Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/189

FIRST STEPS IN EXPANSION 161 into the University of Chicago of 1892 and thereafter reads like a creation of the imagination of some educational dreamer. If it had been prophesied in advance it would have been laughed at as an impossible dream. Its rapidly succeeding events surprised the actors in them not less than they astonished the public. The Board of Trustees had held but one meeting, the articles of incor- poration had hardly been approved by the Secretary of State at Springfield, when the first great step in expansion was taken. The first week in September, 1890, John D. Rockefeller made his first million dollar contribution. Before the founding of the insti- tution years had been spent in vain appeals to him. After he had announced to Dr. Harper in October, 1888, his readiness to assist in founding an institution in Chicago arguments and appeals con- tinued through seven months without any apparent effect. Finally, at the end of seven and a half months, he was induced to make a conditional proffer of six hundred thousand dollars. So extraor- dinarily difficult had it been to make a beginning. But a most successful beginning having been made, the public having responded to his liberality with general and generous interest, and the promise of the enterprise being so great, Mr. Rockefeller now needed no urging. He desired to see Dr. Harper in the presidency. Dr. Harper needed a million dollars to enlarge the scope of the insti- tution, to make the proposed college a true university from the start, and the Founder was ready to do anything that was required without any delay. A million dollars was fixed upon as the sum needed. The last week in August, a few days after the all-day conference between Mr. Gates and Dr. Harper at Morgan Park, Mr. Gates wrote a full statement of the program agreed upon. That program was, in effect, the immediate expansion of the College into the University, with Dr. Harper as President. Mr. Gates asked Mr. Rockefeller to make a new contribution of one million dollars for this purpose. A week after the sending of this letter, Dr. Harper, in response to an invitation, visited Mr. Rockefeller in Cleveland. Mr. Gates had at this time gone west, and Mr. Goodspeed awaited the outcome of this visit with great anxiety, but without the slightest hope of an immediate, favorable decision. Mr. Gates had given his itinerary to Dr. Harper that he might be