reported was ordered printed."

This substitute was passed by the legislature and became a law March 31, 1866.

On page 702, same journal, we find, Mr. Holden introduced, "An act to provide for the selection of the lands donated to the State of California by the Act of Congress, approved July 2, 1862, for the endowment of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, and all lands that may be granted to the State for like purposes," which act became a law April 2, 1866.

On page 770, same journal, we find Mr. Holden offered a joint resolution for the meeting of the Senate and Assembly in joint convention for the purpose of electing five directors for the new college, which joint resolution was adopted.

The joint convention was held, and Messrs. Joseph B. Meader, Henry Phillips, Felix Tracy, William Holden and C. F. Ryland were elected directors, (see Assembly journal pages 803, 806, 809), to act in conjunction with the three exofficio members, who were the Governor

of the State, F. F. Low; the president of the State Agricultural Society, Charles F. Reed; and the president of the M'echanics' Institute of San Francisco, who was at the time, I believe, A. S. Hallidie, the inventor of the cable street-car system.

Thus the organization for the establishment of a State College was put in motion, and William Holden was all through the proceedings leading up thereto the moving active agent thereof.

When the State once resolved and undertook to establish a State college, "a high seminary of learning, in which the graduates of the common schools can commence, pursue and finish a course of study, etc.," its character and usefulness in the future was necessarily but a matter of evolution and development. The title by which this institution was named was the one used in the act of Congress making the grant of land with the department of mining added. The word college was used therefore instead of university, although the latter was used

in article IX of the first State constitution, wherein it was provided that all grants of land made by the general government, or others, in the past, the present or in the future, should be carefully protected, and the fund accruing from the rents or sale of such lands, or from any other source, shall be a permanent fund for the support of a university, (that is when the fund got to be large enough to establish a university), "for the promotion of literature, the arts and sciences."

In the memorial of the State Constitutional Convention to Congress asking for the admission of the State, on motion of William M. Gwinn, who was afterwards for twelve years United States Senator from this State, and the most influential representative the State has ever had at the National Capital, a grant was asked of public lands for the founding of a university. There were, however, at that time not people enough west of the Rocky Mountains to support a university.

The word university was not used as advisedly in those days as now. It was then often used to mean simply a higher class of college. Practically universities did not exist in the United States in those days. Even Harvard and Yale were then commonly known as colleges instead of universities by name. The so-called universities at that time in the United States were generally such only in name, and were institutions of comparatively minor educational importance and standing.

When this Agricultural College bill had become a law, the directors met, organized and elected Governor Low President of the Board. They then selected a site for the State College, which was located about a mile north of the present site of the university.

Prior to this time there had been several colleges established in the State. In 1851, the Methodists had established a college at Santa Clara and which is now known as the University of the Pacific. Very early in the fifties the Catholics had also established a college at Santa Clara, now known as Santa Clara College. These colleges have graduated many students.

Another college known as the College

of California principally under Presbyterian and Congregational influences, had been established about 1860, and it was located in Oakland. This college was the outgrowth of a classical school or seminary established by Doctor Durant. It had no president but the Rev. Dr. Willey, the vice-president, acted as such. Having the advantage of location, being near the leading commercial city, San Francisco, and the then center of the State and convenient to its controlling influences, a strong effort was made by its several professors to bring to its support the men of education and the possessors of wealth. A list was made of all the known graduates of colleges of the United States residing in the vicinity of the bay. Invitations were sent to them to attend the commencement exercises of the college, and their aid and interest sought in all available directions. The institution, however, was sorely pressed for means, and placed its hope for future development and strength upon the support of the influences above mentioned which it sought to draw around it. It had, however, obtained title to 160 acres of land where the university now stands, and which had at the instance of Frederick Billings been named Berkeley. This college was in existence for five or six years and graduated about twenty students during that time.

The passage of the bill to establish the State Agricultural College, and its proposed location near Oakland, was to this college of California as the handwriting on the wall. Its friends knew that the influences on which it must depend for prosperity and support would gather around the State institution, and that their college could not for want of support exist with the State College in its immediate neighborhood.

The proposal to establish this new agricultural and mining college met with such universal support and encouragement from the men of education in the State and the tax-payers that its future was assured. Those having charge of the College of California saw this. They could not absorb or unite the new colleges with theirs, for the act of the legislature expressly prohibited its being

united or connected with any other institution of learning in the State, and also from in any manner whatever being connected with or controlled by any sectarian denomination, while the College of California was at least a semi-Presbyterian and Congregational institution.

Such being the state of affairs with the College of California, those who controlled its affairs concluded that they might as well join in with the friends and supporters of the new college and help it along for the general benefit of the State. They therefore consulted with the friends and directors of the new State institution in regard to its future. As they had resolved to quit business and disincorporate, they agreed to turn over to the directors of the State College the 160 acres of land where the State University now stands, so that the location selected by the directors of the State College could be relinquished. This proposition was accepted. They also asked that the law be so extended that distinct provision should therein be made for a classical department for the new institution, as well as the departments for instruction in agriculture, mining and the mechanical arts, and for future extensions or affiliated colleges.

