The man (courtesy U of C archives) An open letter to William Rainey Harper:
Dear Mr. Harper:
This letter is to inform you that you are dead. As in "stone-dead; ...as a doornail; ...as a herring; ...as mutton; stiff." Sorry, got carried away again with the Roget's. Back to the point. Yes, I know as well as you do that the physical vessel which held your prodigious intellect and passion for education (also known as your body) actually expired in 1906, and thus you have been officially deceased for over one hundred years. But your spirit, dear sir, has always lived on at that magnificent institution of which you were a founding father... the University of Chicago.
I need not remind you of your humble beginnings out of which sprang numerous and illustrious accomplishments in the world of academia. You may not have been the first man born in a log cabin to rise to a presidency, but you were the only one for whom Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Syriac and Akkadian rolled trippingly off the tongue.
Dear Mr. Harper:
This letter is to inform you that you are dead. As in "stone-dead; ...as a doornail; ...as a herring; ...as mutton; stiff." Sorry, got carried away again with the Roget's. Back to the point. Yes, I know as well as you do that the physical vessel which held your prodigious intellect and passion for education (also known as your body) actually expired in 1906, and thus you have been officially deceased for over one hundred years. But your spirit, dear sir, has always lived on at that magnificent institution of which you were a founding father... the University of Chicago.
I need not remind you of your humble beginnings out of which sprang numerous and illustrious accomplishments in the world of academia. You may not have been the first man born in a log cabin to rise to a presidency, but you were the only one for whom Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Syriac and Akkadian rolled trippingly off the tongue.
The genius of you...
His humble origins (Nat. Reg. Hist. Places) You earned a PhD from Yale at the tender age of 18; you held teaching positions and professorships at Masonic College, Dennison University, Baptist Union Theological Seminary and Yale. You taught through the venerable Chautauqua Institution. And let us not forget your musical talents tinkling the ivories and leading the New Concord (Ohio) Silver Cornet Band!
However, the pinnacle of your success has to be the establishment of the university and its stunning, Gothic-inspired campus in Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago. Yes, YOU were the FIRST president of the great gray city that would soon come to be known as the "Harvard of the Midwest." (Oh, don't be offended. We who attended your fine institution as undergrads, and slogged through its rigorous curriculum (the ORIGINAL "Common Core") of humanities, mathematics, social studies and science, always referred to Harvard (and still do) as the "U of C of the East." (And the two schools are certainly NOT to be confused with Dorothy's Wicked Witches of the East and West, even though both have, at certain and sundry times, engaged in practices that one might consider, if not evil, then at least unethical, questionable and/or shady. For instance, there was that time the U of C awarded its first Albert Pick Jr. Award for Outstanding Contribution to International Understanding to Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who just happened to be the architect of the Vietnam War. (Read the original Pick Papers here.) Oh what a tempest in a teapot that decision engendered! Students actually protesting... on campus! What a concept!
I mean, let's face it. The major "understanding" that whole fiasco promoted was that one should "never get involved in a land war in Asia" (props to Vizzini and William Goldman).
However, the pinnacle of your success has to be the establishment of the university and its stunning, Gothic-inspired campus in Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago. Yes, YOU were the FIRST president of the great gray city that would soon come to be known as the "Harvard of the Midwest." (Oh, don't be offended. We who attended your fine institution as undergrads, and slogged through its rigorous curriculum (the ORIGINAL "Common Core") of humanities, mathematics, social studies and science, always referred to Harvard (and still do) as the "U of C of the East." (And the two schools are certainly NOT to be confused with Dorothy's Wicked Witches of the East and West, even though both have, at certain and sundry times, engaged in practices that one might consider, if not evil, then at least unethical, questionable and/or shady. For instance, there was that time the U of C awarded its first Albert Pick Jr. Award for Outstanding Contribution to International Understanding to Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who just happened to be the architect of the Vietnam War. (Read the original Pick Papers here.) Oh what a tempest in a teapot that decision engendered! Students actually protesting... on campus! What a concept!
I mean, let's face it. The major "understanding" that whole fiasco promoted was that one should "never get involved in a land war in Asia" (props to Vizzini and William Goldman).
Spires, gargoyles and wild onions: the nexus
1979 demonstration (U of C archive) But, as is often the case with us 21st Century writers, I totally digress in my lyrical musings. Far afield. Back to the matter of your life and death...
