Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/50

24 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO hundred and ninety dollars. They were reckoned among the assets at that sum. But with this large amount of notes, and with some other resources, and with agents soliciting new funds, not only could no progress be made in reducing the indebtedness, but it became impossible to meet the current expenses. Under these circumstances the trustees accepted, from the Blue Island Land and Building Company and others, an offer of lands and a building at Morgan Park, a suburb thirteen miles south of the business center of Chicago, and the Seminary was transferred to the new location in 1877, just ten years after the beginning of its work. In 1876 Thomas W. Goodspeed left his position as associate pastor of the Second Baptist Church, Chicago, to undertake the procuring of an endowment. A good beginning was at once made, about fifty thousand dollars being secured during the winter and spring of 1876. The demands for money to care for the debts and pay the current expenses were so imperative, however, that efforts to secure endowment funds were temporarily laid aside. After reaching fifty thousand dollars the debts were slowly reduced year after year, and in 1881 the time came for a supreme effort to increase the endowment. E. Nelson Blake, the president of the Baptist Theological Union, who had long been a most generous contributor to the Seminary, subscribed thirty thousand dollars, on condition that one hundred thousand (including his pledge) should be raised in good subscriptions, in the region west of Ohio, by the time of the next Commencement in May, 1882. This having been successfully accomplished, an effort to raise a second hundred thousand dollars was immediately begun. John D. Rockefeller, who had become interested in the Seminary, led the way, giving forty thousand dollars. The raising of the second hundred thousand dollars was completed in December, 1883. The endowment now amounted to a quarter of a million dollars and the Seminary was believed to be permanently established. The Theological Seminary enrolled twenty students during its first year, 1867-68. Six years later the attendance was fifty. Early in the seventies Scandinavian students began to appear, and in 1873 J- A. Edgren was appointed agent to raise an endow- ment for a Scandinavian chair of which he was to be the occupant.