——
CHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
Change in Theological Education—
Still Wore Great Gifts.
The quarterly statement presented by
President Harper of the University of
Chicago at the 27th convocation of the
University on January 4, shows a total
attendance of 1,628. These are divided
as follows:
Men Women Total
The Graduate Schools... 243 130 373
The Senior Colleges.... 106 106 212
The Junior Colleges.... 229 188 417
The College for Teachers 56 231 128
Unclassified Students ... 40 117 157
Total in Colleges-.... 431 642 1,073
The Divinity School. ..2 175 7 182
ee
Total Attendance ..... 849 779 1,628
In 1892 at the corresponding quarter
the enrollment was 594.
The membership of Rush Medical
College, which is in affiliation with the
University, is put down at 882, an in- .
crease of 244 over last year. The re-
quirements of admission have been
raised and will be made still higher next
year. It will be gradually increased
during the next three or four years un-
til only those shall be admitted who
have completed the work of Sophomore
year in College.
In this connection the death is re-
corded of Professor John B. Hamilton,
head of one of the departments in the
Rush Medical College. Professor
Hamilton was the editor of the Journal
of the American Medical Association,
the Chairman of the Library Board of
the City of Chicago, and Director of
the Elgin Insane Asylum. President
Harper says of him: “He was a man
of the highest attainments and had held
most important positions, and as sur-
geon of the Marine Hospital of the
United States had rendered great ser-
vice to the profession of medicine.”
CHANGES IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
A new curriculum has been estab-
lished in the Divinity School of the Uni-
sity of Chicago, the changes to take
effect on July 1. Among them are
mentioned the following:
(1) The rearrangement and readjust-
ment of the required work in the several
departments so that this work is finished
in the first year of divinity work.
(2) The provision of special training
in the English language.
(3) The assignment of each student,
alter the first year, to the special de-
partment in which he shall undertake
to do the larger part of his work, the
professor in this department to be
henceforth his special adviser.
(4) Provision by which students who
desire to become pastors, administra-
tors, or general workers, may select
courses of instruction which will be
adapted to the work they desire to do.
(5) The change of the study of He-
brew from the list of the required sub-
jects to the list of elective subjects, ex-
cept in the case of those who desire to
make the Old and New Testament their
principal subject of study.
(6) An arrangement by which a
liberal portion of the time.of each stu-
dent shall be given to work in natural
science, psychology, and English litera-
ture, unless in his college course he has
made such progress in these subjects as
would warrant his omission of them at
this stage of his work.
(7) The grouping of the courses of
study especially adapted to those who
desire to be pastors and administrators
and general workers, in which the Eng-
lish Bible shall be the principal sub-
ject, the secondary subjects to be psy-
chology, pedagogy, and sociology.
(8) The proposition to make such
arrangement as may be necessary with
other institutions, as will permit those
who so desire to prepare themselves
especially in the lines of music and
medicine with special reference to
Christian work.
(9) The introduction, to as large an
extent as possible, of the study of prob-
lems as distinguished from study by de-
partments.
(10) The introduction to a larger ex-
tent than heretofore, of what may be
called “clinical” work, for example, in
Sunday School work with the biblical
and pedagogical departments, in visita-
“ nearly forty acres.
YALE ALUME: Wirth y
tion work with the sociological depart-
ment, in preaching and church adminis-
tration with the department of homi-
letics. ,
(11) The setting aside of a period in
the training of each student, during
which he shall be under the direction of
a pastor in active service.
THE TWO-MILLION-DOLLAR PROPOSITION.
Reference is made to the proposition
of Mr. Rockefeller, in October, 1896,
that he would duplicate any sums of
money, given to the University between
that date and January I, 1900, up to the
sum of two millions of dollars. Since
that time in addition to the gift of Miss
Helen Culver for the Biological Depart-
ment, the exact value of which has not
been estimated, gifts have been received
to the amount of $306,899. Besides this,
the University has come into the posses-
sion by gift of three large and very
valuable pieces of property. One is a
gift of land, including 288 feet on Ellis
avenue opposite the University grounds,
which gives the University the practical
control of the larger portion of the
block. It is suggested that this land
be leased to the fraternities for the erec-
tion of chapter houses. The value of
the land is nearly $34,000, and this
means $34,000 more from Mr. Rocke-
feller or a total of $68,000.
Another gift of great value, and quite
in line with the kind of gifts which keep
falling into the lap of the University
of Chicago, is the present of two whole
blocks of land, lying north of Fifty-
Seventh street, between Ellis and Lex-
ington avenues. These announcements
of new gifts President Harper called the
miost important, so far as the resources
of the University are concerned, which
had been made within three years. Of
the gift and its importance, he speaks
as follows: :
“One of these blocks, by the courtesy
of Mr. Marshall Field, has been oc-
cupied as the athletic field of the Uni-
versity. Both blocks, including a space,
600 x 800 feet, are now the property of
the University. For this magnificent
gift, the University is indebted to two
of its best friends; men who have, from
the beginning, exhibited the deepest
possible interest in-the progress of the
University. The market value of these
blocks is $335,000.- Of this sum, Mr.
