Berkeley, California

“ Certain aspects from the bay of the town of Sausalito, with strangely shaped and softly tinted houses tumbling down the hillside, certain aspects of the bay from the heights of Berkeley, with the expanses of hills and water and the inevitable fog smudging a smoky streak here and there, are more like the picture-country of the Japanese masters than any American reality.
If I were to pick the time when I should travel in California, it would be in the early summer. All the rest of the world at that moment is green. California alone is sheer gold. ”

“ Berkeley is the seat of the California state university (see California, University of) , opened in 1873; the inter-related Berkeley Bible Seminary (1896, Disciples of Christ) ; Pacific Theological Seminary (established in 1866 at Oakland, in 1901 at Berkeley, Congregational) ; Seminary of the Pacific Coast Baptist Theological Union, and Unitarian Theological School—all associated with the University of California; and the state institution for the deaf, dumb and blind. The site of Berkeley was a farming region until its selection for the home of the university. ”

“ Within two years over 100,000 adventurous men came, and many remained to help upbuild San Francisco and California. Across the bay on the eastern shore is Oakland, third city on the coast, with its 175,000 people. It is a city of slopes covered with charming homes, spreading northward to the city of Berkeley, seat of the great University of California and noteworthy for its loveliness. ”

“ A block or two beyond, look up the broad street to the right, and you see the buildings and grounds now occupied by the State University of California, pending the erection of ampler accommodations on the University site at Berkeley, five miles north. Take the horse cars if you like, and ride out north along the "telegraph road." Noble residences and beautiful grounds line both sides of the way. ”

“ In it old Roman models have been used to elaborate a California text. Its structure and setting are the demonstration of a theorem,— the finished word of the preachment of a lifetime. The Exposition gave the preacher his opportunity. Bernard Maybeck, the Berkeley architect, had long been telling California that architecture here, to be beautiful, needed only to be an effective background for landscape. His theory is that as trees and plants grow so easily and so quickly here, Californians are wasting their finest source of beauty if they do not combine landscape with building. ”

“ Also, while on this visit to Berkeley, I talked with the wife of a professor; the ladies, you know, have an especially acute sense for social matters, and often have a pungent way of expressing what they feel. This lady had been walking on the beach at Del Monte, the exclusive resort of the California plutocracy. Perhaps she wasn’t meant to be there; anyhow, there came strolling toward her the president of the university, with two or three of the wives of his wealthiestwealthiest regents. ”

“ For example the charters of Los Angeles and of Berkeley. The Berkeley charter is a model in this respect. It provides that any qualified citizen may become a candidate for municipal office, by petition of twenty-five electors, AND IN NO OTHER WAY. The party tag is thus done away with. At the election, if a candidate receive a majority of the votes he is declared elected. ”

“ Nothing in the educational work of California is of more importance than the five normal schools, which graduate each year hundreds of teachers thoroughly prepared in all branches for the important work of training the children of the state.
As the crown of the free school system, stands the state university at Berkeley. Many an interesting story might be told of the noble men, who as early as 1849 began their long struggle to gain for the youth of California the chance for higher education. The Reverend Samuel Willey, the American consul Mr. Larkin, and Mr. ”

“ Besides a day in Oakland and Berkeley, where the State University is located, and a short run on a railroad to San Quinten, all my sight-seeing was done in San Francisco. There are over half a million people in and around that city. Probably 350,000 in San Francisco; Oakland Alameda, Berkeley and several other [220] towns across the bay, practically one city, have over one hundred thousand more. ”

“ Barclay senior’s fifteen years of California life were full to the brim. He made fortunes and lost them, lived hard, had his loves and his hates openly and unblushingly, as men did in those wild days, and became a prominent man in the San Francisco of the early sixties. ”

“ For a long series of years, the anxiety of the English Government was confined to the extension of Jamestown, the effort towards which appears to have inflicted only a burden on the people, [33] but in 1662, Berkeley, who had been restored to his old position at the head of the Colony, after the return of the Stuarts to power, was commanded to use his influence to induce the planters to erect a town upon every important river. ”

“ And if he did, how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him from the rabble—and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but his duty. And yet—and yet—"
He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I could save you. ”

“ Cañon and Hillside
Did you ever see the Berkeley hills in the early morning, just before the sun comes stealing over their rounded domes, or in the evening, just before it sinks beneath the waters of the bay, and casts its waning light over their rugged sides?
There never was a more pleasing sight than their uneven profile sharply drawn against the grayish purple. Watch them as they gradually assume shape out of the decreasing shadows. The blotches of green and brown take form and grow into cañons and gullies, rocks and towers, domes and minarets. ”

“ He said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one back in Palo Alto!"
RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to when I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember, they're a chain."
JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant —- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley, not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto. ”

