GOLIAD COLLEGE. Goliad College was the successor to Paine Male and Female College at Goliad (see PAINE FEMALE INSTITUTE). The West Texas Conference of the Methodist Church determined by 1877 that Paine, a Methodist-supported institution, had to be sold. In 1877 the college was sold to the Goliad College Company, Incorporated. Alexander A. Brooks, a University of Rochester Ph.D., formerly the head of Paine Male and Female College, was a stockholder in the Goliad College Company. He became president of the new institution, Goliad College, which began operation without an abrupt break.

Under Brooks's guidance Goliad College, also known as Brooks College, continued to offer bachelor's and master's degrees. Though specializing in vocational and instrumental music, the school had preparatory and military departments and sponsored the Fannin Literary Society. A faculty of ten also taught courses in ancient language and metaphysics, modern languages, mathematics and natural science, and commercial science. The institution increasingly took on a disciplined and military air. All students were required to observe study hours at night and were not allowed to attend parties or "places of amusement" without the permission of the president.

On May 31, 1884, the Goliad College Company property was deeded to Professor Brooks for $7,000. The following year he sold the institution to Goliad High School, a private enterprise under control of the Methodist churches of the Victoria and Corpus Christi districts of the West Texas Conference. The new school apparently opened in October 1885. M. T. Tippen, the first president, was later succeeded by R. T. Barton. A faculty of nine continued basically the same curriculum that Brooks had followed. Goliad High School fell into financial difficulty, however; by 1891 the institution was closed, and its property had been seized and sold by the county to recover its debt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: James Lee Martin, History of Goliad from 1836 to 1880 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937). Eugene Allen Perrin, The History of Education in Goliad County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1933).

Craig H. Roell