California

Article Outline

Introduction; Physical Geography; Economic Activities; The People of California; Education and Cultural Institutions; Recreation and Places of Interest; Government; History

Religion

Franciscan friars entered California in the San Diego area in 1769 to establish the Spanish claim to the region and to convert the Native Americans to Roman Catholicism. By 1823 they had established a chain of 21 missions along the coast, stretching from San Diego north to Sonoma. Protestantism was introduced in California by the early American settlers in the 1830s. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, came to the state over the Mormon Trail from Utah during the 19th century, and laborers from China and Japan introduced Eastern religions. The first Buddhist temple in the United States was constructed in San Francisco in 1905. In the 20th century many religious cults and sects became established in California.

The Roman Catholic Church now has the largest membership of any denomination, with more than one-quarter of all church members. The largest Protestant sects are the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. Jewish congregations have many members. In San Francisco is the headquarters of the Buddhist Churches of America. There are mosques in many California cities.

Education and Cultural Institutions

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Education

The earliest schools in California were founded in the last half of the 18th century by Franciscan missionaries. In the 1840s, American settlers began to set up their own schools. Progressive school laws, passed in the 1860s, provided for free elementary education for every child and established an advanced state system of public education. High schools were granted state support in 1903, and junior colleges were recognized as part of the secondary school system in 1917. Full-time school attendance is now compulsory for all children from 6 to 18 years old. Some 10 percent of the state’s children attend private schools.

In the 2002–2003 school year California spent $8,740 on each student’s education, compared to a national average of $9,299. There were 21.1 students for every teacher (the national average was 15.9). California had one of the largest average class sizes of any state. Of those older than 25 years of age, 81.3 percent percent had a high school diploma, compared with an average for the nation of 82.8 percent percent.

Higher Education

California is noted for its many excellent public colleges and universities. The University of California, one of the larger universities in the world, has campuses at Berkeley, Irvine, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Riverside. The system also includes a campus focusing on health sciences programs in San Francisco, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, and more than 500 research centers throughout the state. It was founded in 1855 as the private College of California, in Oakland, and was chartered as a state university, in Berkeley, in 1868. Besides the University of California, in 2000 the state system of higher education included the California State University System, which has 22 campuses from San Diego to Humboldt County along the northwest coast and 107 community colleges. In all the state had 144 public and 255 private institutions of higher education.

Many of the early colleges in California were private institutions established by religious denominations. The two oldest schools in the state, both dating from 1851, are the University of the Pacific, founded by Methodists as California Wesleyan College, and Santa Clara University, established by Roman Catholics as Santa Clara College. Among the most noted of California’s many private institutions are Stanford University, in Stanford; the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles; California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena; Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven schools, in Claremont; Mills College, in Oakland; and Whittier College, in Whittier.

Libraries

There are 179 tax-supported public library systems in California. San Francisco and Los Angeles are particularly noted for their extensive municipal library systems. Each year the state’s libraries circulate an average of 5.3 books for every resident. Among the many fine college libraries in the state are those maintained by the University of California. At Stanford University is the Hoover Institution Library and Archives. Extensive collections of materials on state and Western history are housed in the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley; in the California State Library in Sacramento; and in the library of the California Historical Society in San Francisco.

Museums

The private Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino contains an outstanding collection relating to English and American literature and history, as well as noted collections of European art, tapestries, furniture, porcelain, and miniatures. Famous works of art are also found in the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has notable collections of American, European, and Asian art. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena exhibits paintings by European masters, as well as sculptures from Southeast Asia. One of California’s newest arts and cultural complexes is the Getty Center in Brentwood, overlooking Los Angeles. The center, opened in late 1997, is the new site of the J. Paul Getty Museum, which had been located in the Getty Villa in Malibu.