The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-07-16
DIR. GEORGE T. WINSTON, PRESl-
DENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
OLE TENAS.

OF TEXAS.
We took great pleasure yesterday in
giving an extensive notice of DIR. Winston's
life and work. The Charlotte (North
Cardinal Observer, it must have
been noticed, closed an editorial
upon the splendid energies and ed
ucatonal attainments of him who has
lately been elected the first president of
the University of Texas in the following
language "Texas is to be congratulated
upon the acquisition of so much intellect
ual power and vigor."
Since we have become acquainted with
DIR. Winston's history as an educator and
as builder up of feeble and poorly en-
dowed institution, as the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the en-
dowment being only $4,000 per annum,
we are forced to the conclusion that the
board of regents of the University of
Texas builded stronger, deeper and wiser
than they knew when they selected DR..
Winston as the first president of the Uni
versity of Texas.
Five years since he was elected presi
dent of the University of North Carolina,
with which institution of learning he had
been connected for fifteen years previous
ly as q professor. He Immediately in
fused into the institution new life and
expansive buoyancy, and by improving its
methods in learning and ENGRAVING upon
it an athletic training, not interfering
with, but keeping in vigorous health, the
minds and bodies of the students, he
made the university popular and turned
out robust students. He appeared before
a hostile Populist legislature, and by his
commanding intellect and active force of
character he wrung from the legislature
liberal support. Dr. Winston has won
the reputation of a successful advertiser,
and by indomitable energy and personal
influence he has engrafted on the schools
Vt the state of North Carolina the models
Of the improved university. Judging from
the estimate of him by articles i'll the
North Carolina papers, the conclusion is
inevitable that he is the very man most
needed by the Texas university. His
personal magnetism and suave manners
combined with an energy that seems I'M
sleeping, qualify him for the task before
him, to brush away the bubbles that have
aroused prejudice and unite influences
that have been against the university, so
that with its friends he will make the
Texas university the dearest institution of
the state to its whole people. 1t needs
too, commanding intellect and high
toned, broad man to bring out the best ca
pacities of its professors. We believe DR..
Winston to be just such a man.
A slight acquaintance with him when
he was here to deliver the address before
the university at the last commencement,
together with the address itself, convinced
us that he was the right man for the
place. He leaves the University of North
Carolina with expressions of deep re-
greet. as he has lived in one house at Chap
"a IIill for twenty years, and he must have
been the center of delightful social cir
Gle, but he has brought up that institu-
ton to the highest position and has left
it with 500 students. We think we can
see the causes that operated in bringing
DR.. Winston to Texas in an interview
with him on the subject in Raleigh, n
c., paper After expressing his regrets
at leaving North Carolina, DR.. Winston,
said, with that strange energetic force
giving thrill to the words:'
Let me tell YOU about Texas: Take
North Carolina, take out of it three
fourths of its negroes. bring into it one
fourth German and steady-going foreign
population, add to that one-tifteenth of
New England and western people, and
let the rest be southern people of the best
type-all going fifty miles an hour instead
of ten-with southern color given to the
whole civilization; that's Texas.
You can stand on any elevated place
like the dome of the capitol and see the
earth stretch away from you mile after
mile, level as a tloor-one solid stretch of
cotton and corn. The soil is of mex
haustible fertility. 1t is decomposed
limestone and the uplands are fertile as
our richest river bottoms. In fifty years
the almost boundlcss acres of Texas will
be under cultivation by steam or electric
plows. and the farmer will make a profit
on cotton at three cents Il pound.
1t is great state, and there is broad
field for the University of Texas.
We sincerely congratulate the Universe
ty of Texas and the whole people of the
state in obtaining president of its uni
versity so eminently qualified to take the
unfinished but splendid educational facili-