The roots of the University of California go back to the gold rush days of 1849,
when the drafters of the State Constitution, a group of vigorous and farsighted
people, required the legislature to "encourage by all suitable means the
promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvement"
of the people of California. California had few families in 1849 and few
children to educate, but these early planners dreamed of a university which
eventually, "if properly organized and conducted, would contribute even
more than California's gold to the glory and happiness of advancing
generations."
The university that was born nearly 20 years later was the
product
of a merger between the College of California (a private institution) and
the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College (a land grant
institution). The College of California, founded by former Congregational
minister Henry Durant from New England, was incorporated in 1855 in Oakland. Its
curriculum was modeled after that of Yale and Harvard, with the addition of
modern languages to the core courses in Latin, Greek, history, English,
mathematics, and natural history. With an eye to future expansion, the board of
trustees augmented the college's Oakland holdings with the purchase of 160 acres
of land four miles north, on a site they named Berkeley in 1866.
