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

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'CAP AND GOWN 21

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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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P CAP AND GOXVN 1903-7 . ERI-IAPS if any alumnus were asked to name the most interesting period in the history of the University he would solemnly mention the years of his under- graduate life. And yet it seems to me that those of us who were students in the University within the years 190 to 1907 can make such a statement with some justification. 1 When we arrived upon the campus the first decade of the Universityfs life was then history. The decennial celebration had been held. The U-niversity of Chicago was no longer an experiment. It had made for itself a recognized place am-ong the leading universities of the world. E October 1, 1903, saw the University with its physical plant greatly enlarged. The Law Building, the School of Education group, Bartlett Gynfmasium, and the Tower group had been completed within the previous year and were now ready for occup9.HCY- Tr T ft, The campus, which had been torn up almost continuously since the beginning, now assumed temporarily an appearance of completion. Segregation had descended upon the campus in a very definite fashion. Junior College men were directed to Ellis Hall and Junior College women to Lexington Hall, each group to be entirely oblivious to the other's presence on the campus. One needs no more definite reminder of the swift Hight of Time than to recall that these two buildings, which were then new, are now considered ruins. The Daily Maroon and The Monthly Maroon were just then beginning their second year. Both had been founded October 1, 1902, superseding the old University of Chicago Weekly. The Monthly Maroon was short lived, for it Went out of existence during the four-year period herein described. The Reynolds Club opened its doors at the beginning of the Autumn Quarter and was a great boost for men's activities. No dues were charged for the first six weeks, as I remember it. Then the regular membership fees began, and the first election of omcers was held. An almost immediate effect of the excellent new quarters for men in the Tower group showed itself in the organization of Blackfriars, which produced 7