University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER First President of the University of Chicago

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-f-1'..:' 1 ,... . ,,..,,1 , ,, , ' M 'T'-'A , 5 I ui CAP AND GOXVN I suppose there were no other sports except baseball, in which I took no part. I am not sure that the present game had been evolved. A few years earlier, at the fitting school I attended in Massachusetts, there were alternative versions, the New York game and the Massachusetts game. The latter was played with a soft ball and a man was put out by being hit with it. New York triumphed over Massachusetts in the density of the ball, and of course with a hard ball it would have been a criminal offence to throw to hit a man, it would have been as proper to shoot him. I suppose I founded the chair of political economy in the University of Chicago, for after I had been out of college a few years I coaxed Dr. Burroughs to let me give what I called lectures to a class for a term or two. The following year I was not urged to repeat the experiment, but my friend, Hayden K. Smith, financial editor of the Chicago Times, did give lectures, I think, for some time. Possibly he was more competent, certainly he could not have been any cheaper. 1 I suppose we got as good an education as we could have gotten anywhere. Half a century ago not so many things were taught as now constitute a liberal education. My opinion as to whether the departure from the old classical course has been any improvement is of no value and I do not give it. We learned as much Latin and Greek as we should have learned anywhere, and probably the same thing is true of mathe- matics, though I am not so sure about that. The plant was pretty weak in the natural sciences, and we did not get very much history or philosophy. I ought not to omit the fact that we published a paper, monthly or semi-monthly, or occasionally, and I record this because I wrote poetry for it. I want to get this fact of my poetical achievements into the record somewhere. I was immensely pleased a great many years ago, but also a great many years after I left college, to see some reminiscences of the old University in which the fact that Powers wrote poetry for the students' periodical was recalled. Twenty-three years ago I attended the Washington's Birthday dinner of the Uni- versity, but while it was a very pleasant occasion, it didn't seem at all like getting back home. I am glad to feel, however, that I am a sort of step-child, or adopted child, of the present magnificent institution, which is supplying professors to so many other institutions of learning. FREDERICK PERRY POWERS. l 1 5 I

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if-an .Qi C A P A N-D G 0 W N I 7 iv ' , 1 at President Harper was a dreamer, a creator, a builder. Other foundations of the University might be considered. Other claims upon the un- dying gratitude of the University to him might be urged. He gathered a great store of materials. He found an army of friends for the institution. He stimu- lated the imagination and fired the zeal of those who had money, which, under his direction, they invested in land, in stone, in mortar, in books, in men. But his Ubattlemented towers will be lost in the lines of noble structures which will grace the quadrangles in days to come. His generous friends will be but a small part of a larger company of patrons of tomorrow. His personal iniiuence will become less distinct as those whom he stimulated and inspired follow him into the shadows. But the foundations he laid deep in the concrete will abide. The University, the child of his imaginative fancy, will bear his stamp through ages and through centuries. If he is rightly called the spiritual founder of the Uni- versity of Chicago, his immortality must find expression in the spiritual aspects of the institution rather than in the physical. And there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who ever came into close contact with his soul that that is the sort of immortality he would choose, were he himself to make the selection. Investigation, human service, accessibility. These were the key words which Dean Small used once in appreciation of Dr. Harper's contribution to the Uni- versity of Chicago ideal. That was ten years ago., The same ideals remain dominant today. There seems no reason to think that they ever will change. So we go forward, recognizing the steady growth of the University in a decade of wise administration, rejoicing in the prosperity and the power of what we now see beneath the hope-filled western skies, coniident of the unfolding future, but never forgetting the dreamer who visualized his imaginations in stone, the builder who shaped the gathered materials into fabrics of enduring strength, the spiritual founder who put his life into the University of Chicago. From an article entitled, After Ten Years, by Francis W. Sheparolson, which appeared in the Alimmi Magazine for February, 1916. 5 '1 li? V v YP? 17