Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/145

THE FIRST PRESIDENT 117 And now, within a year, those "intending" Baptists had come on again and were assailing the "tabernacles of the blessed saints" in stronger force than ever. It is evident that the question had been frequently mooted between the two men, and that Dr. Harper had insisted that he had never mortgaged his entire future to Yale, and that President Dwight had been equally positive that he was not at liberty to leave. On July 18 the latter wrote to Dr. Harper that he could not honorably leave. This letter sounded as though it was intended and expected to close the case. But Dr. Harper was a hard man to drive, and the air of finality about the letter probably had an effect exactly opposite to that intended. It did not close the case but left it very much open. President Dwight was disappointed and grieved at this result, and, on July 28, among other things wrote: In this case of yours, I have been, in a peculiar degree, the beginning, middle, and end of the movement which has secured your position at Yale by a permanent endowment. If I had contemplated at the outset, or at the time of the final step which consummated the matter, your opening yourself to a call elsewhere, or leaving Yale at the end of the effort, I would never have lifted a finger in the matter, or taken the course which I did. How others may feel, who are far less centrally connected with the whole matter, I do not know, but for myself I would much rather you had never come to Yale at all, than to have had you remain until this effort had been undertaken and completed and then leave for a new position. One sympathizes with the feelings revealed in this letter; but could anything speak more eloquently of the extraordinary success Dr. Harper had achieved at Yale and of the importance and value of his services ? Information of what was in the wind became general through- out the country in a surprisingly short time, and letters began to pour in on Dr. Harper from every quarter. His Yale friends strongly advised him to remain at New Haven. Many things, which in the light of the subsequent attraction of the University of Chicago for graduate students, and students of all kinds, seem very amusing, were urged, e.g., the following by a Yale professor: Another thing, you draw well undoubtedly. But, my dear fellow, back of you and of all the rest of us here, is the one great power that lends to us more effectiveness than we contribute to it. It is "Yale" that draws. While