Show STUDENT LIFE Dr Harper was born at New Concord Ohio in 1856 and at eight years of age entered Muskingum College from which he graduated at the age of fourteen with the degree bachelor of arts As an indication of the work that he had done it might be added that he delivered his graduating oration in Hebrew The next three years he spent in study at his home and at seventeen entered Yale as a graduate student in philology under Dr Whitney and received the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1875 at He comthe age of nineteen menced his work as a teacher as principal of the Masonic College at Macon Tennessee which position he left in one year to teach in the preparatory department of Denison University at Granville Ohio It was here that he formed a lasting friendship for Dr E Benjamin Andrews who was then president of Denison From here on President Andrews’ recommendation Dr Harper went to the Baptist Theological Seminary at Chicago as professor of Hebrew and cognate languages It was here that he worked out so thoroughly his idea of teaching by correspondence and also established the Hebrew Student a paper published in the interest of the study of this language In 1885 as a natural result of his success in correspondence work he was selected as principal of the Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts and later was made principal of the entire system In 1886 he went to Yale as professor of 113 Semitic Languages and later was made professor of Biblical Literature in the same institution From Yale he came to Chicago to accept the presidency of the new University of Chicago about to be organized in 1890 Here was the work of his life how well it has been done the world may judge from the four millions of dollars in buildings and twenty millions in endowment with three hundred members in its faculty and forty-fiv- e hundred students on its quadrangles He was a man positive in his convictions and judgments but encouraging freedom of expression in others While he never dealt in personalities in argument he never appeared to harbor resentment against those who criticised him or He was a assailed his policies in his specialrecognized authority well in as America as Europe ty Coupled with his profound scholarship was a capacity as a business man and executive rarely equalled in a “captain of industry” famed for the latter alone With his true business instinct he believed in advertising and some of the success of the University of Chicago was due to the fact that Dr Harper in a legitimate and dignified way made this the best known school in He was a ceaseless the country worker while directing the affairs of this great university as its chief executive he carried his full number of hours of work as a professor in his department For many years of his life he retired at twelve and |