The Pacific Monthly/Volume 3/A Glance at California's Educational Policy
A Glance at California's Educational Policy.
By GEORGE MELVIN.
IN THE year 1769, in the month of July, on the bank of the little stream that is dignified by the title of river, was founded the mission of San Diego de Alcala. And this was the beginning of. education in California. For the old missions where the Indians were taught by the gentle Franciscan fathers were the first schools in the Golden state, whose institutions of learning now rival in excellence those of any commonwealth in the land.
It is a far cry from the simple walls that sheltered the brown-hued savage to the magnificence of Stanford, and the beauty of Berkeley, but it may be accepted as a proof and a recognition of the eternal fitness of things that Stanford's splendid quadrangle retains the motif of the early mission, and has pre- served in enduring stone an architectural type which is, above all others, in harmony with the blue, unclouded skies and sunshine-flooded hills of California.
They were mainly industrial. those first schools. The Indians were given religious instruction, it is true, but they were also taught to plant and sow, to spin and weave, and, all things considered, they were apt pupils. That chapter of the history of the West reads like a romance, and can be viewed only through the golden mists that hallow half-forgotten ideals.
To speak of education in California is to bring before the mind's eye a vision of the two great universities that have given the state a name and a fame dimming the glory of her age of gold. And yet these are but the natural results of an educational system that is unrivaled in its soundness, its thoroughness, and its spirit of progression.
The first American school was opened in San Francisco in 1849, following immediately the gold discovery, and was supported by subscription. In this year, also, plans were begun for the establishment of the College of California, which was primarily a school for boys in Oakland, but which grew into a recognized college in i860, and opened its doors with but four students enrolled. But from this modest beginning sprang the University of California, with its magnificent site, its annual income of six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, its fifteen hundred students, and faculty consisting of a hundred and thirty professors. It is a notable fact that Dr. Martin Kellogg, the former president, was one of the first professors in the College of California.
The best evidence of the vital interest which the people of the state take in educational progress is to be found in the laws which they have made and the obligations which they have imposed upon themselves to the end that means shall never be lacking wherewith to secure the best in regard to instruction and appliances.
"The state has a permanent school fund of $4,000,000, invested in United States, state, county and city bonds, the interest of which goes into its annual school fund. Every male citizen between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years is required to pay a poll tax of two dollars for the support of the schools. Five percent, of all collateral inheritances is also added to the state school fund, and an ad valorem state school tax, amounting to seven dollars for each child in the state over five and under seventeen years of age is annually levied. . . . This is supplemented by a county tax of at least six dollars for each child of the school age. City charters provide for the levying of school taxes in their respective limits, in addition to the state and bounty taxes. School districts are authorized by a vote of the people to levy additional taxes for school purposes" within a certain limit. All of which goes to explain why California is in the van of educational progress, with
her hundred and twelve high schools, 
her thoroughly equipped normal schools and her state university.
The broad policy outlined and pursued by the commonwealth has been generously supplemented by individual effort and munificence. As witness the splendid legacy of James Lick in the California School of Mechanic Arts at San Francisco, and in the observatory that crowns the summit of Mount Hamilton; the Throop Institute, of Pasadena; the Cogswell Polytechnic School at San Francisco, and many others there and throughout the state, to say nothing of the vast number of private schools and colleges that find a liberal patronage.
Whether it be along industrial, professional or scientific lines, the schools of California rank well with those of any other state in the Union. And the whole system may be said to culminate in the magnificent memorial that is the crowning glory of education on the Pacific slope — the Leland Stanford, Junior, University. Opened in 1891 under the administration of Dr. David Starr Jordan, it has been a powerful stimulus to the cause of education in California, or, as Mr. Hoitt has it, "a lifting force to the educational strength of the state." Stanford University, founded through the
munificence of Leland Stanford, recalls 
Pacific Company has taken in the development of the state, especially along educational lines. The great Leland Stanford University owes its existence today to the Southern Pacific, and what the establishment of this university has meant and will mean to California can hardly be appreciated by any but those who have been in touch with the great strides in educational lines that the state is making as a direct result of this foundation. We cannot recall any other railroad corporation that directly or indirectly has been such a prime factor in so worthy a cause as the Southern, a fact which is not appreciated as it should be in California. Verily, "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country."
