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

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CAP AND GOXVN The Students of the First Year 1892-3. T was the profound conviction of all those most interested in founding an instituf tion in Chicago that it would attract a great attendance of students. They were enthusiasts, dreamers of dreams. In that day was fulfilled the scripture which said, Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. But their dreams and visions fell far short of the fullness of the event. One of them Wrote to Mr. Rockefeller in January, 1887: f'Of all places in the world this is the location plainly designated by nature for a great University. Dr. Harper, in endorsing this letter, Wrote: It is safe to make the prediction that in ten years such a University would have more students, if rightly conducted, than Yale or Harvard has today. At that time, 1887, Harvard had sixteen hundred and eighty-eight students in all departments, and Yale had twelve hundred and forty-five. Dr. Harper's prophecy, had it been made public at the time it was Written, would have been regarded as the 1 1 dream of an enthusiast. The number of students in Yale and Harvard was regarded aS Wonderful and quite unapproachable by other institutions. They had reached their great attendance only after some two centuries of history. It is an interesting commentary on Dr. Harper's prophecy that in its fourth year the University of Chicago enrolled eighteen hundred and fifteen students, or one hun- dred and twenty-seven more than were enrolled at Harvard in 1886- 7. If Dr. Harper had written as follows: In ten years such a University will have nearly three times as many students as Harvard now has and nearly four times as many as Yale now has, he would have been a true proprhet. But it is also true that if he had made such a prophecy he would have been looked upon as something Worse than an irresponsible enthusiast and dreamer. No effort was made to secure the students for the first asked for the appropriation of a small sum to be expended in advertising, it Was year. When the secretary 18 M,- . C. 'Q ri 1 L -l 5 ?l 3. W O ir 24525 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

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CAP AND GOWN refused. As a matter of fact, the first students gathered themselves. For some reason the project of a new institution of learning in Chicago had made a remarkable impression on the imagination of the public. This impression was as widespread as it was pronounced. Ordinarily, the students of institutions come, for the most part, from their imme- diate vicinity. But the iirst year-'s students of the University of Chicago, like those of every succeeding year, came from every part of the United States and from many foreign countries. When the enrollment for the first year was made up, it was found that thirty-three states were represented and fifteen foreign states and provinces. It is Worthy of record that the first mention of inquiries from students occurs in a letter written in September, 1890, less than four months after the first subscription had been completed and more than two years before the University opened its doors. A president had not been elected and there had been no thought as yet of professors. On October 5th the secretary wrote, We get the name of a new candidate for admis- sion every day. And this was no temporary outbreak of student correspondence. It not only continued, but began gradually to increase. In December, 1890, Dr. Harper submitted his Plan of Organization, and the Board of Trustees authorized the issuing of Ofiicial Bulletin No. 1, which covered the Work of the University and General Regulations. A hundred or more students had sent in urgent demands for information. These requests were increasing in number, and the secretary was hard put to it for answers to the inquiries. Early in January, 1891, the Bulletin was issued. A copy was at once sent to every prospective student and to large numbers of educators and others. The sending out of this first bulletin doubled the daily number of inquiries. The letter of January 16th says, We have received the names of two or three students every day this week. This list of prospective students was attended to with great care. By this time, with considerably more than a hundred and fifty prospective students on the list and the number increasing every day, it became evident that a college teacher, a member of the University Faculty, must be appointed to look after these increasing numbers. Accordingly, on February 3rd, 1891, Dr. Harper, though he had not then accepted the presidency, was authorized to confer with Frank Frost Abbott with reference to undertaking this work. Mr. Abbott was a young man, then a tutor in Yale, and .his fitness for the work was there- fore well known to Dr. Harper. Mr. Abbott was appointed University Examiner from July lst, 1891, and began work in that -position early in September, nearly thirteen months before the University was to open. In March a new element entered into the situation. W. B. Owen, then a student in the Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, afterward a member of the University staff, and still later principal of the Cook County Normal School, had gathered about him ten pupils whom he was preparing for the University. He had arranged to remain the following year, 1891-2, and complete their preparation. This work of Mr. Owen's was the germ out of which the University's academy at Morgan Park grew. In September, 1891, he was per-mitted to hold classes in the Seminary buildings. He engaged teachers, among them Edgar J. Goodspeed, afterward a Professor in the University, and conducted a Hourishing school. In May, 1891, Oiiicial Bulletin No. 2 was issued. Dealing with the Colleges of the University, it supplied a want that was felt more and more every day, as young people intending to enter college classes were eagerly asking questions which this bulletin answered. It was widely distributed. On June 2nd the secretary wrote, There is no let-up in the new calls for bulletins and the reporting of new students. 19