Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/478

 422 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Following the end, in 1904, of the third period of building, during the thirty-two months of which thirteen great halls had been erected, the Committee on Buildings and Grounds led a com- paratively quiet life for nearly six years. Not entirely quiet, for, as will appear, one great problem was before it all that time. The University of Chicago, unlike, in this respect perhaps, any other, had a great library to begin with. But twenty years passed before it had a library building. The need was most urgent, but the funds could not be found. Months before the University opened its doors to students President Harper began his efforts to find a patron who would erect this building. He never ceased these efforts. The intensity of his feeling on this subject may be judged from the following quotation from the Convocation state- ment of April i, 1899: There is another need the greatness of which I am entirely unable to express. In another part of the decaying building used for a gymnasium have been placed over two hundred and fifty thousand books and pamphlets Thousands of these volumes, if destroyed, could not be replaced. The build- ing is so bad that every severe storm does injury through the roof to many volumes. If a fire were to break out, nothing could save these hundreds of thousands of books. I confess to you, I never retire lor the night without the terrible dread that perhaps before morning the library will have been destroyed. Pledging the friends of the University that as its President I will spare no pains to discover the benefactor who will thus lift from us this heavy load, I, never- theless, here and now, wash my hands of all moral responsibility for a calamity the magnitude of which will only appear when it shall occur, which calamity may an all-generous Providence forbid. The benefactor so earnestly desired and sought for did not appear, and in order to keep the need before the friends of the University and to emphasize it through the presentation of well- considered plans, on June 24, 1902, the President recommended and the Trustees approved the appointment of a Commission on Library Building and Policy. The Commission consisted of the President of the University, three Trustees, Messrs. Martin A. Ryerson, Franklin MacVeagh, and Frederick A. Smith, and six members of the faculties, Messrs. Ernest D. Burton, John M. Coulter, Albion W. Small, Harry Pratt Judson, William Gardner Hale, and Frederic I. Carpenter. This Commission studied the