History
The first two colleges in California were founded in 1851, at the height of the Gold Rush, both in the town of Santa Clara. Santa Clara College, forerunner of Santa Clara University, was first to open its doors to students and thus is the state's oldest operating institution of higher education. The Methodist-run California Wesleyan College opened shortly thereafter and was the first institution to receive an official state charter. Santa Clara's Jesuit founders eventually accumulated the endowment required for a charter, which was granted on April 28, 1855. Santa Clara bears the distinction of awarding California's first Bachelor's degree, given to Thomas I. Bergin in 1857, and its first graduate degree, two years later.
Read more about this topic: Santa Clara University
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)