Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/374

 328 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO of the University were certainly heroic men. But the Founder and his advisers were no less heroic. The proposals were taken by President Harper and Mr. Hutchinson to New York and laid before Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., and Mr. Gates on March i, 1901. They were able, also, to report a proffer from Mrs. J. Young Scammon regarding a site for the proposed School of Education. Mr. Scammon had been a prominent banker in the earlier days of Chicago, had taken a very deep and liberal interest in the first University of Chicago, and had been a member of its Board of Trustees throughout most of its history. The Scammon home- stead comprised a block of ground, fronting south on the Midway Plaisance, between Kimbark and Kenwood avenues, less than two blocks from the University. Mrs. Scammon proposed to deed to the University about three acres of the homestead as a site for the new school, contributing sixty-one thousand dollars, one-half the value of the ground. The memorandum of the conference contains this statement : It was agreed that the proposals of Mrs. Elaine would be satisfactory to the New York Trustees, and it was hoped, though not made a condition, that the proposals of Mrs. Scammon would .... be carried out. It was understood that at the end of three years there would be the possibility of a deficit in the budget. Notwithstanding this "possibility" the proposed step in expan- sion, with all it involved, was approved, and the President and Trustees were able to go forward with satisfaction and confidence. The gift of Mrs. Scammon was accepted and Scammon Court became a memorial to John Young Scammon, "a public-spirited citizen of Chicago and a liberal friend of education." The story of the buildings erected for the School of Education is told in the chapter on "A Third Period of Building." For more than two years the classes met in the temporary brick structure erected on the corner of Ellis Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street. But in 1904 the great plans for the completed School were carried out and the Chicago Manual Training School, the South Side Academy, the University Elementary School, and the Chicago Institute were fully united under a single Director, Professor John Dewey. Meantime the entire Scammon block was secured,