, B 0 n House, S. Bethlehem, Pa.

District IV. (Mystic Seven District.) Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina.

Chief:

Hampden-Sidney (Z),
Forth. Carolina (H B),

Virginia (O),

Davidson (* A),

J. Garland Pollard, Richmond, Va.

Peyton Cochran, Hampden-Sidney, Va.

C. B. Denson, Jr. Chapel Hill, N. C.

Hugh A. Garland, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Walter M. Walsh, Davidson College, N. C.

WITH WHICH HAS BEEN UNITED

flD\>stic

VOL. XXVII. NOVEMBER, 1899. No. 2

THE BETA THETA Pi is published in six regular and two special
numbers throughout the college year. The subscription price is Two
Dollars per annum in advance. Single copies, jj cents each.

*** The Publication Office is in the Mt. Pleasant Building, 208 Cres-
cent St., Harrisburg, Pa.

*\ The Editorial Office is at 63 W. 8jd St., New York, where all
communications to the Editor and exchanges should be sent.

*** The office of the Business Manager is at j6j W. 2Oth St. , New
York, where all communications relating to subscriptions, advertise-
ments, etc., and all remittances should be sent.

q.*+ Advertising rates upon application. The right is reserved to
reject any advertisements.

^University of California,

BY WILLARD G. PARSONS, OMEGA.

All hail ! thou western world ! by heaven designed,

The example bright to renovate mankind !

Soon shall thy sons across the mainland roam

And claim on far Pacific's shore a home ;

Their rule, religion, manners, arts convey

And spread their freedom to the Asian sea.

Towns, cities, fanes shall lift their towering pride,

The village bloom on every streamlet's side ;

Proud commerce's mole the western surges lave,

The long white spire lie imaged on the wave.

Where marshes teemed with death shall meads unfold,

Untrodden cliffs resign their stores of gold ;

Where slept perennial night shall science rise

And new-born Oxfords cheer the evening skies.

— Written in 1794 by Timothy Dwight,

President of Yale College, 1795-1817.

78 B^ra ©jyra Ul

When Abraham Lincoln in 1862 signed the land grant bill
to promote education, the immediate stimulus that brought into
existence the University of California was furnished. The con-
stitution of the state, to be sure, formulated in 1849, had called
in no uncertain terms for the establishment of a university, and
a strong desire in the community to realize its foundation had
shown itself in yearly attempts to open the way. These earliest
efforts are particularly interesting from the fact that they each
gave a certain bent to the movement, and the university today
exhibits results of their influence.

The first suggestion, proffered in the very first Legislature
of California, called for a Colegio de Univeria. In 1858 a vigo-
rous plea was made for the founding of the university as a state
military institute. Finally, the act of 1862 gave California
"one hundred and fifty thousand acres for the endowment of
at least one college, where the leading object should be to teach
subjects pertaining to agriculture and mechanics." Mining,
military drill, and agriculture are today marked features of the
university.

But, notwithstanding the constitution's demand for a uni-
versity, and the active interest of the people of the state, the
design was too large to admit of accomplishment until the
national gift of land was made. This was too munificent to be
lost, and the state at once set about finding ways and means for
carrying out the provisions of the act. It soon found its oppor-
tunity in the College of California, a school already existing in
Oakland.

Henry Durant, a name revered in the annals of California,
left his pastorate in a New England village in 1853 and came to
San Francisco, — came, as he said, "with college on the brain."
He had been in California hardly a month when he opened a
school in a former fandango house in Oakland. His own
account is as follows: "I began it with three pupils, in a
building which I hired for $150 a month, to be paid in gold
coin monthly in advance ; to be occupied by a man and his
wife, whose wages were to be another $150 a month, to be paid
in the same way. The income was not sufficient to meet ex-
penses, and my housekeeper became alarmed. He said what
did not succeed in two months and a half in California never
would succeed." Trouble followed. The housekeeper turned

