History
On February 20, 1863, Kansas Governor Thomas Carney signed into law a bill creating the state university in Lawrence.
The law was conditioned upon a gift from Lawrence of a $15,000 endowment fund and a site for the university, in or near the town, of not less than forty acres (160,000 m²) of land. If Lawrence failed to meet these conditions, Emporia instead of Lawrence would get the university.
The site selected for the university was a hill known as Mount Oread, which was owned by former Kansas Governor Charles L. Robinson. Robinson and his wife Sara bestowed the 40-acre (160,000 m2) site to the State of Kansas in exchange for land elsewhere. The philanthropist Amos Adams Lawrence donated $10,000 of the necessary endowment fund, and the citizens of Lawrence raised the remaining cash by issuing notes backed by Governor Carney. On November 2, 1863, Governor Carney announced that Lawrence had met the conditions to get the state university, and the following year the university was officially organized.
Work on the first college building was begun in 1865. The university opened for classes on September 12, 1866, and the first class graduated in 1873.
During World War II, Kansas was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Read more about this topic: University Of Kansas
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)