correction as to the matter and style, and pronunciation in the reading. In his advanced classes he would select subjects at different times that admitted of a wide range of discussion upon government, ethics, literature, history, and science, that furnished his students with an immense amount of varied information and excellent style of expression and speaking that soon enabled them to write compositions that excited the surprise and admiration of their hearers. This was conspicuous at the examinations, lasting three days at the end of each session, which were usually attended by at least six or eight hundred visitors, who were seated in the large room of the second story of the building during the examinations. It should not be omitted to state, as a part of his system of elementary education, that for each one of the five days of each week of the session there was a lesson in English grammar, in which all those studying it, or who had studied it, participated, though it might not last one-half an hour, and the school at its close each day had a general spelling lesson. Everything considered, it was a model school, under the direction and control of one man, and many were the young women and young men who received a good, substantial education at the school.

During three years-1868, 1869, and 1870-Judge O. M. Roberts, afterwards Governor Roberts, moved with his family to Gilmer to send his children to that school, and to teach a law school in connection with Professor Looney's school. He also taught bookkeeping for the benefit of young men who were not able to go off to a school for that purpose. His habit was to give two or three hours to his law classes, and, having a successful law practice, to devote the balance of the day to his office and law business, much the same as if he had not been engaged in teaching. The courts of that county were attended by very able lawyers, among whom were Cols. Lafayette Camp and David B. Culberson, which made the practice there very interesting. Judge Roberts, in addition to his teaching, delivered weekly lectures in the school upon law, the State, and scientific subjects, synopses of which were made and published in the local paper. His law school turned out a number of students who made successful lawyers, among whom may be mentioned Judge Sawnie Robertson, of the supreme court, Attorney-General John D. Templeton, Judge Aldredge, and Mr. Thomas Montrose. Hon. Charles A. Culberson, governor of Texas, attended the Looney school. Unfortunately, when Professor Looney's school was at the zenith of great prosperity, the professor was induced, on account of the failing health of his wife, to move, in the fall of 1870, to northwest Arkansas. He abandoned his great work, shedding tears on his departure, and the Looney School was closed at Gilmer.

CONCLUSION.

In view of all the facts and arguments which have been presented, legislators should bear in mind, not only that the university, as the "child of the State," is its ward, and a matter to them of the greatest concern as lawmakers, but that private beneficence to educational enterprises, in order to secure permanent effects, is naturally attracted to such institutions as are most liberally sustained, and preferably to universities whose perpetuity is assured by government backing. Regent Brackenridge is believed to have been inspired to some extent by such considerations in his gifts to the University of Texas; and the donation of the Sealy Hospital was coupled with the condition of correspondingly liberal action by the State with that of the city of Galveston and the Sealy heirs and executors representing the estate through which the hospital was donated to the university.

The idea of legislative duty to the university is forcibly expressed in an eloquent address delivered at the university commencement, at Austin, in 1884, by Col. William Preston Johnston, then president of Tulane University, in which he said:

The first fact that strikes one in contemplating the university is that it is the child of the State entitled by birthright to the intellectual heirship of its imperial progenitor. With this come great responsibilities. Born in the purple, it is held to a princely accountability. Its motto is "Noblesse oblige." It must accept the pains and perils as well as the prestige and privileges of a lofty destiny. Troops of friends should attend it, and it should be endued with the wealth and power to carry out the design for which it was created. If not, its lot is like that of other pauper princes, discrowned kings, and exiled monarchs.

The magic effect of munificence to universities was so glowingly pictured in the same elegant address in alluding to a visit to Cornell as to justify reproducing it:

My visit to Cornell was a lesson in educational science. On a lofty bench, or plateau, scooped from the rugged mountain side and overlooking Lake Cayuga, is planted this now famous institution of learning. At the foot of the mountain nestles Ithaca, a beautiful city of some 20,000 inhabitants. Above it, like the noble forehead to some fair statue, rises the university, with its grand assemblage of stately and beautiful halls, museums, and laboratories; its groups of mansions and cottages, the homes of the professors; its spacious campus and wild background of woodland. The art gallery stands poised on a bold promontory, with a long vista of lake and sedgy shore and embattled hills, against which the hosts of heaven rolled with alternate sunburst and lowering front—a fairy scene worthy the wand of an arch-magician. Indeed, this art gallery, the bequest of a sainted lady, seemed, in its architectural suggestions of beauty, beneficence, and bliss, like a dream of happiness embodied in monumental stone. This marvelous city of the sciences had been summoned into being within fifteen years. I have described it as worthy the wand of an arch-magician; that magician was enlightened enthusiasm, and the wand with which the miracle was wrought was the golden rod of wealth, with its mighty powers of transmutation.

Who will make herself the great beneficent patroness for the University of Texas?

As one advantage of the liberal scope in the publications of the history of education in the several States, as contributed for the United States Bureau of Education, the author feels that he has not been constrained in any manner in his work, and has consequently presented the record not only quite fully, but boldly, and as he believes, fairly to all interests concerned, without prejudice from any source or predilection on any account. His aim has been not so much for display as for correctness and completeness as the true province of history. The common schools have been treated as primordial stepping stones to higher planes of instruction, leading ultimately to the university, and all with reference to great educational movements and needed reforms, particularly affecting State universities, and more especially the University of Texas as one of the great public high schools of the country and capstone to the State's educational system. The work has been not so much for the sake of compensation as a "labor of love," especially as to the university, to which institution more especially the author has devoted the most careful research and conscientious consideration in the hope that the matter presented may excite greater concern for its success and more liberal promotion by private as well as public munificence. Should his efforts happen to produce any considerable results in this direction, he will certainly feel highly gratified as well as rewarded. In conclusion, what he has said in a previous sketch of the university may as well be said again: As the university is now operating with its scope for usefulness widened, it has grown in public estimation till it has come to be regarded with something of the favor which higher education should everywhere evoke, and which naturally does attach to public institutions as they are kindly fostered and develop and mature with the growth of the country. Though not what it should be in every essential, the University of Texas is, in some respects, an exemplar in meeting important educational demands and promoting the general welfare of the State, and as such merits private benefactions as well as public support. What it still needs is to give it a more practical tendency and wider scope by providing greater facilities for instruction in arts, mechanics, and technical work generally; in a word, a thoroughly equipped technological department at Austin, or arts, science, and music school of the highest order of equipment suitable for both male and female students, like such establishments in Northern universities.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

1. Acts of Congress, the constitution, messages of the presidents, and government records of the Republic of Texas.

2. Acts of the legislature, State constitutions and journals of the legislature and State conventions, governors' messages and records of State officers, and various documents published by the State.

3. Acts of the legislature, enacting and amending general and special laws of the State governing the sale or lease of school and university lands.

4. Reports of the university regents, faculty reports, addresses, bulletins, circulars, catalogues, magazines, and other university publications.

5. Reports of State comptrollers, as to the "school" and the "university funds;" and reports of State land commissioners and State land board, as to the "school" and the "university lands."

6. General and special acts of appropriations for the free schools and for the State university and its branches.

7. Reports of the State board of education and State superintendents of instruction, and files of school journals and State newspapers kept in the State library. 8. Publications of the United States Bureau of Education, and reports of the United States Commissioners of Education.

9. Scarff's Comprehensive History of Texas, Mrs. Harby's Earliest Texas, Sweet's Trip Through Texas, Raines's Bibliography of Texas, Lane's History of the University of Texas, History of the Catholic Church, published in San Antonio, Tex.

10. Brown's, Thrall's, Yoakum's, and Morphis's Histories of Texas, Fulmore's Lectures on Texas History.

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