The University of California. 81

the school- room into a bar-room and laid hands on Durant to
throw him out. But Durant's faith remained unbroken. He
secured a permanent site for his school, where it grew into a
more dignified institution, the College of California. Its first
faculty consisted of Henry Durant and Martin Kellogg. In
1860 it had six instructors and eight freshman students. It
owned its grounds in Oakland and a tract of 160 acres in Berke-
ley, but it was poor in money and its financial growing-pains
were severe. Finally, in 1867, its trustees determined to offer
its property to the Board of Directors of the Agricultural,
Mining, and Mechanical Arts College, appointed by the state
to secure the advantages of the land grant bill, and to agree to
unite with the prospective state college in forming a university.
This offer was accepted, and the charter creating and organizing
the University of California was signed by Governor Haight on
March 23, 1868.

To this new institution the state contributed a princely
national endowment for colleges of agriculture, mining and me-
chanics ; the College of California gave grounds, an organized
school, and a classical and literary side.

The charter provided for three governing bodies : the regents,
who were to manage the university's business ; the faculties,
governing the various colleges, and the academic senate, con-
sisting of all instructors united in one body and charged with
regulating general internal affairs. A president was placed at
the head. Such remains the organization of the university
today.

The first professor called to the faculty of the university was
John Le Conte. He arrived in 1869, and was the principal in-
fluence in formulating the internal organization of the institu-
tion. Shortly after John Le Conte's call to the chair of Physics,
his brother, Joseph Le Conte, was elected professor of geology,
botany and natural history. No names in the university's roll
are more deeply written in her heart than these of the brothers
Le Conte — par nobile fratrum. When they came to California the
one was fifty years of age, the other forty-six. "They brought
hither," as Professor Kellogg said in 1891, "their wealth of ex-
perience and reputation, with a devotion to their work, an ele-
vation of view, a success in new achievement, which for these
twenty-two years of the university's existence have been among

82 B^ra 0>7Ta III

its chief titles to its good repute." Their French extraction and
early southern home endowed them with the sweet graces and
courtesies of life, and in themselves lay all the virtues of simple,
sincere manliness. Many a student has found in their presence
and silent example his finest university training. The elder,
John Le Conte, was taken by death in 1891 ; the younger, Joseph
Le Conte, now seventy-seven, still lectures to his classes, still
crosses the college campus, still responds to the affectionate
salutation of the students, one and all. May his noble influence
long be spared to California.

Next to John Le Conte in priority of election to the Univer-
sity of California, comes Professor Martin Kellogg. He had
been serving for nine years in the College of California as pro-
fessor of mathematics, when, in 1868, he was called to the chair
of Ancient Languages in the university. He continued in active
connection with these departments until 1893, when he was
elected president of the university. He remained at the head of
the institution for six years, his kind Christian spirit and his re-
fined and genuine culture shedding blessings and inspiration
upon all he touched. In 1899 he resigned the presidency and
was at once appointed professor emeritus of Latin — his particu-
lar subject. In the summer, however, he left Berkeley with his
wife for much needed rest, to be gained by a trip round the
world.

Within a year after the founding of the university two im-
portant acts were passed by the Board of Regents. The first
abolished all admission and tuition fees, the second opened the
university to young women. One woman was graduated in 1874.
The percentage of women students has steadily increased until
now the number of women is to that of men about as seven to
nine in the colleges at Berkeley, — that is, the non-professional
colleges ; or including these, in the entire university, about as
nine to fifteen.

Up to 1873 the university had occupied the buildings of the
College of California in Oakland. In that year the institution
was moved to Berkeley, then a village of about a dozen houses,
some six miles north from Oakland. Here, on the slopes of the
foot-hills, with a view commanding the bay and city of San
Francisco, the Golden Gate and Mount Tamalpais, lay the site
deeded to the state by the College of California.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA — VIEW ON THE CAMPUS.

