Back to School

The next section of the scrapbook is also packed with articles. Two more pages of the Ethel's scrapbook are pack with articles spanning only four days: September 12-15. This first article is noted as Back-to-School and had not one, but two large photos. In this article, Ethel chose to celebrate Rice's advancements into modernity by examining Rice's History!

Rice Grows From Four Buildings On Prairie to Modern Institute 

September 12, 1939 back-to-school

Photo of the Rice Institue Administration Building

"Rice Institute which begins its twenty-seventh academic session with classes Monday, started an education infant in 1912 and has grown to one of the nation’s outstanding seats of learning. 

Some 1350 students will register at Rice Institute this year, it was announced, about 400 of them freshmen.

Far Different Scene

But the students who go to Rice Institute this year to begin another year of study will meet a far different scene than did the comparative handful of students who were on deck to begin their college education when Rice first open it’s doors on September 23, 1912. 

Photo caption: Above is pictured the Cohen
House, one of the newest building at Rice
Institue.It is used as a clubhouse for
Faculty Members

Today beautiful landscaped grounds and buildings of conforming architecture greet the new students. In 1912 Rice Institute was just four buildings on plowed prairie land with no tree or shrub in sight. 

But the 59 students who registered for the first classes saw that the foundations of a great institution had been laid, and the opening exercises gave notice to the world that nothing but the best was aspired to, that the new institution proposed to take its place among the greatest in the world. 

Colorful Story

William March Rice
Source: Wikipedia

The story of Rice Institute is a colorful-one. This beginning, with high aspirations, had been made possible by a New Englander who came to Texas a youth, became rich and left $15,000,000 of his fortune for the building and maintenance of a large educational plant for Houston Texas. That New Englander was William Marsh Rice, for whom the institute is named.

Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, who has been president of Rice since its inception, and other heads of the college have brought to Houston many distinguished individuals as lecturers and about as many able scholars are resident members of the institute itself. It has gained steadily in national recognition both for its scholastic standing and its athletic teams.

Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett
Source: Rice Campanile Yearbook 1917

On Rice’s faculty are several internationally noted scientist, among them Dr. Harry Boyer Weiser, professor of chemistry; Dr. Asa Crawford Chandler, professor of biology, and Dr. Edgar A Altenberg assistant professor of biology.

The institute offers a liberal education in arts, as well as in sciences and engineering, for which it is particularly noted."

The first publication of the student newspaper at Rice, the Threser, was published Thursday, September 14th, in anticipation of the first day of class, Monday September 18th. All of the articles we have reviewed so far, were published prior to the first day of school. She continues to review the changes at Rice in preparation for the new academic year. I don't know about you, but I'm excited for the academic year of 1939-1940 to finally begin!