So, yes, you built this incredible institution of research and scholarship from the ground up, raising a main quadrangle that brought the English Gothic spires of Oxford University to the shores of Lake Michigan, from which lofty heights the gargoyles could look down upon the land that, in the not-so-distant past, had been swamp marshes that stank of foul-smelling wild onions. (Some of which, by the way, still grow in the area on open land and in forest preserves.) In your spare time, you also helped found Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. A man of such talents is often honored by the naming of things, usually buildings and streets. So it should come as no surprise to you that William Rainey Harper College in Palatine bears your name, as well as Harper High School in the West Englewood neighborhood and Harper Avenue in Hyde Park.
But of course, the most glorious and apropos monument to your illustrious self is William Rainey Harper Memorial Library located on -- where else? -- the campus of the University of Chicago.
So, yes, you built this incredible institution of research and scholarship from the ground up, raising a main quadrangle that brought the English Gothic spires of Oxford University to the shores of Lake Michigan, from which lofty heights the gargoyles could look down upon the land that, in the not-so-distant past, had been swamp marshes that stank of foul-smelling wild onions. (Some of which, by the way, still grow in the area on open land and in forest preserves.) In your spare time, you also helped found Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. A man of such talents is often honored by the naming of things, usually buildings and streets. So it should come as no surprise to you that William Rainey Harper College in Palatine bears your name, as well as Harper High School in the West Englewood neighborhood and Harper Avenue in Hyde Park.
But of course, the most glorious and apropos monument to your illustrious self is William Rainey Harper Memorial Library located on -- where else? -- the campus of the University of Chicago.
A cathedral of knowledge...
His monument (U of C archives) And that is where I sadly -- nay -- shockingly learned of your absolute and total death one recent Saturday morning. Yes, turn over in your grave now, just once, for soon you will be spinning, as if your casket were a centrifuge.
After your untimely physical death in 1906, the university was inspired to erect a permanent memorial to you. And what could possibly be more appropriate to honor a man of your wide-ranging scholarship than a library. The Chicago Tribune noted in 1907 that it would be "a fitting testimony to one of Chicago's most useful citizens." (Italics mine. And Bill -- may I call you Bill? -- don't be affronted by being damned by faint praise, it happens to everyone!)
Finished in 1912, the building's façade is emblazoned with stone carvings of the coats of arms of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of California, among others. Its two towers are fraternal twins, similar but unique. The East has Byzantine domes that echo the great Orthodox basilicas of Europe. The West brandishes the battlements of a Renaissance castle. The interior of its third floor library aspires to the heavens with its vaulted ceiling and celebrates the life of the mind with its carved printer's marks and mythological symbols.
It is a library to truly inspire... awe. (I shall refrain from employing the overused late 20th Century term which contains the root word "awe" although this is one instance where that word would certainly be used appropriately.)
May I be intimate for a moment, Bill, and reveal my soul to you? As a freshman, I was simply blown away -- pardon the colloquialism -- upon entering your memorial. Every time. I mean EVERY time. As a little girl who grew up barely a stone's throw away from what can be kindly referred to as the "industrial armpit" of the city of Chicago, I realized that by walking into your library, knowing I was a student at your university, I had truly achieved something, and been truly transported somewhere. As I said, it is a library to inspire....
After your untimely physical death in 1906, the university was inspired to erect a permanent memorial to you. And what could possibly be more appropriate to honor a man of your wide-ranging scholarship than a library. The Chicago Tribune noted in 1907 that it would be "a fitting testimony to one of Chicago's most useful citizens." (Italics mine. And Bill -- may I call you Bill? -- don't be affronted by being damned by faint praise, it happens to everyone!)
Finished in 1912, the building's façade is emblazoned with stone carvings of the coats of arms of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of California, among others. Its two towers are fraternal twins, similar but unique. The East has Byzantine domes that echo the great Orthodox basilicas of Europe. The West brandishes the battlements of a Renaissance castle. The interior of its third floor library aspires to the heavens with its vaulted ceiling and celebrates the life of the mind with its carved printer's marks and mythological symbols.
It is a library to truly inspire... awe. (I shall refrain from employing the overused late 20th Century term which contains the root word "awe" although this is one instance where that word would certainly be used appropriately.)
May I be intimate for a moment, Bill, and reveal my soul to you? As a freshman, I was simply blown away -- pardon the colloquialism -- upon entering your memorial. Every time. I mean EVERY time. As a little girl who grew up barely a stone's throw away from what can be kindly referred to as the "industrial armpit" of the city of Chicago, I realized that by walking into your library, knowing I was a student at your university, I had truly achieved something, and been truly transported somewhere. As I said, it is a library to inspire....
