Death of Goodspeed

Death of Goodspeed

Of the individuals who are responsible for the excellence or sometimes the existence of any college, the most important are often unheralded and obscure except to trustees or faculty members. Many people who know the name of the President of the University of Chicago, most people who know the names of its leading athletes have never heard the name of Dr. Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed. It belonged to a wise & able man who died last week when he was 85 years old.

Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed graduated from the University of Chicago, then a small Baptist institution, in 1862. In the years that followed, the University of Chicago crumbled slowly; in 1886, the year after Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed went back to become a Doctor of Divinity, it became extinct. This made Dr. Goodspeed sad and thoughtful; he saw the need for a successor to his small and defunct alma mater, a successor which should be larger, intellectually more potent, better endowed, nonsectarian. He therefore went to John Davison Rockefeller, in 1889 already a famed financier, and explained to him why Chicago needed a university, why such a university deserved strong financial support. After listening to Dr. Goodspeed, Mr. Rockefeller said that he would contribute $600,000 if other persons would add $400,000 to his gift. Dr. Goodspeed then organized cooperation, collected $400,000 more. With this the new University of Chicago was established; Dr. Goodspeed was made secretary of the board of trustees, then registrar, then corresponding secretary. Dr. Goodspeed wrote three books about his college. When he died last week he had almost finished a biography of William Rainey Harper, first president of the university which, without Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed, probably could never have existed.