Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/446

 392 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO thousand dollars. The experiment is undertaken in no half-hearted way. It remains to be seen whether that great constituency upon which the future of our country is so dependent, the constituency of teachers, will find it possible and think it desirable to avail themselves of the privileges thus proffered I may be in error. If so, time will show it. Meanwhile let us wait the issue of the experiment. The experience of the first summer was highly encouraging. The President reported the attendance at six hundred and five, four hundred and three men and two hundred and two women. There were two hundred and twenty-three in the Graduate Schools. The President was so much encouraged as to say in the Convo- cation at the opening of the Autumn Quarter: It is safe to assume that the number of students for the Summer Quarter of next year will be double the number of the present year. It turned out that this assumption was not warranted. It was too much to expect. But the increase was most encouraging, being more than fifty per cent. There were nine hundred and thirty- two students against six hundred and five the year before. The Divinity and Graduate Schools showed the greatest increase about one hundred per cent. It began to appear that large num- bers of ministers, professors in colleges, and teachers in high schools were welcoming the new opportunities. At the close of the second Summer Quarter the President said in his Convocation Statement, no doubt with a deep sense of personal satisfaction : It is no longer necessary to defend the policy of the University with respect to the Summer Quarter of instruction. The facts and figures of the quarter furnish complete evidence that the University did not misunderstand the situation when its work was organized upon this basis. The President was so elated over the success of what was, indeed, his own great inspiration, that he was once more betrayed into prediction. He said in the statement quoted above: If the present tendency is not checked by some force at present not visible, the Summer Quarter of 1896 will show the largest enrolment in the history of the University. Again he was wrong so far as that particular year was concerned. But he was right as to the tendency, as will appear. The attend- ance in the Summer Quarter steadily increased, and increased more