THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 
523 
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 
THE HARPER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
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THERE was laid recently the corner. 
stone of the library building to be 
erected at the University of Chicago as 
a memorial to William Rainey Harper, 
the first president of the university. 
Dr. Harper died on January 10, 1906, 
and shortly thereafter it was decided 
to secure a fund for a library to be 
named in his honor. Mr. John D. 
Rockefeller offered to contribute $600,- 
000 on condition that $200,000 should 
be given by others, and this amount 
had been made up by more than 2,000 
subscribers. 
Under existing conditions in the 
United States the president of a uni- 
versity has great power and great re- 
sponsibility; and these are multiplied 
when he presides over a newly estab- 
lished institution. President White at 
Cornell, President Gilman at the Johns 
Hopkins, President Jordan at Stan- 
ford, President Hall at Clark, have all 
impressed their personalities on the in- 
stitutions whose foundations they laid; 
but no one has done so more completely 
than President Harper at Chicago. 
He 
was a scholar and at the same time an. 
efficient executive officer of the modern | 
type. It is probable that the ma- 
chinery of university administration 
has become too complicated and that 
one man; but President Harper cer- 
tainly showed remarkable skill and 
energy in the establishment and con- 
duct of a university. Apart from the | 
financial side, where the difficulties 
cational features, such as continuing | 
the sessions throughout the year and. 
concentrating the courses in a single 

having called to the university leaders 
in scholarship and science, so that Chi- 
cago equals Columbia and is surpassed 
only by Harvard in the number of men 
of high standing on its faculties. 
It has been suggested that a chapel 
or a hall for ancient languages might 
with equal propriety have been erected 
as a memorial to Dr. Harper. Such 
buildings would perhaps form more 
suitable memorials than libraries and 
laboratories, as they can be naturally 
built in classic or gothic style and are 
not likely to require alterations or 
enlargements. 
The whole problem of the relation of 
architectural features to educational 
uses is complicated. It is desirable for 
every city to have fine and distinctive 
buildings, and it is well that libraries 
and universities should have dignified 
and worthy settings. The buildings of 
the Harvard Medical School in Boston 
and of the Union Theological Seminary 
in New York City are certainly worth 
to the community what they cost. It 
is in a way desirable that the Library 
of Congress and the Publie Library 
should be the most magnificent build- 
ings in Washington and New York. 
But there is another side to this 
question. It seems unfitting to adapt 
the needs of a library or laboratory to 
inherited architectural forms, and to 
we should fare better if there were less. 
concentration of power in the hands of. 
limit their light and growth and use- 
fulness by bricks and stones. The 
adornments of our college campuses are 
likely to become monstrosities in the 
| course of a generation. 
We should 
plan buildings suited to our needs, and 
their beauty would then be permanent. 
were great, he introduced certain edu-. 
term, and above all deserves honor for 
VOM, Uexxcvlly ool 
The unity of the university can best 
be symbolized by a single building and 
the universal application of the library 
by a central place in such a building. 
A modern university might have a 