“ No wonder that Trinity Church services are interrupted, and that preacher and congregation crowd to the wharf to do the strangers honor!
The Berkeley party spent the first few{451} months of their stay in the town of Newport, whence the Dean made short excursions to what Mrs. Berkeley terms “the Continent,” meaning the mainland opposite. Toward the close of their first summer, James, Dalton and Smibert removed to Boston, and the Berkeley family to a farm in the interior of the island, which the Dean had purchased and on which he had built a house. ”

“ While in Newport, Berkeley mingled in the society of the town, and frequently preached in the pulpit of Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the Church of England. He visited the Narragansett country, and is said to have made some distant excursions to see the condition of the native Indian tribes. A few months after his arrival he bought a farm and built a commodious house, which he called Whitehall. The house is still standing, and is known in the neighbourhood as Bishop Berkeley's house. Few situations could be more adapted to the tastes of a student as fond of nature as of books. ”

“ San Francisco.—This town has thrice been laid in ashes; but the young phœnix has risen on ampler wings than those which steadied the consumed form of its parent. It must be the great commercial emporium of California in spite of competition, wind, and flame. Its direct connection with the sea, its magnificent bay and internal communications, have settled the question of its ultimate grandeur. It may be afflicted with grog-shops and gamblers, and the mania of speculation, but these are temporary evils which time, a higher moral tone, and the more steady pursuits of man will remedy. ”

“ The night was dark in San Francisco—that city far away on the confines of the Pacific. And far other scenes and other deeds are witnessed there than it ever entered into the imagination of the dwellers on the Atlantic sea-board to conceive of. Description is at fault; words cannot paint the mingled web, and fancy has no colors sufficiently vivid to depict the peculiar state of society in the newly-risen metropolis of California. ”

“ For seventy years after its founding in 1781 Los Angeles was the only pueblo, as distinguished from presidio or mission, in the southern part of this state; and until the sudden growth of San Francisco during the gold excitement, it was the largest city in California, boasting about twenty-five hundred inhabitants when it came under American rule. ”

“ Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, in deep devotion to his Ideal, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West, Berkeley sailed for Rhode Island in a "hired ship of two hundred and fifty tons."
The New England Courier of that time gives this picture of his disembarkation at Newport: "Yesterday there arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He [Pg 31] was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner." ”

“ Ciudad de los Angeles, or the City of the Angels, is situated a hundred and ten miles south of Santa Barbara, at the end of an immense plain, extending from the city twenty-five miles, to San Pedro, its port. This is the garden spot of California. Before the discovery of the gold mines, the City of the Angels was the largest town in the country. It contains about two thousand inhabitants, most of whom are wealthy rancheros, who dwell there to cultivate the grape. ”

“ It was governed by a mayor and twelve aldermen, but by 1864 their privileges had become merely nominal, and the corporation was dissolved in 1885 under the Municipal Corporations Act. Berkeley was formerly noted for the manufacture of clothing, but the trade had decreased by the 16th century, for Leland, writing about 1520, says “the town of Berkeley is no great thing. ”

“ In the south, in the fertile valley where are now the great grain fields of Los Angeles county, San Fernando was founded. Between San Gabriel and San Diego were placed San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey, and the chapel of Pala. San Rafael and Solano, to the north of San Francisco Bay, complete the list of twenty-one missions of Upper California. ”

“ Corner lots in San Diego, Del Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line, all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts' sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to buy became a mania. ”

“ We prospered from the beginning, deriving much benefit from our San Francisco representation which resulted in our building up something of a wholesale business.
In the early fifties, Los Angeles was the meeting-place of a Board of Land Commissioners appointed by the National Government to settle land-claims and to prepare the way for that granting of patents to owners of Southern California ranches which later awakened from time to time such interest here. ”

“ In the intervals scatter colonies of vine and orange growers, the numbers and dimensions of which are rapidly increasing.
The mountain barrier across the State is deemed by some to be of such importance that it should be a political as well as a natural division. They call for the construction of a distinct new State, to be called South California, its capital at Los Angeles. ”

“ At certain seasons of the year, many of the millionaires of the Comstock are to be found rambling in California, taking their ease in that land of sunshine and flowers. Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and other places on the sea-coast are much frequented by those who are weary of the eternal sameness and the light and dry atmosphere of the mountains, and who wish to find some pleasant place in which to rest and recuperate. ”

“ Whoever has deservedly failed in the older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The city contains more than four hundred thousand people. ”

“ California was replete with charming, beautiful, and superlatively healthy girls; the climate produced them as it did its superabundance of fruit, flowers, and vegetables. But they had left Price Ruyler untroubled. He had been far more interested watching San Francisco rise from its ruins, transformed almost overnight from a picturesque but ramshackle city, a patchwork of different eras, into a staid metropolis of concrete and steel, defiant alike of earthquake and fire. ”