Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/219

CHAPTER VII STUDENTS AND FACULTY It was the profound conviction of all those most interested in founding an institution 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 ful- ness of the event. One of them wrote to Mr. Rockefeller in Janu- ary, 1887: " Of all places in the world this is the location plainly designated by nature for a great university." Dr. Harper, in indorsing 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 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 hundred and twenty- seven more than were enrolled at Harvard in 1886-87. 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 prophet. 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 year. When the secretary asked for the appropriation of a small sum 189