C'est Vrai: SLI tax promised school for all ages

It was a mistake, or maybe a political ploy, to get the tax to support it passed, but when the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (later USL and UL) first was proposed for Lafayette, residents were told it would start with kindergarten classes.

Edwin L. Stephens, the first president, wrote about that in the June 1908 Institute Bulletin:

"The people were urged and persuaded that here was an opp-ortunity for the final settlement of their great educational prob-lem. This institution, it was promised, would be open to all their children, without limitation.

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