Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/111

 THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT 85 thousand dollars independently of his donation. He then requested them to write these points out in a form to be submitted to his attorneys and stated that he would give them a contract for a deed, the deed to be made when the conditions were fulfilled. These details were easily arranged and the original site of ten acres was secured. It had a west front of six hundred feet on Ellis Avenue and north and south fronts of about six hundred and sixty-six feet on Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh streets. A week later Mr. Gates, in the name of the Education Society, secured from Mr. Field an option on the ten acres immediately south of the tract donated. This option to purchase extended to June i, 1890. The matter of the donation of the site finally took the following form : Mr. Field gave to the Education Society for the new institution one and one-half blocks and sold to it for one hundred and thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars another block and a half, the three blocks beginning at the Midway Plaisance and running north along the east side of Ellis Avenue two blocks to Fifty-seventh Street and east along the south side of Fifty-seventh Street two blocks to University (then Lexington) Avenue. These three blocks constituted the site afterward transferred by the Education Society to the University. This is the story of the securing of the site. It was universally recognized as an ideal location. The impulse which the secretaries had assured Mr. Field would be given to their work by the donation of the site became immedi- ately apparent. They had been at work among the business men three months. They now had the names of twenty- three men of wealth who had assured them of help, but they had not secured a single definite, formal subscription. During the week following the giving of the site, however, three subscriptions of one thousand dollars each, and two of five thousand dollars each, were secured among the business men. The work among them went on from this time with increasing success. There were, it is true, dis- couragements. For example, twelve calls were made one day and only two men found. The next day twenty-one calls were made and only four men found. Some declined to give. But almost without exception this was done courteously and with reluctance. The well-nigh universal attitude was one of sympathetic interest and