Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/187

 FIRST STEPS IN EXPANSION 159 the founding, not of a university, but of a college. The Committee of Nine which met on April 12, 1889, submitted the following as its first recommendation, "that the American Baptist Education Society would do wisely to take steps at once toward the founding of a well-equipped college." The recommendations of the com- mittee were adopted by the Executive Board, and at the annual meeting of the Society in Boston in May, 1889, the first resolution on this subject adopted was the following: "Resolved, That this Society take immediate steps toward the founding of a well- equipped college in the city of Chicago." Mr. Gates and Mr. Goodspeed, when they entered on the work of securing the four hundred thousand dollars to make up the million dollars required in the subscription of Mr. Rocke- feller, prepared a subscription paper beginning with these words: "Whereas, The American Baptist Education Society has under- taken to raise the full sum of one million dollars for the purpose of establishing a college in the City of Chicago" and they solicited subscriptions, not for a university, but for a college. In reporting for the Board to the Society at its annual meeting in Chicago, at the end of May, 1890, announcing the completion of the four hundred thousand dollar subscription, Mr. Goodspeed said: "The initial educational work will be that of a college." At the first meeting of the Board of the new institution Mr. Gates, the corresponding secretary of the Education Society, in officially transferring to the Board the responsibility for the institution said: The Society undertook only so much as seemed indispensable for it to do; that was to found a college on a solid basis. It is for a college pure and simple, therefore, that the funds have been subscribed. Mr. Rockefeller made his pledge toward an endowment fund for a college to be established in Chicago. The other subscriptions are limited likewise. They can properly be used only for a college. There were few, however, who supposed that the new insti- tution would long remain a college only. A million dollars looked -like an immense amount of money. Almost anything could be done with that tremendous sum. At the time the new institution was founded there were ten colleges under Baptist auspices between