Marshall Field has contributed $135,000,
Mr. John D. Rockefeller $200,000. It
has been a long cherished hope on the
part of the friends of the University, that
these two blocks of land should some
time become its property. By this gift
the twenty-seven acres already consti-
tuting the University grounds become
By this gift there is
assured to the University for all time
a splendid athletic field at its very door,
and such a field in the midst of a large
city is something greatly to be prized.
By this gift the building of a great
gymnasium: is made possible. By this
gift the development of a medical school
and the development of a technologi-
cal school are made possible.”’
we
Yale and the Presidency.
[Arthur Reed Kimball in the N. Y. Independent. |
When at the same time with the un-
expected announcement of President
Dwight’s resignation the announcement
was also made that Professor Chitten-
den had been appointed director of the
Sheffield School to succeed Professor
Brush—who has held the position since
1872, when it was created—a younger
member of the Faculty commented:
“That is unfortunate. That appoint-
ment robs original research of an emi-
nent investigator to make a mere execu-
tive.’ Yet when, on the other hand, it
was suggested that Dr. Dwight’s place
be filled by a cultivated business or
professional man—one, for example, of
the type of Seth Low—another younger
member of the Faculty (or was it the
Same one?) exclaimed: “Oh, no! Do
not give us an outsider, however good
an executive he may be. We young
men who are striving to do modern
work by modern methods, to place Yale
in the front rank of inspiring teaching
and original research, need ourselves
the inspiration of sympathetic, appre-
ciative leadership. Give us that, what-
ever else is denied us.”
The contrast of these two comments
puts graphically the difficulty of the
delicate problem which fronts the Cor-
poration of Yale in choosing a succes-
sor to President Dwight, if the hopes
of the younger men of the Faculty are
to be fulfilled. These, be it remem-
bered, are the men on whom is soon
to rest the responsibility of keeping the
Yale of the future true to the Yale of
the past—that it, abreast of all that is
best in the forward movement in educa-
tion, but with no break from the dis-
tinctive Yale traditions. These, too,
are the men who represent the great
body of younger alumni, than whom
no other college or university can boast
a body more loyal. By this contrast
Dr. Dwight’s successor must not be one
whose choice will rob research to make
an executive. Nor must he be an out-
sider, a mere executive, a cultivated
business man, who cannot give that
inspiration of leadership under which
the various departments and faculties
work harmoniously to the one great
end, the well-ordered development of
a true university life. Yet on the other
hand business talent, too, is needed ‘in
thie: presidency vol: Vales or, if not
needed so much now as once, the reason
lies in the exceptional business as well
as scholarly talents of Dr. Dwight, who
has been as successful a _ university
treasurer as president, and whose ad-
ministration has not only received the
recognition of large gifts, but has also
shown a high order of capacity in the
husbanding of the funds received and in
the application of the large sums ex-
pended.
It is on this business side that the em-
phasis is usually laid, so far as the view
of the general public goes, when a col-
lege president is spoken of as “a good
executive.” The idea called up popu-
larly is the same as that of “a good
executive” for a large banking or manu-
facturing business. But fortunate as it
is for a college or university—especially
one, as in Yale’s case, during the period
of transition from the college into the
university—to have at its head a man of
business like President Dwight, the
phrase “good executive’ thus appliea
tells but a small part of his duties.
That, at least, is true unqualifiedly of
Yale. The legal body in which is
vested the final right of control is the
Corporation, composed of the President
and- eighteen Fellows. Ten of these
eighteen are Congregational clergymen,
resident in the State of Connecticut, a
self-perpetuating body, since the ten
fill vacancies in their own number due
to death or resignation. The Governor
and Lieutenant-Governor of Connecti-
cut are ex-officio members of the Cor-
poration. The remaining places are
filled by alumni elections, and the pres-
ent alumni membership includes such
distinguished names as those of Chaun-
cey M. Depew and Judge Henry E.
Howland. Among the clerical Fellows
are ministers of the distinction of Rev.
Joseph H. Twichell and Dr. Edwin P.
Parker, of Hartford, and Dr. Theodore
T. Munger of New Haven. So much
for the- personnel of the Corporation,
which, unless it were distinctly bad, is,
except at a time like this of choosing a
president, of small importance, despite
the pother which has been raised in
Yale circles over its imperium im imperio
feature. For at best or worst, the
function of the Corporation, so far as it
concerns the ordinary government of
the University, must be advisory and
confirmatory. Its members can, in the
nature of the case, know but little of
university life and discipline at first hand.
