Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/214

Rh that a stronger organization was necessary to continue an institution of higher learning in that locality under conditions then prevailing.

Establishment of the University. In admitting Oregon to the Union, Congress had set apart (1859) seventy-two sections of land, from which had accumulated by this time

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

(1872) the sum of $80,000 for the establishment of the State University. Accordingly, the Union University Association, which was organized to place the school at Eugene on a better basis, proposed to the State to provide a building, ground, and furnishings to cost not less than $50,000, if the Legislature would establish the state university at Eugene. The offer was promptly accepted, and the following directors were immediately appointed: Matthew P. Deady, R. S. Strahan, L. L. McArthur, John M. Thompson, Thomas G. Hendricks, George Humphreys, Benjamin F. Dorris, William J. Scott, and Joshua J. Walton. Deady Hall was completed July, 1876, and on the sixteenth of October