Mr. Henry Ives Cobb was chosen as the architect, and the English Gothic
style is to be maintained throughout. The buildings are of blue Bedford
stone, with red tiled roofs. The recitation buildings, laboratories,
chapel, museum, gymnasium, and library are the central features; while
the dormitories are arranged in quadrangles on the four corners.
Mr. Rockefeller's third gift was made in February, 1892, "one thousand
five per cent bonds of the par value of one million dollars," for the
further endowment of instruction. In December of the same year he gave
an equal amount for endowment, "one thousand thousand-dollar five per
cent bonds." In June, 1893 he gave $150,000; the next year, December,
1894, in cash, $675,000. On Jan. 1, 1896, another million, promising two
millions more on condition that the University should also raise two
millions. Half of this sum was obtained at once through the gift of
Miss Helen Culver. In her letter to the trustees of the University, she
says, "The whole gift shall be devoted to the increase and spread of
knowledge within the field of biological science.... Among the motives
prompting this gift is the desire to carry out the ideas, and to honor
the memory, of Mr. Charles J. Hull, who was for a considerable time a
member of the Board of Trustees of the old University of Chicago."
Miss Culver is a cousin of the late Mr. Hull, who left her his millions
for philanthropic purposes. Their home for many years was the mansion
since known as Hull House.
The University of Chicago has been fortunate in other gifts. Mr. S. A.
Kent of Chicago gave the Kent Chemical Laboratory, costing $235,000,
opened Jan. 1, 1894. The Ryerson Physical Laboratory, costing $225,000,
opened July 2, 1894, was the gift of Mr. Martin A. Ryerson, as a
memorial to his father. Mrs. Caroline Haskell gave $100,000 for the
Haskell Oriental Museum, as a memorial of her husband, Mr. Frederick
Haskell. There will be rooms for Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Hebrew,
and other collections. Mr. George C. Walker, $130,000 for the Walker
Museum for geological and anthropological specimens; Mr. Charles T.
Yerkes, nearly a half million for the Yerkes Observatory and forty-inch
telescope; Mrs. N. S. Foster, Mrs. Henrietta Snell, Mrs. Mary Beecher,
and Mrs. Elizabeth G. Kelley have each given $50,000, or more, for
dormitories. It is expected that half a million will be realized from
the estate of William B. Ogden for "The Ogden (graduate) School of
Science." The first payment has amounted to half that sum. Considerably
over $10,000,000 have been given to the University. The total endowment
is over $6,000,000.
The University opened its doors to students on Oct. 1, 1892, in Cobb
Lecture Hall, given by Mr. Silas B. Cobb of Chicago, and costing
$150,000. The number of students during the first year exceeded nine
hundred. The professors have been chosen with great care, and number
among them some very distinguished men, from both the Old World and the
New. The University of Chicago is co-educational, which is matter for
congratulation. Its courses are open on equal terms to men and women,
with the same teachers, the same studies, and the same diplomas. "Three
of the deans are women," says Grace Gilruth Rigby in _Peterson's
Magazine_ for February, 1896, "and half a dozen women are members of its
faculty. They instruct men as well as women, and in this particular it
differs from most co-educational schools."
The University has some unique features. Instead of the usual college
year beginning in September, the year is divided into four quarters,
beginning respectively on the first day of July, October, January, and
April, and continuing twelve weeks each, with a recess of one week
between the close of each quarter and the beginning of the next. Degrees
are conferred the last week of every quarter. The summer quarter, which
was at first an experiment, has proved so successful that it is now an
established feature.
The instructor takes his vacation in any quarter, or may take two
vacations of six weeks each. The student may absent himself for a term
or more, and take up the work where he left off, or he may attend all
the quarters, and thus shorten his college course. Much attention is
given to University Extension work, and proper preparatory work is
obtained through the affiliation of academies with the University.
Instruction is also given by the University through correspondence with
those who wish to pursue preparatory or college studies.
"Chicago is, as far as I am aware," writes the late Hjalmar Hjorth
Boyesen in the _Cosmopolitan_ for April, 1893, "the first institution
which, by the appointment of a permanent salaried university extension
faculty, has formally charged itself with a responsibility for the
outside public. This is a great step, and one of tremendous
consequence."
A non-resident student is expected to matriculate at the University, and
usually spends the first year in residence. Non-resident work is
accepted for only one-third of the work required for a degree.
The University has eighty regular fellowships and scholarships, besides
several special fellowships.
The institution, according to Robert Herrick, in _Scribner's Magazine_
for October, 1895, seems to have the spirit of its founder. "Two college
settlements in the hard districts of Chicago," he writes, "are supported
and manned by the students.... The classes and clubs of the settlements
show that the college students feel the impossibility of an academic
life that lives solely to itself. On the philanthropic committee, and as
teachers in the settlement classes, men and women, instructors and
students, work side by side. The interest in sociological studies, which
is commoner at Chicago than elsewhere, stimulates this modern activity
in college life."
