Editing Rice University (section)

===Background===
[[File:William Marsh Rice.gif|thumb|left|upright|[[William Marsh Rice]]'s estate funded the establishment of the Rice Institute.]]
Rice University's history began with the death of Massachusetts businessman William Marsh Rice, who had made his fortune in real estate, railroad development and cotton trading in [[Texas]]. In 1891, Rice decided to charter a free-tuition educational institute in Houston, bearing his name, to be created upon his death, earmarking most of his estate towards funding the project. Rice's will specified the institution was to be "a competitive institution of the highest grade" and that only white students would be permitted to attend.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Short History of Race-Based Affirmative Action at Rice University|journal=The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education|date=Autumn 1996|issue=13|pages=36–38|publisher=The JBHE Foundation|doi=10.2307/2963155|jstor=2963155}}</ref> On the morning of September 23, 1900, Rice, age 84, was found dead by his valet, Charles F. Jones, and was presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a large check made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, signed by the late Rice, aroused the suspicion of a bank teller, due to the misspelling of the recipient's name. The lawyer, [[Albert T. Patrick]], then claimed that Rice had changed his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Patrick, rather than to the creation of Rice's educational institute. A subsequent investigation led by the District Attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer [[chloroform]] to Rice while he slept. Rice's friend and personal lawyer in Houston, [[James A. Baker (born 1857)|Captain James A. Baker]], aided in the discovery of what turned out to be a fake will with a forged signature. Jones was not prosecuted since he cooperated with the district attorney, and testified against Patrick. Patrick was found guilty of conspiring to steal Rice's fortune and he was convicted of murder in 1901 (he was pardoned in 1912 due to conflicting medical testimony).<ref name="poisoner"/> Baker helped Rice's estate direct the fortune, worth $4.6 million in 1904<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wermund |first=Benjamin |date=2016-06-04 |title=The vision of William Marsh Rice becomes a university after... |url=https://www.chron.com/local/history/major-stories-events/article/The-vision-of-William-Marsh-Rice-becomes-a-7963782.php |access-date=2023-07-09 |website=Chron |language=en |archive-date=July 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709194542/https://www.chron.com/local/history/major-stories-events/article/The-vision-of-William-Marsh-Rice-becomes-a-7963782.php |url-status=live }}</ref> (equivalent to ${{Format price|{{inflation|US-GDP|4600000|1904|r=-6}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}), towards the founding of what was to be called the Rice Institute, later to become Rice University. The board took control of the assets on April 29 of that year.
In 1907, the Board of Trustees selected the head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at [[Princeton University]], [[Edgar Odell Lovett]], to head the institute, which was still in the planning stages. He came recommended by Princeton's president, [[Woodrow Wilson]]. In 1908, Lovett accepted the challenge, and was formally inaugurated as the institute's first president on October 12, 1912. Lovett undertook extensive research before formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world on a long tour between 1908 and 1909. Lovett was impressed by such things as the aesthetic beauty of the uniformity of the architecture at the [[University of Pennsylvania]], a theme which was adopted by the institute, as well as the [[residential college]] system at [[Cambridge University]], which was added to the Institute several decades later. Lovett called for the establishment of a university "of the highest grade," "an institution of liberal and technical learning" devoted "quite as much to investigation as to instruction." [We must] "keep the standards up and the numbers down," declared Lovett. "The most distinguished teachers must take their part in undergraduate teaching, and their spirit should dominate it all." [[File:Rice University Texas.jpg|thumb|Rice University]]