Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/161

THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN 133 faction. The first presentation of it was made to the Trustees at their fourth meeting, in December, 1890, adopted by them, and given to the public in what was called Official Bulletin No. i. This was followed at brief intervals by five other official bulletins, filling out and elaborating the plan under the following heads: "The Colleges," "The Academies," "The Graduate Schools," "The Divinity School," "The University Extension Division." No attempt will here be made to present the educational plan in its details. Dr. Harper, while he grasped large plans in outline, had a remarkable gift for working these plans out into the minutest details. It fell to the writer to be in intimate official relations with him. At their business conferences the President would fre- quently begin by saying, "I have forty points to be discussed this morning." He kept a Red Book in which he wrote out the points to be worked out by himself or discussed with his subordinates. There are a dozen or more of these Red Books in the University archives. Under every general subject there are written, in his hand, from ten to a hundred and fifty points for consideration or discussion. An officer would often carry away from a conference twenty questions to work out, on which he was expected to report. In the same way the plan was elaborated into great detail. In Official Bulletin No. i, there were a hundred and fifty divisions and subdivisions; in the second, on The Colleges, two hundred and twenty-five or more; and in the six Bulletins more than a thousand, filling a hundred printed pages, or more space than is required for several chapters of this history. It is here intended to present the educational plan only in its essential outlines, as modified, con- densed, and embodied in the Statutes of the University printed in the first Annual Register, 1892-93, emphasizing those features which differentiated the new institution from other universities, and asking which of these features proved so useful, practical, and successful that they persisted and promised to continue to be of permanent value; which underwent change, but with these changes continued at the end of a quarter of a century to be a part of the working plan of the University; and which features, if any, proved to be without value and disappeared.