The Fight for the University’s Future
An editorial debate over the Territorial University’s location and future highlights the tension between Seattle’s growth and the necessity of territorial unity.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Chronicle, published at Dayton, recently complained about the Territorial University. It objects to the University because a large proportion of its students are from Seattle and becomes, as it says, 'Eastern Washington derives very little benefit from the University not being of its identity high standard or grade to justify the heavy expense incurred to attend such a school at a distance.' The fact that the institution is located in Seattle is the cause of almost all the animosity which is manifested toward it. Yet it is necessary that it be somewhere, and Seattle is probably the best place that could be found. The same standard of population is a decided advantage. If it were not for the money received from these Seattle people, the University could not exist. No other place in the Territory could furnish so many paying students, and there are but two or three places in which the University could by any possibility obtain such local support to enable it to exist. At the time the institution was located, Seattle was the only place that could offer any advantages whatever. Now it has valuable property here, and even if the people of Western Washington were willing, it could not be moved without heavy loss. The fact that it is in Western Washington should certainly not be used as an argument for removing it. Its aim is to be the Territorial University, and eventually to be a State University, and all the people of the Territory should take a pride in it and work for its success.
“If it were not for the money received from these Seattle people, the University could not exist.”
This 1885 editorial echoes the perennial Seattle anxiety over civic investment—balancing local concentration of wealth and institutions against the regional mandate of a state-serving university. The arguments regarding funding, student population, and 'valuable property' remain central to the discourse of Washington State’s modern growth and infrastructure battles.
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