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Show UTO NI A NNineteen TwelveThe School of Our FathersLevi Edgar YoungAssociate Professor of History U. of U.THE founding of the University of Utah was contemporary with the founding of the State. In the summer of 1848, after the crops had been preserved by the gulls, the pioneers began to speak of a higher institution of learning, where not only teachers might be prepared for the common schools, but where "the rising generation" might partake of that influence which would make for "good citizens, and upright men and women." The people were a thousand miles from the confines of civilization, and though they were just beginning to build their homes in the very heart of the Great American Desert, and were absolutely without money, depending on barter in their trading, they opened in a very humble manner, the first University west of the Missouri River.Soon after the organization of the provisional government of the Territory of Utah, Governor Brigham Young signed an act passed by the first Legislative Assembly incorporating the University of the State of Deseret. A part of the ordinance reads as follows:Section 1. Be it ordained by the General Assembly of the State of Deseret: That a University is hereby instituted and incorporated, located at Great Salt Lake City, by the name and title of the University of the State of Deseret.Sec. 2. The powers of the University shall be vested in a Chancellor and Twelve Regents, the number of which regents may be increased when necessary, who shall be chosen by the joint vote of both houses of the General Assembly, and shall hold their office for the term of one year, until their successors are qualified.Sec. 3. The Chancellor shall be the chief executive officer of the University, and Chairman of the Board of Regents.Sec. 4. The Chancellor and the Board of Regents are a body corporate, to sue and be sued; to act as trustees of the University; to transact and cause to be transacted all business needful to the prosperity of the University in advancing all useful and fine arts and sciences; to select and procure lands; erect and purchase buildings; solicit donations; send agents abroad; receive subscriptions; purchase books, maps, charts, and all apparatus necessary for the most liberal endowment of the library and scientific institution; employ professors and teachers; make by-laws; and establish branches of the University throughout the State; and do all other things that fathers and guardians of the Institution ought to do.This ordinance was approved Feb. 28, 1850. The same Legislative Assembly that created the charter elected Orson Spencer, Chancellor, and the following men as regents: Daniel Spencer, Orson Pratt, John M. Bernheisel, Samuel W. Richards, W. W. Phelps, Albert Carrington, William I. Appleby, Daniel H. Wells, Robert L. Campbell, Rosea Stout, Elias Smith and Zerrubbabel Snow.At the first meeting of the Board of Regents held in Great Salt Lake City, March 13, 1850, a committee was appointed to co-operate with Governor Young in selecting a site for the location of the University, and also sites for primary schools. The minutes of this meeting tell us that "subscriptions were forthwith opened, and appropriations made by the Legislature of the State of Deseret to carry on the designs of the Board in forwarding the work, and the establishing of a first class Parent School."In his address to the first Legislative Assembly of the Provisional State of Deseret, in 1849, Governor Young urged the members to incorporate a University "where our youth may receive training along all the lines of science, philosophy, and religion that will make them polished shafts and useful men in the future of our State." Among those who constituted the First Board of Regents, John M. Bernheisel, Orson Spencer, Albert Carrington, Daniel H. Wells, Hosea Stout, W. W. Phelps, and Zerrubabbel Snow were college graduates. Mr. Spencer, the first Chancellor, received his training at the Lenox Academy in his native10 |