A Central Texas University

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Texas University (e.g. Southwestern University)
Texas University
1873 

This solicitation, sent out in 1873 to “friends of the Church,” promises engraved portraits of Methodist Bishops in exchange for a monetary donation of one or five dollars. Mood and his University specifically targeted Methodists for financial support, appealing to their knowledge and love of these particular Bishops as well as the educational mission of the Church. The name “Texas University” was chosen to represent a central university for all of Texas, but was rejected by the state on the grounds that such a name should represent a public institution. 

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Francis Asbury Mood
A Narrative of the Facts Related to the Founding and Progress of Southwestern University from 1840 to 1882
1882
(Galveston: Shaw & Blaylock) 

F.A. Mood composed this narrative to bridge the gap between the beginnings of the root colleges and the founding of Southwestern University, and ends in a call for endowment. This copy was owned by Margaret Mood McKennon, F.A. Mood’s daughter and first librarian of Southwestern University. Page 8 reproduces the resolution of the Methodist Conferences to meet in convention to establish a central Texas University, highlighting the theological and administrative need for Southwestern. However, Mood ends his narrative with a denunciation of the Methodist Church’s lack of financial stewardship of Southwestern, concluding in all caps that “the contributions to this enterprise, by the Church outside of Williamson Country, in which it is located, have not aggregated four thousand dollars!”

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[Minutes and Reports of the Board of Trustees and Board of Curators of Southwestern University]
1869-1912 

This volume, beginning with Board minutes from Soule University in 1869, records the meetings of the Board of Trustees for Southwestern University from its inception until 1912. On page 68, the Board resolves the adoption of the seal of Southwestern University, seen here in its first official use on Saturday, June 14th, 1879. The seal symbolizes the convergence of the four “root colleges,” Southwestern’s spiritual predecessors in Methodist education, into one permanent central Texas university.