ganized into a battalion of two or more companies.. The battalion is under the immediate command of the commandant. The officers, commissioned and noncommissioned, are students taken for the most part from the first and second classes. They are appointed by the chairman of the faculty upon the recommendation of the commandant, and their appointment and rank is made to depend upon the active and soldierly performance of their duties, their sense of duty and responsibility, and their general good conduct and class standing. These officers, not merely at drill, but at all times when on duty, assist in keeping good order in and around the buildings. In their various positions of graduated responsibility they not only aid most ef ficiently in maintaining discipline, but continually practice and are trained in the exercises of the highest qualities involved in obedience and command. BRANCH FOR COLORED STUDENTS. The legislation intended to justify the use of University funds for the Prairie View Normal School is reviewed by Governor Roberts in his message of April 6, 1882, to the Seventeenth Legislature and is amusing. According to the governor's statement it is evident that the school was not the colored branch of the University contemplated by the constitution (Art, 7, Sec. 14), for that was to be located by a vote of the people, and no such location had been made, or was made, till November, 1882, when it was fixed at Austin. But the A. and M. College in Brazos county was a branch of the University; so the colored school was made a "normal and an A. and M. College for training colored teachers" and "teaching colored youths" in Waller county, and as such, was retained under the control of the A. and M. College in Brazos county, and with this name and its uses multiplied was thus ready set for benisons from any quarter-from free school, normal, college or university appropriations. The legislature, however, made the ridiculous mistake, as to designation of a fund, by providing that the comptroller set apart a specified amount for it annually "out of the interest cruing from the University fund appropriated for the support of the free public schools." There being no such fund of the University, Comptroller Darden liberally construed it to mean "a simple appropriation out of the University's available fund" as being the intent of the legislature for his government; and two legisla tures (Sixteenth and Seventeenth) persisting in making appropriations for it out of that fund. it came to be regarded as an addition to the A. and M. College at Bryan, entitled, branch of a branch college as it was, to some share of appropriations from the University fund. Comptroller Brown who succeeded Mr. Darden persistently refused to admit the accounts of the school under such appropriations, on the ground that it was unconstitutional to pay them out of the University fund; and finally the school passed out of consideration, even under the strained relations assumed for it, as having any claim directly upon the University; and is now supported from the same source from which it was originally started, which was by appropriation from the general revenue, under an act of Aug. 14, 1876. Under that act, which provided for "a college for the education of colored youths," a large tract of land with houses and other improvements called “Alta Vista," near Hempstead, in Waller county, was purchased by the State, an appropriation of $20,000 having been made therefor, and the school having been organized under the direction of the managers of the A. and M. College at Bryan. However, having soon failed to be kept up for want of students, it was changed into a normal school for colored people under the name of the "Prairie View Normal School" in which the students are supported by the State (Act. of 1879). It remains a branch of the A. and M. College under direction of the managers of the Bryan institution, and is now well patronized, and is doing good work for the colored people. THE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT. This department was provided for by virtue of the action of the University regents at their first meeting Nov. 14, 1881, when they decided to establish as soon as practicable an "Academic Department," a "Department of Law" and a "Department of Medicine." The academic department which will be noticed more fully as the history of the University progresses was to have one professor respectively for the following branches. 1. English Language, English Literature and His 3. Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Mechanics and Meteorology. 4. Natural History and Botany.. 5. Mathematics and Practical Engineering. 6. School of Mines, Geology and Mineralogy 7. Moral Philosophy and Ethics, and Political Economy. man. 8. Ancient Languages-Greek and Latin. The only academic chairs filled by the board at that meeting, however, were: 1. English Language, Literature and HistoryLeslie Waggener, L.L. D. 2. Physics and Chemistry-J. W. Mallet, F. R. S., L.L. D. 3. Pure and Applied Mathematics-W. Leroy Broun, L.L. D. 4. The Latin and Greek Languages and Literature-Milton W. Humphreys, L.L. D., Ph. D. 5. Modern Languages-H. Tallichet, A. M. Two professors for the law department, Gov. O. M. Roberts and Judge R. S. Gould, were also appointed.* In connection with these selections, the regents stated in their report to Governor Roberts: "We are aware the number of professors is utterly inadequate even for a respectable collegiate institution, much less for a University of the first class as required in the constitution, as demanded by the people of Texas, and as competent to afford thorough, comprehen *The first addition to this faculty was by the election in 1883, of Prof. R. L Dabney, A. M. D. D., L.L. D., of Virginia to the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Science. sive instruction to the youth of Texas, and to furnish the scientific knowledge which the undeveloped resources of our great State, immediately and urgently stand in need of. General equipment and material for instruction are as indispensable as professors; they are as indispensable as tools and material are to any of the mechanic arts of common life. In view of the wants just specified, the regents respectfully state that all the resources of the University already alluded to, if utilized to their utmost, are inadequate to the indispensable wants of the University for imparting instruction. This is not all. Without the equipment and the materials, and other appliances and a separate building for a chemical laboratory, as adverted to above, the University would in vain expect or hope to present a faculty which would meet just public expectation. The professors already chosen are gentlemen eminent in qualifications and well established reputations. The names of other gentlemen are before the board, similarly distinguished, and ready to fill the other professorships still vacant. But no gentlemen worthy to teach in our University, can possibly be retained or hereafter secured unless there be means furnished him to do such work as his reputation and the requirements of the University imperatively demand." The report adds: "It would be a violation of delicacy to name gentlemen who were candidates for professorships, but not chosen, and also gentlemen who are candidates for chairs hereafter to be supplied, but the board of regents deem it proper to state in general terms to your Excellency, that they have had before them for choice, respectively, a good number of the most distinguished scholars, and scientists in America, many of them of world wide reputation." Among the prominent gentlemen who were not applicants but were solicited to accept chairs were Judge Cooley of Michigan, Professor LeComte of California, and Professor W. T. Harris, now United States Commissioner of Education, each at a salary of $4,000. Dr. J. W. Mallet afterwards first chairman of the academic faculty of the University of Texas, who at the time of his appointment as professor, was a member of the faculty of the University of Virginia, was solicited by the regents to come to Austin, and did so to consult with them on various subjects in advance of the opening of the University. The results of his observations and the views expressed to the regents by that distinguished educator are of such interest in connection with its initiatory proceedings, that it is best to give them in his own language: COL. ASHBEL SMITH, AUSTIN TEXAS, Jan. 10, ,583. President Board of Regents, University of Texas. DEAR SIR-Having come to Austin in response to the invitation to become connected with the University of Texas, with which I have been honored by the Board of Regents, with the object of learning more definitely the conditions under which the institution is to be inaugurated, I have to thank you and the other gentlemen of the board, for the kindness with which you have given me the amplest facilities for obtaining the desired information. Permit me to say that in the choice of a seat for the proposed University, in the general character of the provisions made for its support in future years, in the breadth and soundness of the plans which your board has originated and by which its action so far has been guided and in the personal and professional character of all the gentlemen who so far constitute the administration and teaching staff of the important institution to be soon put in operation, you have secured the chief conditions for the attainment of such real success as will be at once recognized by all intelligent friends of education throughout the country. Allow me, however, to say also, frankly, that one point seems to remain in unsatisfactory form. It is impossible to overrate the importance of the University of Texas making a good beginning of actual teaching work. If at the outset the impression be made upon its first students and the public that the institution is not prepared to do thorough work within such scope as it professes to occupy; that its efficiency is among the possibilities of the future, but not among the realities. of the present, long years may, and probably will, pass |