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24THE SOONER MAGAZINEpeal based on a pun; which of courseloses all effect in a foreign language ."I cannot understand," a puzzled Dominicansaid to me as he studied a largeand striking bill board, "why the factthat that extremely attractive child wantsto go to bed should presumably induceme to buy a new tire for my car!"Science of course, is the great internationalbond . Especially, has medical researchhelped to unite investigators in thishemisphere . It has been prophesied thatthe next quarter century will be the great-WOMEN'S DORMITORY AT UNIVERSITY OF PORTO RICOest yet known in the history of TropicalMedicine ; and American research, north,south, and central, is already playing avery important part in making it great .Men like Ashford in Porto Rico, Lutz inBrazil, Iturbe in Venezuela, by their organizedwork of investigation and theirgenerous interchange of ideas, are of thenoblest type of international mediator .I have mentioned almost at random anumber of different agencies, some largeand some small but all helping to makeup the sum total of influence . These, anddozens of others, are unceasingly at work .And the rest of us will benefit by theirwork if we permit ourselves to do so .When my little sister was ten yearsold, I gave her a Spanish First Readerand began teaching her Spanish. After aweek or so of the book with its storiesand pictures of children in the Spanishcountries, she exclaimed one day, "Why,those people speak differently but theyare really just like we are!"It was the most important lesson shelearned that summer .MY DAYS AS FIRST UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTTold by Dr . David Ross Boyd to Dr . Roy Hadsell, '04,and Betty Kirk, '29N 1892 the . Territorial University ofOklahoma invited the youth of itsseven counties : "Any young man orwoman who has finished the course in agood country school may enter the universityand find educational work and awelcome."These words were written with deliberateseriousness for in 1892 the TerritorialUniversity of Oklahoma had the spiritualcommodities of work and cheer to offer inplenty . Of material things it had little .The equipment it did possess was morediscouraging than encouraging .So it was that the Territorial Universityof Oklahoma began its existence byplacing importance on cheer and work,the things of the spirit . So it is that perhapsbecause of this quite elemental beginningit has grown into the presentmagnificent State University of Oklahoma,with an annual enrollment of 5,000students and several millions of dollars investedin buildings and grounds .This far in our history mention has beenmade only of the abstract things of thePART Iuniversity's birth and early existence . Tounderstand the concrete side of the developmentit is best to listen to Dr . DavidRoss Boyd, the university's first president,tell of it and to hear the chuckles andanecdotes of Dr. S . Roy Hadsell, who asplain Roy Hadsell, undergraduate, servedDoctor Boyd as secretary .Today Doctor Boyd is more than seventyyears old . He is tall, his body structureis accented, his eye is alert and hisvoice still holds a chuckle . He is of thestuff of pioneers .That his work was to be the work ofa pioneer becomes obvious when we viewwith Doctor Boyd in retrospect the physicalappearance of Norman, O.T ., the siteselected in 1890 by the territorial legislaturefor the University of Oklahoma ."I got off the train on the hot afternoonof August sixth in 1892 . You too haveexperienced August afternoons in Oklahoma. It is probable you have experiencedthem on trains . At any rate you know thatafter that trip my spirits were none toohigh ."I looked off to the southwest whereour university was to be located . Therewas not a tree or shrub in sight . All Icould see was the monotonous stillness ofprairie grass . Later I was to find out thatthis prairie grass wasn't so monotonousas it seemed for its sameness was brokenat quite frequent intervals by buffalo wallows. In August they were dry and hardand not even prairie grass could growon them."To the southwest led a trail, it couldn'tpossibly be called a road . I was to learnthat this trail lead out to Adkins fordwhich was near the present bridge acrossthe South Canadian . It was the trail followedby the thirsty cowboys who cameinto Norman on Saturday nights . Theycouldn't get liquor in the Chickasaw Nationacross the river so they made plentifuluse of Norman's fifteen saloons . This wasalso the trail to be followed by my studentsa year from that time when ourfirst building was to be built."These details I couldn't know of then,though. I could know only the actualities
OCTOBER, 1929that I could see . Behind me was a crudelittle town of 1,500 people and before mewas a stretch of prairie on which my helpersand I were to build an institution ofculture . Discouraged? Not a bit . The sightwas a challenge ."I went to my hotel and dressed andhad supper . The next morning I had myfirst caller. He was the Hon. Tom R. Waggoner,a member of the territorial legislature. When he left me he said he'd beback 'in the evening. I thought he meantafter supper . I found out when he returnedthat it was afternoon he meant. It wasmy first experience with Oklahoma colloquialisms."Tom Waggoner was an intelligentman . He had played an important partin the first legislature and proved his farsightedness ."The main problem of this legislature,as you may have heard, was the locationof the capital . One group wanted it inGuthrie, a second group wanted it inOklahoma City ."After much dickering a bill was draftedfor locating the capital at OklahomaCity, the university at