The University of California. 85

The location had been chosen many years before by Henry
Durant. He had set out with a few friends to select the ideal
spot for the "college on his brain," and had passed in review
many beautiful slopes and valleys and plains of luxuriant Cali-
fornia, "where," as John B. Felton told the story, "one morn-
ing in spring he passed through fields unbroken by roads, un-
trodden by man, and came to the present site of Berkeley.
'Eureka!' he exclaimed, 'Eureka! I have found it. I have
found it!' "

Wise was his choice, and true were his words. For if he
were seeking the ideal location for a temple of inspiration, he
had found it. Travelers who have known the more famous cam-
puses of our country, who have visited the universities of Eng-
land and of Europe, agree in saying that in all the world there
are no such college grounds as those of California for natural
beauty, charm, sublimity; and no University of California stu-
dent, amid all the inconveniences of overcrowded buildings, ever
fails to draw a proud breath of delight as he stands beneath the
liberty-pole in front of the library, and his eye looks westward
over the great silver bay, almost at his feet, and on out the
Golden Gate, flanked on the right by majestic Tamalpais, on the
left by the picturesque hills of San Francisco; or, turning to his
immediate neighborhood, rests its vision on the firm but gentle
hill slopes leading up to "Grizzly," from whose summit he has
often beheld a yet wider panorama, or on the noble oaks that
spread their aged limbs protectingly over the watered canons
of the hills.

It was in 1858 that the trustees of the College of California
assembled at a great rock near the northern boundary of the
grounds and dedicated the site to the cause of learning. This
rock is within a hundred yards of the present Beta Theta Pi
house, from whose windows it is conspicuously visible. In 1896,
at the suggestion of Galen M. Fisher, a Beta, the graduating
class placed a granite tablet in the rock, commemorating in let
ters of gold the dedication of 1858. At the ceremonies the
speech was made by Brother Fisher. The rock is no\v com-
monly known as Founders' Rock.

As yet the site was without a name. It was not until 1866
that Frederick Billings, one of the first trustees of the College of
California, while pondering on the problem of a name, repeated

86 E^ra ©>7<rct IK

to himself the lines of the famous bishop on the prospect of
planting arts and learning in America:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

The inspiration came : Berkeley.

The town, in 1873 a mere hamlet, has grown with the times,
until at present it numbers over 10,000 inhabitants, possesses
many churches and schools, a public library, and frequent and
rapid communication with San Francisco.

During the university's first year, Professor John Le Conte
had served as acting president. In 1870 the presidency
was offered to General George B. McClellan; but he declined,
and so also did Professor Daniel Coit Gilman, of Yale. Finally
Henry Durant took the place, but resigned it at the end of two
years. Professor Gilman then accepted the position. He had
many difficulties to face. The state was full of unrest and dis-
content. The result was the granger movement, which chose
the university for one point of its attack. The university was
accused of giving a useless education to the rich at the expense
of the poor. To every Legislature the university — no adequate
endowment having been made — was obliged to apply for ap-
propriations. At every application it trembled lest the agitation
in the state should influence the Legislature to refuse, or, worse,
to impair or disrupt the institution. And still another antago-
nistic cry was raised — the university was charged with being
"godless." President Gilman met both external opposition and
internal dissension, and built up the university in their despite.
He developed the classical side, and at the same time strength-
ened the technical courses. But the friction was great, and
when, in 1875, he was offered the opportunity of founding Johns
Hopkins University, California suffered an irreparable loss.

During President Gilman' s administration the university
gained Professor Edward Sill. He filled the chair of English
from 1874 to 1882. Five years after California lost him the
world lost him, too. "His life, "says Professor William Carey
Jones, in his admirable illustrated history of the University of
California, "was as pure as the sunshine of heaven. He left a
glow behind him that illuminates every spot he inhabited and

The University of California. 89

every soul with whom he had communion. He was above all a
poet, with all the sensitiveness, with all the earnestness, with
all the desire to deliver to the world a message that character-
izes the essential poet." The exquisite teaching of his life was
embodied in a lyric now famous, "The Fool's Prayer." Tradi-
tion hands his memory down through the generations of stu-
dents, and California still acknowledges to Edward Rowland
Gill much of what is finest and noblest in her atmosphere.

