Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/567

Rh they were given a wide latitude of choice. Leading educators of the country were consulted among whom was Dr. Wallace Buttrick, secretary of the general board of education, who made two special trips to Portland to confer with the trustees. Dr. Buttrick showed a great intere'st in the proposed institution and his advice, gained after a study of educational conditions throughout the northwest was largely the influence that caused the trustees to decide to establish a college of arts and sciences.

Then followed the question of securing a site. It was necessary to provide for future growth, proper sanitary conditions, accessibility and attractiveness, Several available sites were under consideration, but one most particularly well adapted for the purpose was ofifered as a gift by the Ladd estate. This property which lies in the addition to Portland known as Eastmoreland, was accepted by the trustees and attention was then turned to the selection of the first head of the institution.

Again Dr. Buttrick and other leaders in educational movements were consulted and the position was finally ofifered to Professor Wm. T. Foster, professor of English and education, at Bowdoin College, Maine.

Professor Foster comes to the Reed Institute with strong indorsements from Dr. Buttrick, Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard; officials of Columbia university and others.

Professor Foster is a native of Boston and thirty-two years of age. He gained a preparatory education in Roxburg high school and graduated from Harvard university with honors in 1901. Later he took a post-graduate course at Harvard on the science of education and attained a degree of master of arts.

For a time Professor Foster was an instructor in Bates college, in Maine and left there to become a member of the faculty of Bowdoin college. At the latter institution he became professor of English and education."

Although not strictly a literary institution, yet as many an erring youth may find his only chance for an education in his enforced attendance upon teaching within the confines of the state reform school, it must be noticed here.

The first steps taken to secure the restraining and educating influences of such a school for Oregon had their origin in this city in 1876. On Jan. i, 1876, Rev. A. L. Lindsley, and Rev. T. L. Eliot, as a committee on correspondence, issued a circular letter to all humanely disposed persons looking to the welfare of the youth of the state, calling upon them for their co-operation in efiforts to secure suitable legislation and action to provide a reform school. These two gentlemen were acting for a standing committee of eleven men, composed of Rev. A. L. Lindsley, Judge M. P. Deady, Rev. R. Bentley, W. Lair Hill, Esq., William Wadhams, Rev. D. J. Pierce, H. Y. Thompson, Esq., Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson, Rev. T. L. Eliot, J. W. Whalley, Esq., and Hon. H. W. Corbett. All these men have passed away now but Dr. Eliot, and Mr. Hill. But their good work survives them in the sucessful and well managed state reform school near the capital of the state where wayward boys not only receive a good common school education, but are also taught manual labor, useful trades and habits of industry.

A very effective educational influence not generally recognized and not used as much as its merits deserve, is that of the free public libraries. Portland is indebted mainly to Judge Matthew P. Deady for the establishment of a public library as early as 1864. And from small beginnings, it has steadily grown until now it is one of the best libraries on the Pacific coast, with twenty branches in different parts of the city. For many years the library was supported by annual membership fees of the patrons, but now it is a public institution under the control of the city government, and the books and reading