Norman, the agriculturalcollege at Stillwater and the normalschool at Edmond . The selection wasto be submitted as one bill . It was thenthat Tom Waggoner insisted that eachselection be a separate bill for if the governorshould disapprove of one site he wouldhave to veto all of them . Waggoner's advicewas followed, and true to his prophecy,the three school bills passed, but thecapital bill was vetoed and Guthrie finallyselected as its site ."An interesting thing about the passageof many of the first Oklahoma laws isthat often they were just adopted in bulkfrom the laws of another state . A wholebook of other laws would be passed withoutclose investigation. It was this conditionthat lead to the incorporation in theOklahoma statute, books of a maritimelaw regulating the state's shipping industry!N the selection of Norman as a sitefor the university the legislature hadspecified that the town must provide$10,000 and forty acres for the location ofthe school ."Selection of several sites offered by thetown was left to the board of regents .They might have voted against the presentlocation because their buggy stuck inthe mud when they went out to seet it,but they did not. They debated betweenthe present acreage of the state hospital,east of town, and the site which the universitynow occupies ."It had been a simple matter for thepeople of Norman to provide the groundfor their new school . It was an extremelydifficult one for them to raise the $10,000specified in the agreement . This difficultyarose from the fact that there was littleor no taxable land in the county . Whenhomesteads had been staked out in 1889the settlers were given five years in whichto prove their claims. Until the claimswere proved the property was still governmentland and could not be taxed . Consequently,in 1892 the settlers had twoyears to expire before their land could betaxed and the city and county had nofunds .The pioneer qualities of courage andambition were dominant in the peopleof Norman however and they sold bondsfor $10,000 when they had no taxableproperty . The bonds were bought by M.L. Turner of Oklahoma City for $8,500and the remaining $1,500 was raised bysubscription from Norman business men .At a time when cash was an exceedinglyrare commodity this represented one ofthe major sacrifices for education in thestate ."A similar sacrifice was being made allover the territory though," says DoctorBoyd . "When the country was openedthere was no law providing for an educationalsystem . The only law which existedin '89 was the proclamation opening theland to settlement . Furthermore there wasto be no law until the state legislaturemet and this did not occur until 1890 ."`Parents, even pioneer parents, wereambitious for their children's educationand they knew that if they waited forterritorial laws there would be an awfulgap in their children's schooling ."Accordingly, provision was made bythe county officials that the people shouldorganize their own school districts . Thissounded very fine but the hitch was thatthey should also have to provide schoolequipment ."Voluntary services were immediatelyorganized to construct the little schoolhouseswhich were soon dotted overPayne, Logan, Kingfisher, Canadian, Oklahomaand Cleveland counties . Volunteerhauling, volunteer labor, volunteermaterials solved parts of the problem . Donationsof money with which to buynails and window glasses and hardwarehelped further in the provision of theschool house ."But it was not until the school housewas finished that another great lack wasdiscovered . The missing item now wasschool furniture . Benches to seat the students,desks for the teachers, black boardsfor the exercises, all were needed."With this problem on hand the onlysolution was to get the furniture on credit .It was here that the integrity of the Oklahomapioneer came into question andwas found not wanting ."Loans could not be made officially untilthe legislature had met and authorizedthe establishment of the schools . But onthe recommendation of another Oklahomapioneer, Jasper Sipes, representative ofThomas Kane and company of Chicago,his company sent car loads of school furnitureinto the new territory. Their onlysecurity was notes which were not legallyvalid ."Yet I know," says Doctor Boyd, noddinghis head and with a pleased expressionon his face, "I know that all of thosenotes, with the exception of one, werepaid . The signers of the note had themoney for the payment of this one but25THE OPENING DAY IN NORMAN WITH THE BEGINN INGS OF THE TOWN
Page 1 and 2: THE00NERAGAZINEOCTOBER, 1929MIGRATI
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Page 5 and 6: *OCTOBER, 1929Sooneristically Speak
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Page 11 and 12: OCTOBER, 1929wait to know Oklahoma
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Page 15 and 16: OCTOBER, 1929THREE FACULTY ALUMNI W
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Page 19 and 20: OCTOBER, 1929fraternity and is a me
Page 21 and 22: OCTOBER, 192919i.3 not enoughsay th
Page 23 and 24: OCTOBER, 192921aculturalinterchange
Page 25: OCTOBER, 1929new novel for fall pub
Page 29 and 30: OCTOBER, 192927THE SPIRIT OF LEARNI
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Page 33 and 34: OLD BEAUTYRESTWINS AGAIN10i .The Fa
Page 35 and 36: l2 .®® to.50$1OCTOBER, 1929here a
Page 37 and 38: ALUMNI! REMEMBER"THE LIFE OF SOONER
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Page 41 and 42: OCTOBER, 192939plane in which he wa
Page 43 and 44: OCTOBER, 1929HubertLIFE MEMBERSAmbr
Page 45 and 46: OCTOBER, 1929Miss Jane Harden, ex '
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