In 1879 the constitution of the state was revised, and certain
discontented elements in the state united in an effort to breakup
the university. But the position of the institution was immeas-
urably strengthened. The university was declared a public
trust, self-controlled except for such action on the part of the
Legislature as might be necessary to insure compliance with the
terms of its endowments.

In 1881 Mr. D. O. Mills endowed the university with
$75,000, the income of which was to maintain a chair of Intellec-
tual and Moral Philosophy and Civil Policy. In 1883 the first
and present incumbent, Prof. George Holmes Howison, was
elected. Professor Howison has been and remains one of the
strongest men on the faculty. When compromise or opportun-
ism seems about to prevail in the councils of the university, his
voice clears the sky and the light of truth and right and wisdom
is let in. His name is known throughout the philosophical
world as one of the greatest living disciples of Kant. At present
he is visiting in Oxford, England, in association with his fellow-
Kantian, Dr. Caird, of Baliol. It may be permissible to add, in
the pages of the Beta magazine, that he has with him a Beta of
the class of '99, Harry A. Overstreet, and that two of the most
prominent members of his department at Berkeley, Professors
George M. Stratton and Charles M. Bakewell, are Betas of the
Omega chapter.

In 1887 the Legislature passed the Vrooman act, providing
that there should be levied annually, for the support of the Uni-
versity of California, a tax of one cent upon each one hundred
dollars of value of the taxable property of the state. This en-
larged and certain income immediately allowed the growing
forces of the university to develop, and expansion followed.
Into the making of the new university many other elements en-
tered. Among them was the system of accrediting schools, by

9° B^ra 0)7Ta III

which students of schools whose work has been passed upon by
university examiners and declared up to the standard, may be
admitted to the university without examination upon the recom-
mendation of their principal. At present there are ninety-one
schools in California credited for the whole or part of their cur-
riculum.

Another factor in the university's expansion was the inaugu-
ration in 1890 of university extension work. This has become
a regular feature of the university. During the present fall the
university announces one regular class in Chinese and four lec-
ture courses, numbering some twenty-five lectures.

Yet another influence toward the university's full develop-
ment was the establishment of the Leland Stanford Junior Uni-
versity at Palo Alto. Many at the time thought that the roll of
students at the state institution must necessarily decrease. But
such was not the case. California has seen her largest growth
since her rival came. Rivalry is good. Competition has spurred
each university on to its best efforts, example has profited each,
and each has given something new and advantageous to the
other.

After the resignation of President Oilman in 1875, the suc-
cession of presidents ran as follows : John Le Conte, 1875 to
1881; William T. Reid (of the Illinois College chapter), 1881 to
1885; Edward Singleton Holden, 1886 to 1888 ; Horace Davis,
1888 to 1890. Upon President Davis' resignation, the faculty
elected Professor Kellogg their president pro tempore ; in 1893
he was elected president of the university by the regents. After
a six years' administration, marked by a rare combination of
conservative-progressive wisdom, President Kellogg resigned, in
the present year.

In this rapid review of the history of the university, much of
great importance to its life has necessarily been omitted. The
author has merely tried to touch upon a few significant details,
whereby might be suggested something of the university's char-
acter, of its helps and hindrances, something of the inspiring at-
mosphere created by its superb situation before Golden Gate,
and by the daily presence of the rare and honored men who have
served upon her faculty. We turn now to take a sweeping
glance over the university of today.

The university is made up of the academic colleges at

The University of California. 91

Berkeley, the professional colleges, the School of Fine Arts
and the School of Industrial Arts, in San Francisco, and the
Lick Astronomical Department on Mt. Hamilton.

