Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/540

 472 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO higher degree. Thousands did thus go on through the regular college course. Other hundreds passed through the Professional and Graduate Schools and won the higher degrees. And thus, while large numbers of students got what they entered the Univer- sity for and left it without degrees, so many remained through years of study that the numbers of the regular alumni increased amaz- ingly. Every quarterly Convocation saw students graduated with the Bachelor's degree and others taking higher degrees. At the end of the first quarter-century the alumni numbered about eight thousand, seven hundred. This is the story of the origin and development of the University of Chicago, as these have unfolded before the eyes of the author. It has been the history of a movement in which the dreams of the projectors of the movement were dwarfed by the tremendous sweep of events. Development, rapid, intelligent, enduring, was the law of its life during the period covered by this history. Enlargements in scope and resources began two years before the doors were opened to students. They continued year after year, great and ever- increasing contributions of funds keeping pace with the ever- enlarging educational work. Every year saw established a new journal, a new department, a new college, or a new school. The site was constantly expanding, and new buildings were continually augmenting the facilities for instruction and research. Increas- ing numbers of students, professors, and courses of instruction, en- larging additions to libraries, apparatus, and collections, showed a steady and rapid advance in the developing life of the institution. This developing life gathered power as the years went on. The tide was flowing stronger than ever in the closing years of the first quarter-century. Every department of the University's work was prospering as never before. Under the administration of President Judson its development was proceeding with new power and new promise. One who has known the University well from the beginning has called it: a university, the growth of which, for solidity, strength, rapidity, wisdom, has probably never been equaled in the history of learning. In the twenty-five years of the University's history there has been condensed a growth no other institution in the world has attained in two hundred and fifty years.