THE PREPARING OF THE WAY 31 I should not have thought of writing all this had not your letter come at just this time. But your expression of interest has led me to feel that I ought to state the whole case to you. I fear we are certain to lose Dr. Harper, unless he can see that by remaining here he can do this great service to the denomination. He is a man of such varied attainments and great capacity that he needs some large work like this to do. Our Seminary can no more hold him long within its limits than your first Refinery could hold you, if you will pardon the comparison. He certainly has a great future. We must, if possible, lead him to devote his life to the service of our denomination. He is only thirty years old and what may he not do for us and for the cause of Christ! We have not so many men of eminent abilities that we can spare such a man to Yale and the Congregationalists. It goes without saying that there was no basis in this letter for any action on the part of Mr. Rockefeller. The Old University was still in operation, although its end was evidently near. To the foregoing letter Mr. Rockefeller replied on April 13, 1886, expressing his great interest in having the services of Dr. Harper retained by the Seminary, and made the following reference to the University proposals: I really do not know what to say about the University. I realize, of course, it is desirable, very, for the Seminary to have it continue. Thus ended the first presentation to Mr. Rockefeller of a possible new University of Chicago. And now a new factor entered into the situation. A few men, interpreters of a widespread and profound interest in the restoration of its educational work by the Baptist denomination, were in fre- quent consultation as to ways and means by which this might be accomplished. They could not rest. Soon after the University closed its doors, Dr. P. S. Henson, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Dr. J. A. Smith, editor of The Standard, and Mr. Goodspeed united in renting a building in which some of the professors con- tinued for a year the preparatory-school work, doing also the work of the Freshman year, with a Freshman class of seven or eight. In all the classes there were about sixty in attendance. These men assumed this burden that they might test the question, during the year, of the possibility of re-establishing university work in a new location. On October i, 1886, three months after the closing of the Old University, they united in a letter to the Blue Island Land