They are in greatest part dependent for
what they know of these questions on
their president, who is also the presi-
dent of the University; that is, of the
governing body, the faculty and instruc-
tors of the several schools and depart-
ments.
governing body totaled (including lec-
turers, but with six professorships va-
cant) 252 members. The official repre-
sentative in the Corporation of those
252, on whom falls the direct respon~
sibility for the instruction and discipline
of about 2,500 students, is the President
of the University. Whatever the ques-
tions of relative rights which may arise,
whatever the modifications of policy
which may be desired, must come be-
fore the Corporation through him. He,
in fact, decides finally on the choice of
new professors and instructors, as the
Corporation seldom, if ever, fails to
confirm his selections. If for any rea-
son he chooses to ignore an action
taken by any one of the University
Faculties by failing to bring it for-
mally before the Corporation, there is
practically no remedy short of so strong
a protest to the Corporation as to create
an intolerable condition — something
By the last Yale catalogue this .
poll.
question.
155
es a
which, when it has come near to hap-
pee in pest coe administrations
as been carefully kept from ic
knowledge. : ae
The President’s all but autocratic
_ power extends in every direction, and
includes every minutest detail of admin-
istration. It requires a namphlet of 100
closely printed pages for an annual re-
port by the President to tell the year’s
story with comments, sugeestions and
appeals. It requires a pamphlet of a]-
most the same size to give the various
courses — with explanations—in the
Graduate School, some in a single de-
partment numbering more than fifty.
When it is remembered that these pro-
fessors have also, for the most part
undergraduate classes, and that un_
dergraduate instruction consists so
largely to-day of a system of electives,
the administrative ability needed to sat.
isfy the various claims, so to arrange
schedules that all shall have the most
and best opportunities possible both to
teach and to learn, is seen to be some-
thing undreamt of in college manage-
ment hardly a generation back. And~
yet in this way is only touched the sur-
face of modern university life, while its
larger, deeper aspects in its laboratory
work, its clubs for mutual help in re-
search, its thousand and one allied in-
» terests, must of necessity be ignored.
The one man whose personality is felt
in and throughout it all, dominating its
life, is the President of the University.
He has the power of direction, control,
initiative. He also must have the power
of leadership and inspiration if the
young men who are making the Univer-
sity life under him are to develop it in
all its possibilities, present and future.
Mindful of what has been wisely ac-
complished under President Dwight’s
administration, to organize at Yale the
necessary departure while cherishing the
character of its past, the men of younger
Yale ask to-day for a president who will
be progressive, but not radical; who
will foster the fresh enthusiasm and
direct the new ambitions, but who will
conserve a noble inheritance of tradi-
tion, knowing well that while it needs
only money and strong names to manu-
facture a “phrontistery,’ or learning
shop, it requires the appeal of associa-
tions, the atmosphere of culture per-
vasive through generations, to create a
seat of learning, the true university.
The men of younger Yale ask, then, that
the new President be near to their own
age, not one passing his prime at the
outset, who must after a short term at
best make way for his successor; that
he be one of the Yale brotherhood, for
to each college and university it is given
to know itself as no outsider can know
it; that, if possible—and such a selec-
tion is most possible of all— he be one
among the older of the younger men of
the Yale Faculty, a man who com-
mands the confidence and respect of his
fellows for ability and character, and
who knows, as a Yale man not of the
Faculty cannot, the imperative needs of
the hour; that by preference he be not
a clergyman, though a man of religious
convictions, because the mere student. of
Theology, on whom such a selection
would probably fall, is so sure to lack
broadness of catholicity; that he be a
man less of the closet and more of the
world than have been some of his pre-~
decessors, one who is in active sym~
pathy with the great forward move-
ments in civic and national life; that,
in short, he be a man fitly representa~
tive of the Yale of to-day, of its work
and its life, of its aspirations and its
ideals.
———_++o—___—_-
Harvard Votes No Franchise.
By a vote of 2782 to 1481, Harvard
graduates of the Academic Department
have defeated the proposition granting
to graduates of other departments of
the University the right to vote for over-
seers. A year ago a vote of the gradu-
ates was taken on this question, but so
few took the interest to vote that it was
decided last October to hold another
Ballots were sent to each gradu-
ate of the Academic Department earn-
estly requesting that he vote on the
About 7,500 blanks were sent
out, and the ballots were counted on
January 3. At the first poll, the major-
ity voted in favor of granting the pro-
posed extension. But the vote on this
last ballot changed entirely. Not only
was there a much larger number of
votes cast, but the sentiment of the
vote itself was changed.