Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/412

 358 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO unintentionally the Founder of the University became also the founder of the Morgan Park Academy. Funds contributed by him provided the initial equipment and guaranteed the salaries of the instructors and actually paid their salaries in considerable part throughout the fifteen years of the school's existence. In Presi- dent Harper's Decennial Report he spoke as follows of the purpose of the Academy and of his plans for it: The Academy was intended to serve a threefold purpose, viz., (i) as an institution which under the control of the University should prepare students to enter the University; (2) as an institution in which experiment might be made in the problems connected with the field of secondary education; (3) to give to the work of secondary education a higher place and a closer relationship to college education. It was, moreover, the opinion of some that no sharp line should be drawn between the work of the Freshman and Sophomore years of college and that of the preparatory years. It was believed that these six years constituted a unit, and it has been the purpose of the University sooner or later to establish the work of the Freshman and Sophomore years at Morgan Park. The Academy opened in October, 1892, coincidently with the University. George C. Walker, a Trustee of the University, had given a small piece of ground with a building which had been occupied for many years by a school for girls, and the Trustees had leased the grounds and buildings of a military school. Later this latter property was purchased, and additional buildings were placed on it. In 1894 Mr. Walker gave the University for the use of the Academy a stone library building and lot adjacent to the Academy's grounds. In 1899-1900 the Academy, which had been coeducational, became a school for boys only. For the first seven years a Summer Quarter was maintained. The summer attendance, however, was small, the cost of maintaining it was relatively large, and as a large proportion of the summer students were girls, when the Academy became a boys' school the Summer Quarter was given up. Al- though the Academy had an excellent corps of instructors and gradually acquired a good equipment in buildings, there being seven or eight of these, it never attracted a large attendance of students. The first year there were above one hundred. During the first seven years the number increased to about one hundred