Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/550

 482 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO reversionary clause, providing that in case the trustees shall ever mortgage the same, or any part of it, or any portion of the property thereon, the whole shall revert to the Society. When, therefore, the Education Society shall have secured the deeds to the real estate, the transfers indicated in the tenth resolution will be made as soon as the necessary legal steps can be taken. There is a certain obligation of honor which we have gladly assumed, the full discharge of which we desire to commit to you. The trustees of the University of Chicago founded in 1857, the work of which was discontinued some years since, have unanimously and heartily bequeathed to you the name "University of Chicago," and with the name they bequeath also their alumni. The new University of Chicago rises out of the ruins of the old. The thread of legal life is broken. Technicali- ties difficult or impossible to be removed have prevented our use of the charter of 1857. The new University of Chicago, with a new site, a new management, new and greatly improved resources, and free from all embarrassing complications, nevertheless bears the name of the old, is located in the same community, under the same general denominational auspices, will enter on the same educational work, and will aim to realize the highest hopes of all who were disappointed in the old. A generation hence the break in legal life will have lapsed from the memory of men. In the congeries of interests, affections, aspirations, endeavors, which do in fact form the real life of an institution of learning in these there has been no break. The alumni of the institution in its older form are the true sons of the new, and as such we bespeak for them such appropriate and early recognition as your thoughtful courtesy may suggest. We now commit to you this high trust; the erection of buildings, the organization of the institution, the expenditure and investment of its funds, and all that pertains to its work, its growth, and its prosperity, is placed absolutely without any reserve under your control. The Education Society has strictly limited its agency to discharging the engagements into which it entered with the subscribers, engagements on the basis of which all the funds were subscribed. The Society has made no appropriations from the funds except those required in securing and collecting the funds up to this day, incorporating the institution, and securing the site. So soon as sufficient funds are collected to meet these engagements, the official relationship of the Education Society with the institution will cease. Sixty-one thousand dollars have now been paid upon the site. Fervently do we pray that the blessing of