Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/233

STUDENTS AND FACULTY 203 to secure as head of a department he wrote to the Secretary as follows : Remsen is in great trouble. They are moving heaven and earth to keep him at Johns Hopkins. It is not altogether a pleasant task to be lecturing in the University and trying to take away one of its professors at the same time. In this case his own University could not afford to lose the man. He became its next president. This incident suggests one extraordinary fact about the labors of President Harper in seeking a faculty. He sought big men, men already distinguished and recognized as exceptionally able. No college president can enjoy suffering in the eyes of his students and the public through comparison with abler, greater, more distinguished men in his faculty. Apprehension on this score seems to have had no place in President Harper's mind. He wanted the very best and ablest, the most distinguished scholars and teachers he could find. The more eminent they were the more he wanted them. The difficulties in the way of securing Alice Freeman Palmer were well-nigh insuperable. But because she was brilliant and famous and certain to win the admiration and affection of the entire University he wanted her, and in the face of all discouragements secured her. It was because he believed von Hoist was a great man and because he had an international repu- tation that President Harper wanted him in his faculty. Because he wanted the best he did not hesitate to try for the presidents of colleges and universities. It is not known just how many of these he attempted to bring into the first faculty. It is known that he failed with some whom he made extraordinary efforts to get. As the first faculty was finally constituted it contained the fol- lowing who had been presidents of higher institutions: Ezekiel G. Robinson, Brown; George W. Northrup, Baptist Union Theological Seminary; Galusha Anderson, the Old University of Chicago and Denison; Albion W. Small, Colby; Thomas C. Chamberlin, Wisconsin; Franklin Johnson, Ottawa; Alice Free- man Palmer, Wellesley; and Howard B. Grose, South Dakota. To these names was soon added that of John M. Coulter, Lake Forest. His friends were never able to detect the slightest trace