Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/185

THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN 157 at all well represented, and the tremendous momentum given to the entire movement throughout the country by the emphasis of this work at the Univer- sity of Chicago can hardly be exaggerated. This emphasis on advanced university work, the provision for original work of investigation on the part of the faculty, in the words of President Judson, "has been maintained from the begin- ning and is permanently embodied in the University life and work." In concluding this chapter it may be said that nothing could show the essential soundness and practical value of President Harper's educational plan so conclusively as this historical review of the way in which it worked during the first quarter-century of the University's life. He himself appealed to the verdict of history. He thought that in ten or twenty years it would appear whether or not "the foundations had been firmly built," whether the "general policy, confessedly radical, shall continue to shape the growth of the institution." At the end of twenty-five years that general policy was still shaping the University's growth and controlling its life. The educational plan, novel, radical, a great educational experiment, modified in some particulars, but essentially the same, remained and promised to continue to remain the University's fundamental law.