Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/206

 176 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO It was now important to secure the formal, legal designation of the fund, signed by both the executors. Mr. Green was on the point of going abroad, and although this important document had been prepared, it still awaited the signatures. President Harper, therefore, appealed to Mornay Williams, one of Mr. Green's attorneys, who had been most helpful throughout the negotiations. Mr. Williams' efforts were successful and the designation was signed on July n, 1891, by both executors, the second of these being Mr. Ogden's widow, Marianna A. Ogden. This instrument designated to the University seventy per cent of the funds accruing under two clauses of Mr. Ogden's will. If the fund should be found to equal or exceed the sum of three hundred thousand dollars the University was to use it for establishing the Ogden Scientific School. If the funds should not equal that sum they were to be used in endowing one or more professorships in the University to be severally known as the Ogden Professorships. The correspondence was published by the executors and this completed the preliminary steps which assured the establishment of the Ogden Graduate School of Science. There were, indeed, some legal troubles before the executors and the University. Some of the heirs were not entirely satisfied, and a final settlement was not effected until more than sixteen months had passed. And even then the first payment on the fund was not forthcoming. More months elapsed before this came. Meantime, however, the School had been established at the opening of the University, October i, 1892. In October, 1893, Rev. Leighton Williams, who had originally brought Andrew H. Green and President Harper together, was made a Trustee to represent the executors of the Ogden estate. The first payment on the Ogden fund was received October 13, 1893, and amounted to two hundred and forty-six thousand dollars. From that date payments continued to be made from time to time for twenty-one years and ultimately aggregated something less than six hundred thousand dollars. This third step in expansion therefore resulted in the addition of this large sum to the funds, and the founding of the Ogden Graduate School of Science, which within a few years enrolled annually more than five hundred students pursuing graduate courses of study.