The Academic Colleges are divided into two groups, as
follows :

A. The Colleges of Liberal Culture —

(1) The College of Letters.

(2) The College of Social Science.

(3) The College of Natural Science.

B. The Colleges of Applied Science —

(1) The College of Agriculture.

(2) The College of Chemistry.

(3) The Engineering Colleges.

(i) The College of Mechanics,
(ii) The College of Chemistry,
(iii) The College of Civil Engineering.

The course in the College of Letters leads to the degree of
Bachelor of Arts ; in that of Social Science to Bachelor of
Letters ; in all the other colleges to Bachelor of Science. In
the Colleges of Liberal Culture the one hundred and twenty
units, i. e., hours of recitation credit necessary to graduation
(besides the five units of military drill), are divided into sixty
units of prescribed work, intended to be accomplished in the
freshman and sophomore years ; thirty units of group elective
work, i. e., work upon one special subject or two closely allied
subjects ; and thirty hours of free elective, made up of single
courses at the will of the student. The prescribed work is in-
tended to compel breadth in foundation, — the group elective to
give thorough grasp of some one subject, pursued along lines of
original investigation ; the free elective to allow play for the
student's peculiar preferences and to cultivate independent
choice and self-direction. Upon the whole, the scheme works
admirably. The only criticism to be made is that the exi-
gencies of arranging work to meet the conditions of time of
recitation, choice of instruction, and special requirements, such
as those imposed upon the prospective teacher, are such as
ordinarily to devour all the thirty hours of free electives. There
is a need for a little less prescription and more freedom. In the
Colleges of Applied Science the prescription covers much more

III

of the ground ; in some, indeed, it covers the whole. But here
in these specialized colleges, it is much more justifiable.

Graduate work has for some time past been receiving special
attention from the university authorities. The degrees of Mas-
ter of Arts, of Letters, of Science, Doctor of Philosophy,
Mechanical, Mining, Metallurgical or Civil Engineer, are given.
The first three require at least one year, the last five at least
three years of graduate work.

Two prominent features of the life at Berkeley for male
students are prescribed military drill and prescribed gymna-
sium exercises. Every male student must participate in out-
door drill for one hour twice a week during his three years, and
attend a military lecture one hour a week during his fourth year.
There are eight companies, formed in two battalions, with a
signal corps, a saber company, and a band. The officers
throughout are students. Gymnasium is prescribed three
hours a week for two years.

The number of students in the colleges at Berkeley is 1,743,
as against 1,565 at this time last year. Of these 158 are grad-
uate students, 565 are freshmen, and 1,020 are undergraduates,
not freshmen. The teaching force at Berkeley numbers 159.

There are three student publications at Berkeley : The
Californian, a four-page newspaper published five days in the
week ; the Occident, a weekly ; and the University of California
Magazine, issued monthly, and representing all colleges in the
university and, through its alumni department, the past students
as well as the present.

There are sixteen fraternities at Berkeley, — thirteen for men
and three for women. All occupy houses either rented or owned.
The absence of dormitories has developed a strong fraternity
home-life. If it were not for this, indeed, Berkeley would have
little of that peculiar atmosphere that makes a college man and
that is known as college life. The men's fraternities, in the
order of their establishment, are: 1870, Z^; 1875, X <£ ; 1876,
A K E ; 1879, B © n ; 1873, $ A © (revived in 1881) ; 1886, 2 X ;
1886, $TA; 1892, 2N; 1894, 2 A E ; 1895, X*; 1895, KA
(southern) ; 1895, A Y; 1898, ATA. The women's fraternities
are : 1890, K A © ; 1894, T & B ; 1897, K K T.

The professional colleges in San Francisco consist of the
Hastings College of Law, founded and endowed by Judge S.

