"Since the organization of this Normal School 3,219 students have been graduated. More than 1,200 of these are now teaching in the public schools of California."

The State Normal School at San Francisco was established by act of the legislature on March 22, 1899. Its work has gone on without interruption ever since, and there are those who say that its efficiency is as great as that of any school in the United States. It has been the aim of the founders and instructors to do good work, and much attention is given to the personality of those it selects as teachers who are to go forth with its credentials. President Frederick Burk thus outlines the purposes and methods of this institution.

"The faculty determined, in the first place, that the school should give no courses in general scholarship, to do which is already the function of the public school system, but should direct its energy exclusively into the channels of technical preparation for teaching. A normal school is a technical school, ranking in character with schools of medicine, engineering, law, and trade-learning. The public school system is expected to provide pupils with that kind of general knowledge, culture and training which concerns life common to all people, whatever their occupations may be. The technical school obtains students after this general education and training are accomplished, and its only concern should be to determine the stage of academic instruction at which students may be recruited into its special service; or, in short, to set a standard of academic knowledge requisite for admission.

"The San Francisco Normal School is located in the midst of a large number of the best high schools in the United States, and therefore the requirements for admission were made identical with those for admission to the State University. These requirements demand graduation from an accredited school with a special recommendation from the high school principal. Thus the San Francisco Normal School stands for a sharp distinction between general or academic scholarship and the technical or professional training special to teachers. No courses whatever are given in purely academic studies, and the school centers its energies exclusively upon professional training, in which term are included studies in the grouping and adaptation of the material of the various subjects to the special uses of the class-room.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STATE UNIVERSITY.

Freeminent among institutions of learning in California, and occupying a dignified place among the great universities of the United States, is the University of California, the principal buildings and headquarters of which are at Berkeley, in Alameda county, though the Lick Observatory, the Hastings Law College and other branches of the great work are not carried on at Berkeley.

Geographically and climatically the location of the state's highest place of learning is superb, for Berkeley escapes the fogs and stiff sea breezes of the immediate coast and particularly of the peninsula which comprises the city and county of San Francisco. It is also far removed from the extremes of summer that make the San Joaquin and the Sacramento valleys too hot for comfortable studying.

The town of Berkeley now exceeds twenty-five thousand inhabitants, the community being one of the most orderly and free from crime of any city in the west. The site of the university comprises about two hundred and seventy acres, rising at first in a gentle, then in a bolder slope from a height of two hundred feet above sea level to one not far from a thousand. Back of it a chain of hills continues to climb a thousand feet higher, affording an inspiring outlook over the bay and city of San Francisco, over the neighboring plains and mountains, the ocean, and the Golden Gate. As before said, the climate is exceptionally good for uninterrupted work throughout

the year.

The following is a brief summary of the history of the great institution. of learning, given as a prelude to more specific data:

"In 1869 the College of California, which had been incorporated in 1855 and which had carried on collegiate instruction since 1860, closed its work of instruction and transferred its property, on terms which were mutually agreed upon, to the University of California.

"The university was instituted by a law which received the approval of the governor March 23, 1868. Instruction was begun in Oakland in the autumn of 1869. The commencement exercises of 1873 were held at Berkeley, July 16, when the university was formally transferred to its permanent home. Instruction began at Berkeley in the autumn of 1873. The constitution of 1879 made the existing organization of the university perpetual.

"The University of California is an integral part of the public educational system of the state. As such it completes the work begun in the public schools. Through aid from the state and the United States, and by private gifts, it furnishes facilities for instruction in literature and in science, and in the professions of law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and art. At Berkeley are its Colleges of Letters, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Commerce, Agriculture, Mechanics, Mining, Civil Engineering and Chemistry; at Mount Hamilton is its graduate Astronomical Department, founded by James Lick; in San Francisco are its Colleges of Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Art. The university's endowment is capitalized at about eleven million dollars; its yearly income is about seven hundred thousand dollars; it has received private benefactions to the amount of nearly eight million dollars. The fourteen buildings in which the colleges at Berkeley are at present housed have been outgrown. The university is indebted to Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst for permanent building plans upon a comprehensive scale. In pursuance of these plans, three buildings are now approaching completion; the president's house; the Hearst Memorial Mining Building, given by Mrs. Hearst for the College of Mining of the university and as a memorial to the late Senator George Hearst; and California Hall, for which an appropriation of $250,000 has been made by the state legislature. A fourth building has been completed-the beautiful Greek theater, an open-air auditorium, patterned after the classic structure at Epidaurus, and given to the university by William Randolph Hearst. The fifth of the new buildings will be the library, for which generous provision was made by the late Charles F. Doe, of San Francisco. At Berkeley there are one hundred and seventy-five officers of instruction distributed among thirty-six departments; twenty-seven hundred students; a library of one hundred and thirteen thousand volumes; an art gallery; museums and laboratories; also the agricultural experiment grounds and stations, which are invaluable adjuncts of the farming, orchard