Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/453

SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS 399 that year, therefore, an appropriation of four thousand dollars was placed in the budget to enable the University to engage the services of the most distinguished preachers of all denominations who should reside at the University one, two, three, or four weeks, speaking on week days at the chapel assemblies, preaching on Sunday, and con- sulting at definite hours with any of the students who wished to talk with them. These eminent men became known as the Uni- versity Preachers. The experiment began with the Summer Quarter of 1901. There being no assembly hall, the great tent in which the Decennial Convocation had been held was utilized for the summer services. There could have been no better illus- tration of the need of an adequate assembly hall than the use of this old tent for preaching services. It was fortunate that Mandel Assembly Hall was even then going up. When finished in the autumn of 1903, one of the earliest uses made of it was the holding of the first preaching service of the quarter when Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, president of Union Theological Seminary, New York, spoke. The most eminent clergymen in the country welcomed the opportunity of delivering their messages to the students of the University. It was an important part of the education of the young men and women, to hear these great preachers on Sunday and at the daily chapel assemblies and to meet men of high charac- ter and practical wisdom for advice and encouragement in the art of living. The University Preacher grew to be so much a part of the University life and so useful a part that he came to be regarded as an essential part of it. The great celebration of the first quarter-century was the Decennial. The tenth anniversary was celebrated by a variety of interesting exercises beginning Friday, June 14, 1901, and ending the Tuesday following. It was at this time that the cornerstones of Hitchcock, the Press Building, and the Tower Group were laid, as has been told elsewhere. The addition to Foster Hall was dedi- cated. The formal opening of the School of Education took place, with an address by President Butler of Columbia delivered on the site of the School, and ground was broken by Colonel Parker for the permanent building. One of the student contributions to the celebration was the presentation in the open air north of Haskell