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

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A V 1 U . CAP AND GONVN On returning, in September, 1891, from his sumrner vacation, he had these interesting items to report: Professor Abbott has come and seems to be a fine fellow. The Owen Academy CMorgan Parkj is Hourishing. It now has, at the close of the 'second week, seventy students. On September 30th he wrote, Since I returned from my vacation forty new students have reported to us. In February, 1892, student inquiries beg.an to multiply in bewildering fashion. On February 28th the secretary wrote, f'The letters from students increase. There have been twenty today, more than were ever before received in one dayf' At this time the authorities found thrust upon them a most embarrassing ques- tion. How were the students to be housed? On March 4th the secretary wrote, In- quiries are now coming in for rooms, prices of rooms, cheap rooms, and we have no answer to make. But these were questions that had to be answered. They would not down. The neighborhood of the University was at the time sparsely settled. It was impossible to allow several hund1'ed men and women students to appear October 1st only to learn that there was no place for them to live. Indeed, without the assurance that there would be places to receive them they were not likely to appear at all. After much inquiry andeffort a dormitory for women students was found in the Beatrice apart- ment building, on the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and what was then Madison, later Dorcheste1', Avenue. This was rented f1'om September lst, 1892, to May lst, 1893, at eight hundred dollars per month. In August the Drexel, an apartment build- ing on the. corner of Drexel Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street, was leased for men students at three hundred dollars per month. The provision for men included, in addition to this building, the divinity and graduate dormitories, then under construction, with accommodations for one hundred and ninety. Altogether, dormitory accommodations were provided for about two hundred and thirty-five men and for less than one hundred women. Meantime the question of boarding accommodations was insiistently urged by the President. It was directly due to his urgency that the basement of the divinity and graduate dormitories was fitted up for a University Commons for men, the women being cared for in the Beatrice. These basement accommodations were most inadequate and unsatisfactory, mere excuses for boarding -halls, low ceilinged, damp, dark, absurdly unsuitable for the use to which they were put. But there was no other way. Students could be fed and continued to report themselves. It was found in the end that two things saved the University from being overwhelmed by numbers the first year. These were the high standard fixed and the requirement that all first year entering students must pass an examination. Very many expected to be admitted on certificates from high schools and academies. When they found they could not do this and read the requirements for admission in Official Bulletin No. 2, they decided to go elsewhere, or to defer their entrance until they were prepared to take the examination. As it turned out, the total number of students enrolled during the first year was seven hundred and forty-two. This was exclusive of the attendance at the University Academy at Morgan Park, where there had been above one hundred. Threetdays before the opening day, October lst, 1892, the secretary, reviewing the preceding two years, wrote as follows regarding the probable attendance of stu- dents: Correspondence has been had with nearly three thousand students who expressed. a desire to enter. Very many of them will spend another year in prepara- tory studies and report for entrance next year. Meantime, the University will have as great an attendance as it is prepared to care for during its first year. Thereafter it will be ready to receive all who come prepared to take its courses. This is the story of the gathering of the students of the first year. As was said at the beginning, they gathered themselves. They were not sought. They came of theiriown notion. Had they not been discouraged or absolutely shut out by the severe examination tests, the attendance of the first year would have been doubled. THOMAS W. GOODSPEED. 20 -'tl as .-q:1'::'f-..i'g-'ral J:

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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

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