CHAPTER XVI THE LATER BUILDINGS OF THE FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY In October, 1915, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., visited the Univer- sity. In connection with his visit the Chicago Herald printed the following editorial with the title, "A Wonderful Campus": John D. Rockefeller spent an hour last Monday inspecting the campus and buildings of the University of Chicago. "It is all beautiful and wonderful," he said at the end of it. "It makes me want to come back to school." It is beautiful and wonderful. One of the principal features of the beauty and the wonder of it is the air of antique dignity which the buildings wear. Chicago University is, comparatively speaking, a new institution. But as one looks at the massive Gothic piles of stone, many of them covered with ivy or other running vines, it is hard to realize that they are not "ancient of days" and redolent of scholastic traditions. One gets this impression of antique dignity more powerfully from the campus and buildings of the University of Chicago than from many an older institution of equal rank, Harvard, for instance. There are many red-brick buildings on the Harvard campus. Red brick may grow old, but it is hard for it to acquire an air antique and dignified. The full effect goes with stone and, as a matter of course, with the style of architecture. This institution out on the Midway is growing more beautiful and wonderful with the passing years. It is truly a noble cluster of buildings one of the sights and ornaments of the city. Chicagoans who travel and observe the campus and structures of universities in other states have every reason to return with a feeling of especial pride in the great institution on the South Side. The editorial calls attention to the style of architecture. A letter of June 12, 1891, tells an interesting story of the way in which late English Gothic came to be adopted for the University buildings. It says: The first buildings designed by Mr. Cobb in the original competition were very plain Romanesque. Mr. Ryerson and Mr. Hutchinson did not think this the appropriate style. They, therefore, went to Mr. Cobb after he was nominated architect [early in June, 1891] and said to him, " If you were to make an absolutely independent choice as to the style of the buildings what would it be ? "Oh," said Mr. Cobb, "I should prefer the very latest English Gothic." "Well," said Mr. Hutchinson, "I guess our mission is accomplished." They had gone over to advise that very style. 421
