Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/52

 26 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO endowment, giving at the same time six thousand, five hundred dollars for the current expenses. The proposed gift for endowment was later superseded by a contribution of two hundred thousand dollars for the Seminary in the agreement for the union of the two institutions, the Seminary and the University. Throughout the twenty-five years of its independent existence the Seminary always had an excellent faculty. It was fortunate in having, during the entire period, that prince of teachers, Dr. G. W. Northrup, who was equally at home in the realms of homi- letics, church history, and theology. Dr. William R. Harper was called to the chair of Hebrew on January i, 1879, and developed those extraordinary teaching and administrative gifts which made him, a few years later, President of the new University. Dr. Eri B. Hulbert became professor of church history in 1881, and on the resignation of the presidency by Dr. Northrup in 1892, he was made Dean of the Seminary, which then became the Divinity School of the University. The first considerable collection of books secured by the Semi- nary was the Hengstenberg library of twelve or thirteen thousand volumes. Later the library of Dr. George B. Ide was purchased. This was a collection of three thousand volumes. Still later the valuable collection known as the American Bible Union Library, comprising about five thousand volumes, was received. The curriculum of the Seminary was, at the outset, the tradi- tional one of the theological schools of the period, and included theology, church history, New Testament Greek, Hebrew, and homiletics. Gradually the course was enlarged. Lecturers on special subjects were secured. A fourth year for graduate students was added. Elective and optional courses began to be offered. In 1890-91 twenty-three such courses were open to the students. The school was alert and adapting itself to the changing times, with their new and increasing demands. It was feared by some that the removal from the city to Morgan Park in 1877 would interrupt the growth and development of the Seminary. The event showed that there was no ground for this fear. During the first year at Morgan Park there was an attend- ance of sixty-five students. Five years later there were ninety-