The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-04-13
LOvETT, Al TOMORROW,
 HEADS TEXAS COLLEGE FOUNDED BY PATRICK'S VICTIM

With the money of a murdered man, the coveted millions that trans formed respected and gifted lawyer into fiend who assassinated his best friend, there has been reared in southern Texas, not far from Hous- ton, a magnificent edifice dedicated to the eternal quest for truth. On the cornerstone of this building is en- graved these words of Democritus: Rather would I discover the cause of one fact than become king of the Persians." This structure with it's significant inscription is the center around which others are being built, or will later be erected, and the whole will constitute the greatest uni versity in the southwest. At the head of this great project, the Will liam Marsh Rice Institute, if Prof. Edgar Odell Lovett, and on his shoul- ders rests the mighty burden of poten- tial achievement. They are the shoulders of an able and a youthful man, for Prof. Lovett is of the new CT school of educators, and will be forty-one years of age tomorrow.
 In cell in a New York State pris- on Lawyer Albert T. Patrick, still protesting his innocence, vainly car ries on a fight for the freedom he re- linquished when he murdered his ben- efactor, William Marsh Rice, a Tex as millionaire. He played for gigan- tic stakes, for the Rice fortune amounted to over $8,000,000, and this sum, with 5000, 900 more added to it by careful management, represents the endowment of the educational in stitution of which Professor Lovett is the president. A little gro cery store in Springfield, Mass, was the foundation of the Rice fortune. In 1888 the future benefactor. of com ing generations settled in Texas, and, by wise investments, amassed the millions now put to so good use.
 The Rice Institute was the ambition and the inspiration of the latter years of Rice's life. What he dreamed of, however, was only a technological school, while the realization will be a great university, with the technical school only one of many departments devoted to the education of the youth of the Southwest.
 In 1907, when the courts had deter mined the rightful disposition of the money which was the object of the murderous gold lust of Lawyer Pat rick, the trustees set about the task of finding the right man to take the leadership of the university that was to be. Their choice fell upon Prof. Lovett, then professor of astronomy, at Princeton. Dr. Lovett was a na- tive of Shreve, O., where he was born April IA, 1871, and was a grad uate of Bethany College, W. Va, the University of Virginia, and the Uni versity of Leipzig, Germany. As an educator, teaching mathematics and astronomy he had been member of the faculties of West Kentucky Col lege, and the universities of Virginia, Chicago and Princeton.
 With his selection and acceptance, Prof. Lovett was sent on a tour of the globe, and for year he studied the organization, architecture and ad- ministration of the leading institu- tions of learning of Europe and Asia. The results of these researches will be embodied in the Texas university. The central group of edifces, now completed or in course of construc- tion, cost $75O,000 and are of brick, Texas granite and Ozark marble. The architects have sought to give the buildings a style distinctively Ameri- can, and yet significant of the South west, and in this they have succeed ed.