Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/264

 230 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO thousand, four hundred and thirty-three dollars, the full cost of the enlarged building. The hall provided a home for sixty-eight women students. No one was more stirred by the campaign to raise a million dollars in ninety days than George C. Walker. A Trustee, and a member of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds, he knew the necessities of the situation. He had strongly encouraged Mr. Kent in his impulse to build Kent Chemical Laboratory. He was greatly interested in the science side of the University. In May, 1892, President Harper learned that it would be possible to secure President Thomas C. Chamberlin of the University of Wisconsin as head of the department of Geology and Rollin D. Salisbury of the same institution as his associate. This fired Mr. Walker's ardent nature and he at once informed the Board that he would build a Museum. On July 9 his formal proffer of one hundred thousand dollars for the Walker Museum was made. It was understood that the building should also be used temporarily as a lecture hall for the departments of Geology and Geography. Mr. Walker felt that the development of the University presented a priceless opportunity to people of wealth in Chicago to build their own lives into what was highest in the life of the city. He therefore welcomed, with great enthusiasm, the privilege of pro- viding a hundred thousand dollars for the Museum. When the effort to raise the million dollars began he had given some fifteen or twenty thousand dollars in property, so that although the Walker Museum cost one hundred and nine thousand, two hun- dred and seventy-five dollars, he gave the University more than it expended. The Fourth Convocation, held October 2, 1893, was attended by the formal dedication of the Walker Museum. In presenting the building Mr. Walker said: Trustees of the University of Chicago, Ladies and Gentlemen: The President has asked me to tell you how this building came to be erected, and in order to do so I must in a very brief form give you a little idea of some past events. In 1848 my father was selected to make the address of welcome for the city of Chicago to the assembled delegates, from all parts of the United States, at the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. One idea he expressed was this: That portion of the earth's surface which can support the most human life will, in the end, have the most human life, and nowhere on the earth's surface is there so much good land and so little waste land as in the