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

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WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER MEMORIAL LIBRARY architecture should follow the best traditions of those splendid groups across the sea, the beauty and stability of which had stood the test of centuries. Accordingly, from the time of the completion of Cobb Hall down to the consideration of plans for the new Chapel, with the exception of temporary structures and those outside of the main University group, unification of architectural style has happily prevailed. Chief among the resources the new institution possessed was its first president, William Rainey Harper. To his new task he gave himself with such intensity of purpose, with such far-reaching comprehension of the needs and possibilities of the new university and of the necessity for organic changes in prevailing educational methods in general, that the years of his administration, which began in l890 and closed with his universally- mourned death in l906, are regarded by American educators as a veritable renaissance - an era when new standards and new principles took rootage in the field of education. Following the period of foundation-laying under President Harper, came the remark- able epoch of progress and upbuilding under President Harry Pratt Judson which began in l907. Nothing could better exemplify the stability of the first president's brilliant program than the solidifying expansion which has characterized that of the second president of the University of Chicago. President Judson has administered its affairs with con- summate skill and rare judgment. He has been not only a wise administrator but a careful builder. The assets of the University during the fifteen years of his presidency have increased from 323,476,600 to more than 549,604,000 The most significant addition to its resources, the raising of over 355,000,000 for the enlargement of its medical schools, was successfully secured under his guidance. The most conspicuous Page Tl1fi1'fjV-HYIVEE

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FIRST UNIVERSITY or CI-IXCAGO BUILDING made to reestablish higher education - to found a new University of Chicago. Not to dwell at length upon the initial stages of the movement to create a new university, it may be said that Mr. john D.qRockefeller of New York, made an offer to contribute S600,000. provided Baptists and those whom they could inspire would give s400,000, the million thus provided to found a college. Soon after this million-dollar fund was subscribed the plan was enlarged so as to project a university. From that early day of comparatively small things the University of Chicago has developed until now the endowment of the University has become over 329,635,000 It possesses, including the grounds of Yerkes Observatory at Lake Geneva, Wis., 170 acres of land reserved for educational purposes, upon which there have been erected forty odd buildings, land and buildings representing a cost of over SI 1,871,000 Its assets in 1890, the year when its charter was granted, consisted chiefly of ambition, hope, courage, determination, and a splendid opportunity, from which was to be deducted the spirit of pessimism inherited from a previous failure. In l922 its total assets in endowment, land and buildings have increased to about 2'o50,000,000. The expenditures in the budget for the first fiscal year were estimated at about fl3300,000. It will be observed that within the little more than three decades which have elapsed since its class-rooms welcomed the first of the more than 80,000 students who have entered its halls, it is expending annually for current expenses treble the amount of its original million dollars of capital. With commendable judgment and good taste the Board of Trustees, before a single hall or laboratory was erected on the prairie site of the new institution, determined that its teachers and students should be adequately and suitably housed by build'ings whose Page Tliirty-rw:

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EAST TOWER OF HARPER LIBRARY