The University of California. 93

C. Hastings in 1878; the College of Medicine, founded by Dr.
H. H. Toland in 1864 and affiliated with the university in 1873;
the San Francisco Polyclinic, affiliated with the university in
1892 as the Post-Graduate Medical Department ; the College
of Dentistry, organized in 1881 ; the College of Pharmacy,
affiliated with the university in 1873; and the Veterinary College,
affiliated in 1894. The curricula of these colleges cover fully
the field in their own lines. The affiliation with the university
is closer in some than in others, but in all the president of the
university is the president of the college, and degrees are con-
ferred by the university. The professional colleges are mag-
nificiently housed in three adjacent buildings on the same
square in San Francisco. Their students number a total of
over five hundred, their instructors and lecturers over two
hundred.

In 1872, the California School of Design was founded in
San Francisco. In 1893 it became affiliated with the university
as a fine arts college, under the name of the Mark Hopkins
Institute of Art. It occupies the former residence of the late
Mark Hopkins, a palatial building in whose great galleries and
suites of salons the university receptions take place. The
institute has eight instructors and over two hundred students.
Classes are held in elementary drawing, antique, life, portrait,
composition, perspective, etc.

The Wilmerding School of Industrial Arts, handsomely
endowed in 1894, has opened this year for the first time. Its
object is to enable its students to become first-class mechanics,
and hence its schedule consists largely of shop-work.

The Lick Observatory, on the summit of Mount Hamilton,
in Santa Clara county, was opened in 1888. The great 3O-inch
refractor which it contains was then the largest in the world.
Since then it has been surpassed in size by the 4O-inch telescope
of the University of Chicago. The telescope and observatory
were the gift of James Lick, at a cost of $700,000. Besides
the great equatorial, the observatory is fully equipped with
instruments. Its researches and discoveries have more than
justified the hopes of its founder. One of the most brilliant
was the discovery of the fifth moon of Jupiter on September 9,
1892, by Professor Edward E. Barnard, whom, by the way, we
all know as a Vanderbilt Beta. It was nearly three hundred

94 Btfrcc ©>?Ta III

years since the well known four moons of Jupiter were first seen
by Galileo. For his discovery Professor Barnard received the
highest recognition from the French Academy of Sciences.
The observatory is the property of the university.

The university of the present numbers some 2,500 students,
120 officers of administration, and 410 instructors.

So much, then, for the university of the past and present.
Let us turn to the university of the present and future. We
immediately encounter two great names. The first is that of
Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst, now one of the university's most
honored regents. It was in 1891 that Mrs. Hearst, the widow
of the late United States Senator Hearst, endowed the univer-
sity with a sum sufficient to support eight $300 scholarships for
young women. This gift was but in a line with numberless
previous benefactions, noiselessly distributed here and there
throughout the country, and but the first of many others to
follow to the university.

Chief among these stands the " Phoebe Hearst architectural
plan." It was in 1896 that Mrs. Hearst, who had for some time
desired to provide the young women of the university with a
gymnasium and a general day-home, and also to erect a Mining
building as a memorial to her husband, but who had hesitated,
owing to the lack of any such genuine plan for the grounds and
buildings at Berkeley as would secure architectural harmony,
learned that a movement to secure just such a plan was afoot
in the Board of Regents, but was hanging fire on account of lack
of funds, whereupon Mrs. Hearst said: "I should like to
undertake that; I am ready to provide the money." The
scheme had been broached in 1895 by Mr. Maybeck, then
instructor in drawing in the university. It had been heartily
espoused by Professor William Carey Jones and by Regent
Reinstein. Through the latter it had been put before the
regents, and a formed vote secured that there should be pre-
pared an architectural program "for a permanent and compre-
hensive plan, to be open to general competition, for a system of
buildings to be erected upon the grounds of the University of
California at Berkeley."