The University of Chicago has been successful from the first. In 1895 it
numbered 1,265 students, of whom 493 were in the graduate schools, most
of them having already received their bachelor's degree at other
colleges. In 1896 there are over 1,900 students. The possibilities of
the university are almost unlimited.
Dr. Albert Shaw writes in the _Review of Reviews_ for February, 1893,
"No rich man's recognition of his opportunity to serve society in his
own lifetime has ever produced results so mature and so extensive in so
very short a time as Mr. John D. Rockefeller's recent gifts to the
Chicago University."
The _New York Sun_ for July 4, 1896, gives Mr. Rockefeller the following
well-deserved praise: "Mr. John D. Rockefeller has paid his first visit
to the University of Chicago, which was built up and endowed by his
magnificent gifts. The millions he has bestowed on that institution make
him one of the very greatest of private contributors to the foundation
of a school of learning in the whole history of the world. He has given
the money, moreover, in his lifetime, and thus differs from nearly all
others of the most notable founders and endowers of colleges.
"By so giving, too, he has distinguished himself from the great mass of
all those who have made large benefactions for public uses. He has taken
the millions from his rapidly accumulating fortune; and he has made the
gifts quietly, modestly, and without the least seeking for popular
applause, or to win the conspicuous manifestations of honor their
munificence could easily have obtained for him. The reason for this
remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Rockefeller as a public benefactor is
that, being a deeply religious man, he has made his gifts as an
obligation of religious duty, as it seems to him."
Mr. Rockefeller's latest gift, of $600,000, was made to the people of
Cleveland, Ohio, when that city celebrated her one hundredth birthday,
July 22, 1896. The gift was two hundred and seventy-six acres of land of
great natural beauty, to complete the park system of the city. For this
land Mr. Rockefeller paid $600,000. The land is already worth a million
dollars, and will be worth many times that amount in the years to come.
When announcing Mr. Rockefeller's munificent gift to the city, Mr. J. G.
W. Cowles, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said of the giver: "His
modesty is equal to his liberality, and he is not here to share with us
this celebration. The streams of his benevolence flow largely in hidden
channels, unseen and unknown to men; but when he founds a university in
Chicago, or gives a beautiful park to Cleveland, with native forests and
shady groves, rocky ravines, sloping hillsides and level valleys,
cascades and running brook and still pools of water, all close by our
homes, open and easy of access to all our people, such deeds cannot be
hid--they belong to the public and to history, as the gift itself is for
the people and for posterity."
The Centennial gift has caused great rejoicing and gratitude, and will
be a blessing forever to the whole people, but especially to those whose
daily work keeps them away from the fresh air and the sunshine.
A day or two after the gift had been received, a large number of
Cleveland's prominent citizens visited the giver at his home at Forest
Hill, to express to him the thanks of the city. After the address of
gratitude, Mr. Rockefeller responded with much feeling.
"This is our Centennial year," he said. "The city of Cleveland has grown
to great proportions, and has prospered far beyond anything any of us
had anticipated. What will be said by those who will come after us when
a hundred years hence this city celebrates its second Centennial
anniversary, and reference is made to you, gentlemen, and to me? Will it
be said that this or that man has accumulated great treasures? No; all
that will be forgotten. The question will be, What did we do with our
treasures? Did we, or did we not, use them to help our fellow-man? This
will be forever remembered."
After referring to his early school-life in the city, and efforts to
find employment, he told how, needing a little money to engage in
business, and in the "innocence of his youth and inexperience" supposing
almost any of his business friends would indorse his note for the amount
needed, he visited one after another; and, said Mr. Rockefeller, "each
one of them had the most excellent reasons for refusing!"
Finally he determined to try the bankers, and called upon a man whom the
city delights to honor, Mr. T. P. Handy. The banker received the young
man kindly, invited him to be seated, asked a few questions, and then
loaned him $2,000, "a large amount for me to have all at one time," said
Mr. Rockefeller.
Mr. Rockefeller is still in middle life, with, it is hoped, many years
before him in which to carry out his great projects of benevolence. He
is as modest and gentle in manner, as unostentatious and as kind in
heart, as when he had no millions to give away. He is never harsh, seems
to have complete self-control, and has not forgotten to be grateful to
the men who befriended and trusted him in his early business life.
His success may be attributed in part to industry, energy, economy, and
good sense. He loved his work, and had the courage to battle with
difficulties. He had steadiness of character, the ability to command the
confidence of business men from the beginning, and gave close and
careful attention to the matters intrusted to him.
Mr. Rockefeller will be remembered, not so much because he accumulated
millions, but because he gave away millions, thereby doing great good,
and setting a noble example.