Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/541

 THE DEVELOPING UNIVERSITY 473 However this may be, the remarkable development of the Uni- versity of Chicago in all the elements that make an institution of learning great, although taking place in so brief a period, was as orderly, logical, substantial, and enduring as it could have been had it taken a thousand years. But remarkable as it was, the Founder might well have repeated on the twenty-fifth anniversary what he said on the fifth: "It is only a beginning." Great departments remained to be organized. Great expansions remained to be made. And as growth, progress, expansion had been the law of the new institution's life throughout the first quarter-century, there was every indication that they would continue to be distinguishing features of the maturing Uni- versity. In addition to its material equipment it possessed great resources in its Trustees, its faculty, its students, and particularly in its great and growing body of alumni. The alumni were the Greater University. Already it was beginning to be understood that the future of the institution would be largely determined by them. And in their growing numbers and increasing loyalty were the prophecy and assurance of continued and progressive develop- ment.