Upon the acceptance of Mrs. Hearst's offer to defray the
expenses of an international competition, Mr. Reinstein and
Mr. Maybeck were sent east and to Europe to consult with

The University of California. 95

architects, and in 1897 a prospectus and a program, in English,
French and German, were issued. The architects of the world
were invited to send plans to Antwerp for the preliminary com-
petition. One hundred and five plans were received. The
judges were Jean Louis Pascal, of Paris, winner of the Grand
Prix de Rome in 1866, and at present engaged with the sculptor
Barrias on the monument to Victor Hugo ; R. Norman Shaw*
of London ; Paul Wallot, of Berlin, architect of the new
Reichstag building in the imperial German city ; Walter Cook,
of New York, president of the New York chapter of the
American Institute of Architects ; and J. B. Reinstein, of San
Francisco. Eleven plans were granted preliminary acceptance.
Only the authors of these were allowed to compete for the final
prizes. They were invited to visit Berkeley, and nine of the
eleven did so. The final competition took place in San Fran-
cisco in the months of August and September of this year.
After the judges, who were the same as at the preliminary com-
petition, save that the place of Mr. Shaw, who was prevented
from coming by illness, was taken by Mr. John Belcher, of
London, had carefully examined the topography at Berkeley,
and had determined that the successful plan must represent a
university rather than an architectural composition, and must
conform to the grounds and preserve their natural beauties, the
examination of the plans began. On the yth of September the
decision was announced. The first prize, the sum of $10,000,
was won by M. Benard, of Paris. The four other prizes were
all won by American architects.

The plans submitted were then exhibited to the public.
Each competitor sent a general plan, with many explanatory
cross-sections and elevation plans, and also the plans for one
building in detail. The workmanship of the plans was exquisite,
their constructive imagination truly magnificent. The people
of California received a rare education in great architecture
through this exhibition, and the University of California is
notably enriched by the acquisition of the eleven plans.

M. Benard's plan possesses the virtues of permanence in
general outline, adaptability in detail, and preservation of the
great and natural beauty of the present water-courses and groves
of ancient oaks. It provides for broad avenues, sunny gardens,
retired walks, and calls for about thirty buildings. These do

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not need to be constructed all at once. Indeed, one of the
principal advantages of M. Benard's plans is their elasticity.
Their realization in stone is to take place slowly, building by
building, under more than one generation of architects ; is to be
a constant education in appreciation of art ; is, as has been well
said, to be a creator of art here in California.

The plan is the result of a world-competition. Certainly it
embodies the most splendid architectural conception for a
university the world has ever known, and in itself the compe-
tition has been productive of great results. As Architect Cahill,
of San Francisco, has said: "When it was proposed that
foreign architects should be invited without limit and that foreign
judges should decide upon their merits, the world looked
incredulous. Such a thing was unheard of and inconceivable
in Paris and Berlin, almost inconceivable in London and New
York. Consequently, London, Paris, Berlin and New York
shook their heads. Now that the award has been made, and
that to a foreign architect by a majority of foreign jurors — and
that no demur has been made by an American, last of all by a
Californian architect — the world of art is slowly waking up to
the fact that a very big thing has been done here on the edge of
the Pacific — one of the biggest on record ; so big, indeed, that
it is hard to realize its full import. Posterity will put its signa-
ture to this affirmation and history will endorse it."

The other great name in the present and future of the
university is that of Benjamin Ide Wheeler. California's new
president is too well known to need introduction here. He
has been here less than a month, and there is not a department
in the vast complexity of the university that has not felt his
vivifying influence and straightway shown it in good results.
He has the unqualified support of the regents to an extent that
no former president ever enjoyed ; he is the cause of nothing
but harmony among the faculties, where former presidents,
elevated from the professorship, have encountered jealousies
and petty bickerings ; and as for the students, just as they are
animated by the deepest gratitude to their multi-benefactor,
Mrs. Hearst, so to their immediate friend and guide, President
Wheeler, they already give intensest loyalty.

Under these auspicious conditions, the University of Cali-
fornia looks forward to a bright future, and sets as her goal the
foremost place in American state universities.

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