in September 1872, upon the condition that the Union University Association should procure a suitable building site, and erect thereon a building which with the furniture and grounds should be worth not less than $50,000, the property to be deeded to the board of directors of the state university free of all incumbrances, which was done. The law provided that the boai d of state university directors should consist of six appointed by the governor, and three elected by the Union University Association. The governor appointed Matthew P. Deady, L. L. McArthur, K. S. Strahan, T. G. Hendricks, George Humphrey, and J. M. Thompson, the three elected being B. F. Dorris, W. J. J. Scott, and J. J. Walton, Jr. At the first meeting of the board, in April 1873, Deady was elected president.
The legislature gave substantial aid by appropriating $10,000 a year for 1877-8. Eighteen acres of land were secured in a good situation, and a building erected of brick, 80 by 57 feet, three stories in height, with porticoes, mansard roof, and a good modern arrangement of the interior; cost, $80,000.
It was necessary to provide for a preparatory department. The institution opened October 16, 1876, with 80 pupils in the collegiate and 75 in the preparatory departments; 43 in the collegiate department were non-paying, the university law allowing one free scholarship to each county, and one to each member of the legislature. Owing to the want of money, there was not a full board of professors; those who were first to organize a class for graduation had many difficulties to contend with. The first faculty consisted only of J. W, Johnson, president and professor of ancient classics, Mark Bailey, professor of mathematics, and Thomas Condon, professor of geology and natural history. The preparatory school was in charge of Mrs Mary P. Spiller, assisted by Miss Mary E. Stone. From these small beginnings was yet to grow the future university of the state of Oregon. In 1884 there were 7 regular professors, 2 tutors, 215 students, and 19 graduates. Regents' Rept, 1878, State University; Or, Mess. and Docs, 1876, 148–53; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 55; Univer. Or. Catalogue, 1878, 18.
State institutions for the education of deaf, dumb, and blind persons remained backward. The deaf-and-dumb school at Salem was organized in 1870, with thirty-six pupils in attendance, in the building formerly occupied by the academy of the Sacred Heart, which was removed into a new one. The legislature provided by act of 1870 that not more than $2,000 per annum of public money should be expended on the instruction of deaf-mutes. The legislature of 1874 appropriated $10,000 for their maintenance, and the legislature of 1876, $12,000. The first appropriation for the blind was made in 1872, amounting to $2,000; in 1874, $10,000 was appropriated; in 1876, $8,000; and in 1878 a general appropriation of $10,000 was made, with no directions for its use, except that it was to pay for teachers and expenses of the deaf, dumb, and blind schools. In 1878 the institute for the blind was closed, and the few under instruction returned to their homes; it was reopened and closed again in 1884, waiting the action of the legislature. These institutions have no fund for their support, but depend upon biennial appropriations. Like all the other public schools, they were for a time under the management of the state board of education, but the legislature of 1880 organized the school for deaf-mutes by placing it under a board of directors. Or. Mess. and Docs, 1882, 32.
A protégé of the general government was the Indian school at Forest Grove, where a hundred picked pupils of Indian blood were educated at the nation s expense. The scheme was conceived by Captain C. M. Wilkinson of the 3d U. S. infantry, who procured several appropriations for the founding and conduct of the school, of which he was made first superintendent. The experiment began in 1880, and promised well, although the result can only be known when the pupils have entered actual life for themselves.
Of special schools, there were a few located at Portland, The homeopathic medical college, H. McKinnell, president, was a society rather than a school.
The Oregon school and college association of natural history, under the presidency of Thomas Condon, was more truly a branch at large of the state
