Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/447

 SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS 393 rapidly than that of the other quarters. In 1900 it had risen to sixteen hundred and seventy-four. In 1906, the summer following President Harper's death, the Summer Quarter showed an attend- ance greater than any other quarter had ever shown, justifying his prediction that it would receive this recognition of its unique value. The attendance was two thousand, six hundred and eighty-eight. This primacy in attendance it maintained until 1911 when the Autumn Quarter regained the lead, enrolling three thousand, three hundred and thirty-two students against three thousand, two hundred and forty-nine in the summer. But the Summer Quarter immediately forged to the front again, and maintained its lead to the end of the first quarter-century. In 1915 the attendance was four thousand, three hundred and sixty-nine, exceeding the Autumn Quarter attendance by forty-five. The Summer Quarter owed its extraordinary growth to the opportunities it offered to graduate students. So far as under- graduates were concerned it was the smallest of all the quarters. But clergymen, professors in colleges, instructors in high schools, and other teachers were drawn to it by the attraction of its advanced courses of study. In ever-increasing numbers they gave up their summer vacations that they might enjoy its advantages. For the first seven years there was one unfortunate feature connected with the quarter. It opened July i and continued till September 22. This took more than the entire vacation period of most teachers. As a consequence many who felt the imperative need of at least a little time for rest and recreation were unable to remain through the entire quarter. As the quarter was divided into two terms, this resulted in a great falling off in attendance in the second term. The undergraduates also needed more than a single week's vacation. To meet this situation, and provide a vacation period for all, in 1901 the University Calendar was changed. The spring vacation week was thrown out and the Spring Quarter shortened a few days. The opening of the Summer Quarter was carried back to about the middle of June and it was made to end about September i, or three weeks earlier than before. This change went far to remedy the only difficulty inherent in a summer quarter, the vacation difficulty. After this reformation