Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/436

 382 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO athletics speak for themselves. For all the slenderness of our material and the strictness of our scholastic requirements, Chicago is usually the team which must be beaten if the championship is to be won. The West is pretty unanimous in the opinion that as a football coach Mr. Stagg is the best ever known. But his value to Chicago is not measurable in terms of athletics. As a moral force he is extraordinary. The moral evils of athletic competition of which we hear so much .... simply do not exist under his supervision. Rough play, rough speech, a lack of sportsmanship, he will not tolerate: and they are eliminated, not by his exhortation, but because they die in the shadow of his personality. This chapter will conclude with an account of the Business Department of the University. It goes without saying that no department was more vitally related to the welfare of the institu- tion. From very small beginnings it grew to very great propor- tions. For three years the Finance Committee, the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, and a single bookkeeper looked after the business. By the end of that period the assets had increased to above six million dollars. The time had come for the organization of a business department. The President of the Board, the Treasurer, and the Chairman of the Finance Committee had given much attention to the finances, but they had large interests of their own to look after. The Secretary of the Board, the writer of these pages, was not a business man, nor an accountant, and for many years was more than busy soliciting funds and collecting sub- scriptions in addition to his secretarial duties. At the annual meet- ing of the Board of Trustees in June, 1894, Major Henry A. Rust was made business manager, with the title at first of Comptroller. Major Rust was at the time Vice-President of the Board. This position he resigned on his appointment to the business manage- ment. He served the University in his new position with un- wearied devotion until 1903, when having passed his threescore years and ten and served nearly nine years he insisted on being released. In his June, 1903, Convocation statement the President said: With a faithfulness born of his love for the work and based upon his large experience in business affairs he served the institution through the most difficult and delicate period of its financial history. In the same statement the President said further: