Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/90

64 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO The gymnasium was to cost forty thousand, the main lecture hall eighty thousand, and the library building a hundred thousand dollars. One million dollars of endowment provided for a president and some administrative officers and a single professor in each of thirteen departments except that pure and applied mathematics had one each. When one contrasts these dreams of the projectors of the University with the actual facts, the proposed cost of build- ings with the real cost, the proposed faculty of fourteen with the one hundred and twenty of the University's first year, he sees how conservative these dreams were, and how amazingly the event surpassed the forecast. In the unanimous adoption of the recommendations by this distinguished and representative Committee the first thing for which Mr. Rockefeller had been waiting had come to pass. The second thing he desired was the actual launching of the enterprise by the Education Society. It looked like an impasse. The Society was likely to hesitate to go forward without suitable encouragement from Mr. Rockefeller. He was unwilling to have it understood that he was taking the initiative and wished the Society formally to commit itself to the undertaking in advance of action by himself. As a matter of fact the two may be said, finally, to have acted concurrently. The annual meeting of the Education Society in 1889 was held in Boston. On May 17 the Board of the Society met. It adopted the report and recommendations of the Com- mittee of Nine in all essential respects, committing itself without qualification to the new undertaking in the following action : 1. Resolved, That this Society take immediate steps toward the founding of a well-equipped College in the City of Chicago. 2. Resolved, That the institution be located in the city of Chicago and not in a suburban village. 3. Resolved, That the privileges of the institution be extended to persons of both sexes on equal terms. 4. Resolved, That for a suitable site for the proposed institution there be provided at least ten acres of land. 5. Resolved, That the Board proceed to raise one million dollars as a finan- cial foundation for the proposed institution. 6. Resolved, That subscriptions secured for this fund shall be subject to the following conditions: