Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/167

THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN 139 Arts, of Science, of Literature, and of Practical Arts, there would, according to the plan, be eight colleges: as the Junior College of Liberal Arts, the Senior College of Liberal Arts, and so on through the list. The Colleges and the Graduate and Professional Schools were to be under the direction of Deans, and there was to be one princi- pal Dean, called the Dean of the Faculties of Arts, Literature, and Science, who would have the general oversight of all the Colleges and Graduate Schools and, in the absence of the President, preside at meetings of Faculties. In the original scheme there was to be one general body within the institution "to consider matters which relate to the general interests of the University, or which have been designated by the Board of Trustees as its proper work." This body was to be the University Council. The University Senate was not a part of the plan as first conceived. Months before the University opened, however, it became a part of the plan, and the way in which this came about is an interesting story, which was given to the writer by Professor J. Laurence Laughlin in a statement relating the circumstances connected with his coming to the University. In the closing weeks of 1891 he had been elected Head Professor of Political Economy, and William Gardner Hale had been elected Head Professor of Latin. Learning of President Harper's purpose to allow graduate students to do more work out of residence than he and Mr. Hale could approve, they urged an interview. Mr. Laughlin speaks well within the truth when he says: the proposed plans struck us as possibly undesirable from the point of view of the best development of the University. Of course opinions must differ. Professor Hale and I might have been right or wrong. At any rate, some differences arose between us and President Harper. He then came to Ithaca at once, and we had long and serious conferences about the fundamental organization of the University. I can remember distinctly when, sitting in Professor Hale's house with him and President Harper, I said, "We have been deciding here very large questions of University policy. It is not right that these far-reaching conclusions should be arrived at on the judgment of two or three professors in consultation with the President. These matters ought to go properly to a body composed of the heads of all the departments of the Uni- versity, and their opinions should be decisive in forming the University organi- zation with which we should begin work." I remember clearly how the