Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/177

THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN 149 educational plan of President Harper was discarded as being without value. This fact would not be remarkable had he adopted the traditional system. But his plan was novel, as a whole original with him, with some radical innovations, a new experiment in university organization; and the fact that no feature of the plan failed and was abandoned is an extraordinary tribute to his pre- vision and practical wisdom. It has been generally supposed that Affiliation was found to be without value and was discarded. It certainly is true that it ceased to be one of the five Divisions of the University, that a Director ceased to be appointed, and that the relations of affiliation with colleges came to an end. Dr. A. W. Small, the Director of University Affiliations, says: "Dr. Harper's efforts in this connection are quite inexplicable unless it is understood that from the first he assumed that Affilia- tion would be adequately endowed." When the General Educa- tion Board was organized and millions entrusted to it for doing for the colleges the service contemplated in the scheme of affiliation, the University withdrew from the field in large measure. Not, however, because this feature of the plan was without value. The service intended for the colleges of the West was of such pre- eminent worth that vast sums have been devoted to it by the General Education Board. Dr. Small well says: I venture to think that if Dr. Harper had lived until the present time, he would have been among the most decided in his judgment that the changes which have been realized thus far, and the methods by which they have been accomplished through various agencies working in harmony, have been on the whole more substantial, and that they now promise better for the future, than would have been the case if the precise scheme had been adopted which was involved in his plan of "affiliation." It cannot, however, be said that the scheme was entirely given up by the University. Affiliation with theological seminaries con- tinued, and in the very last year of the first quarter-century the University entered into affiliation with the Chicago Theological Seminary, on terms even more intimate than this feature of the plan originally contemplated. It must also be said that the prin- ciple underlying this feature, which was that of co-operation with a