These suggestions all coincided with the views of the directors and friends of the new institution, and all agreed that the title of the new institution was cumbersome and inconvenient for use. It was therefore fully agreed by all concerned that the title of "University of California" should be adopted. It was also deemed wise to change the method of selecting directors and their number. These matters being fully agreed upon the trustees of the college of California stipulated to turn over to the State institution whatever assets it might be possessed of.

A bill by consent of all parties having interest therein was drawn embodying these proposals and agreements, and was introduced into the legislature at its next session by John W. Dwinelle, a prominent member of the San Francisco bar, and a graduate of Hamilton College, and who was at the time a resident of Oakland, and a member of the Assembly from

Alameda County. Of course this bill being intended to supersede the old law, as it did, was carefully drawn, though since many times added to and amended, and was designed to cure what crudities or imperfections existed in the original law. It was the result of two years' experience and reflection of the directors and friends of the new State college. It became a law March 23, 1868. When it passed the legislature, William Holden, who had been in the mean time elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and acted as president of the State Senate, advocated the passage of the bill. It substituted the more mature and perfected new law for the old one, and repealed the old one. If, however, the Holden bill had not been a law, the new bill introduced by Mr. Dwinelle and which became the substituted law, would never have had an existence.

I think these facts show that William Holden was the father of the University of California.

I was not uninformed about college matters in this State at that time, for a fellow college student, my senior in age and in classes, became in the early fifties one of the Professors of the University of the Pacific at Santa Clara, and remained with that institution for a number of years; while a college classmate of mine was the instructor in mathematics in the college of California at the time the agricultural bill became a law. In Rev. Dr. Willey's history of the College of California will be found a list of the known college graduates residing in this vicinity at this time and whose interest and influences were sought in behalf of the welfare of that college. My name appears in that list.

When the Holden bill was passed establishing the agricultural and mining college, and the Dwinelle bill was passed as an amendment or substitute therefor, I was at both sessions a member of the Assembly from San Francisco, being at that time elected by the city at large. I voted for and actively interested myself in the passage of both laws. I felt so much interest in the matter that, when the Holden bill was passed, I wrote an article calling public attention to the

law, and urging encouragement and support to the new institution. It was published as an editorial in the Evening Examiner, October 23, 1866.

The writing of this present article has been incited by the fact that the only formal history of the University of California published that I know of, and which seems to have the endorsement of that institution, intimates strongly that the reason the university was not founded earlier was because the people of the State were ignorant, and had to be educated up to the point of realizing the necessity and advantages of such an institution. It even intimates that the legislature was occupied in passing bills for the establishment of prisons and that the one that passed the Holden bill, was too ignorant to know enough to pass a bill establishing a State university at once. The exact language being, “Thus, in their blindness, did the legislators of 1866, seek to defeat the predestined organization of the university," thus attacking the real founders of that institution. As inducing causes to the establishment of the university, it recites vain acts of individuals of more or less erratic character, but whose efforts were devoid of effect or influence. It also gives great credit to persons who delivered speeches on occasions such as college commencements, in which the establishment of a university in the future was predicted, just as a fourth of July orator would predict the advancement, growth and glory of our republic in the future, drawing vividly on his imagination, regardless of fact or conditions, and had about as much influence in one case as in the other. The first thirty or forty pages of that history I believe to be untruthful in theory and fact. It assumes facts and gives credit where such does not belong, and withholds or suppresses credit from those to whom it belongs in connection with the foundation of the State College or university, and its intimations in some instances are wholly without just foundation. I believe it is due to the people of the State and to the character of the university that that part of the history should be rewritten.

The extraordinary circumstances under which California became a part of the United States, and was rapidly settled and became a State of the Union and has grown into a great commonwealth, passed so rapidly into history and under such uncommon and exceptional circumstances that it seems often difficult for the generation of to-day to comprehend fully the changes that have occurred, the growth that has been ma 'e, or the circumstances under which events took place or the trials and difficulties encountered by the early residents, not to say pioneers.

When the United States forces took possession of California in 1846, there were in this great State, which is seven hundred miles long and from two to three hundred miles wide, only about 5000 white inhabitants, with perhaps ten thousand so-called domesticated Indians, the wild Indians being unestimated. These few people were scattered over the surface of this great State. Yerba Buena of which the great commercial city of San Francisco is the successor, had at the time about 300 inhabitants, while cities like Sacramento, Stockton, and Oakland had none or only a nominal existence.

In 1850, when California was admitted as one of the States of the Union, its entire population was 92,597.

The character of this population and that of a few years after that date and its burdens, seem nowadays not generally understood.

The civilized world was electrified by the stories of the discovery of gold in 1848, and when the truth concerning the existence of gold became generally known intelligent, enterprising men of every State in the Union and every civilized and semi-civilized country in tae world, began to wend their way to this State. It was as if the unfixed, unanchored possessors of energy and intelligence in the world bent their way to California. They came by steamers or sailing vessels around Cape Horn, or from south of the equator, across the Isthmus of Panama, or from the distant Orient, while others sought to reach the same destination by traveling thousands