Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/295

 THE FIRST YEAR 257 occasion of tremendous excitement. The session finally ended in confusion. At the succeeding session, however, Chairman Judson announced that Professor Butler had been elected President of the United States of the University of Chicago. The House of Repre- sentatives was a feature in the life of the first year. The year being one of beginnings, someone was continually starting something. In addition to the departmental clubs there were more than twenty societies, clubs, associations, bands, choruses, and companies organized. The first month saw the birth of the Volunteer Mission Band, the Missionary Society, the Dilettante Club, a literary club of men and women instructors and students, the Glee Club, and the University Chorus. In November the University College Association, the Freshman Class, the Sophomore Class, the Students' Express Company, and the Young Men's and the Young Women's Christian Associations entered the arena. In the same month the women graduate students, with a prophetic vision of the new opportunities and duties the still distant "votes for women" would open to them, organized the Parliamentary Law Club, "to familiarize its members with the proper mode of procedure in public meetings." In December the Freshmen and Sophomores thought better of it or worse and merged into the Academic College Association. And so the good work went on, graduates of colleges forming alumni clubs, lovers of games uniting in chess and checker clubs, those ambitious to speak well organizing the Oratorical Society, and the undergradu- ates ambitious to write well, the Athenaeum Literary Society. On an average, at least one new club or society was organized each week, as fifteen departmental clubs must be added to the twenty or more of other sorts. There were other activities in bewildering variety. Mr. Stagg got his work under way the week after the University opened. The athletic work was organized under the following familiar terms: football, baseball, track athletics, tennis, and basket- ball. Football practice began on the day the University opened. Mr. Stagg called his prospective warriors together in Washington Park and began to teach them the game. A week later the team played Hyde Park High School and won, 12-0. During the