And they're complaining the TRUMP sign looks tacky?
WTF???!!!?? Arley who? Even the sign looks cheap! Well, Billy, baby, I need to correct that last sentence. It was a library to inspire...
Now --- and I am mortified to have to be the one to tell you this --- now it is a.... a... reading room. In fact, it no longer even carries your hallowed name. It's officially called the...
Arley D. Cathey Learning Center.
NO, no, no, no, no, no, no, nooooooo---ooo---ooo---o--o-o-o-o-o-o-!
Bill, sweetie, you and I both know how WRONG, WRONG, WRONG that is! A "learning center" is what you find in an elementary school, not a world-class institution of higher learning. (Or has U of C totally started to infantilize its undergrads?)
And even in an elementary school, a "learning center" functions as a library. Because it has BOOKS! Books to read and to check out at a circulation desk...
Oh, I weep... at one time, Harper Library and the adjoining departmental libraries held 2 million volumes... now, nary a one... except for those that the students carry in... presumably to... read.
Now --- and I am mortified to have to be the one to tell you this --- now it is a.... a... reading room. In fact, it no longer even carries your hallowed name. It's officially called the...
Arley D. Cathey Learning Center.
NO, no, no, no, no, no, no, nooooooo---ooo---ooo---o--o-o-o-o-o-o-!
Bill, sweetie, you and I both know how WRONG, WRONG, WRONG that is! A "learning center" is what you find in an elementary school, not a world-class institution of higher learning. (Or has U of C totally started to infantilize its undergrads?)
And even in an elementary school, a "learning center" functions as a library. Because it has BOOKS! Books to read and to check out at a circulation desk...
Oh, I weep... at one time, Harper Library and the adjoining departmental libraries held 2 million volumes... now, nary a one... except for those that the students carry in... presumably to... read.
Before: Harper Memorial Library (with books) ---- After: Cathey Learning Center (tables, chairs, no books)
Even Walt Whitman is speechless. Yes, yes, I know it still boasts the vaulted ceiling and the chandeliers... it's beautiful and always will be... but this is about more than aesthetics, about more than skin deep... there's something vital that's missing. And that wonderful smell is gone, too. That scent that hung in the air... the tang of knowledge, with undertones of curiosity and speculation and the weight of wisdom... that smell peculiar to old books.
Harper was the small library, the quiet library, the undergraduate hangout, the peaceful place compared to hulking Regenstein across campus. And, Billy, I guess the intent was to preserve this atmosphere... at least according to the perpetrators of this crime. After all, "lighting, heating, and air conditioning" are essentials in the 21st Century... for students who are total wusses...
Oh forgive me, Billy, my snark runneth over... but you were sold out for $17 million. Butane Gas... who knew? Apparently, that sum also purchased the bragging, errr, naming rights to a residence hall and dining center...
Harper was the small library, the quiet library, the undergraduate hangout, the peaceful place compared to hulking Regenstein across campus. And, Billy, I guess the intent was to preserve this atmosphere... at least according to the perpetrators of this crime. After all, "lighting, heating, and air conditioning" are essentials in the 21st Century... for students who are total wusses...
Oh forgive me, Billy, my snark runneth over... but you were sold out for $17 million. Butane Gas... who knew? Apparently, that sum also purchased the bragging, errr, naming rights to a residence hall and dining center...
"And I'm never goin' back to my old school..."
Arley D. Cathey Naming Things (Tumblr) But, Bill darling, take heart. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has issues with this atrocity.
There's a Tumblr (it's a blog site, dearie) dedicated to lampooning this 21st Century practice for those who have the money to throw around. (You called them tycoons and philanthropists and I'll remind you that Rockefeller gave big bucks to found the U of C and vociferously insisted that it NOT be named after him! We call them the 1% and everything seems to sport their monikers.) But to think they would sink to this... to think they would treat your memorial like some random football stadium or sporting arena!
Oh sweet, sweet Bill, I just don't know what to say...
Yours ever in library love,
Jo
There's a Tumblr (it's a blog site, dearie) dedicated to lampooning this 21st Century practice for those who have the money to throw around. (You called them tycoons and philanthropists and I'll remind you that Rockefeller gave big bucks to found the U of C and vociferously insisted that it NOT be named after him! We call them the 1% and everything seems to sport their monikers.) But to think they would sink to this... to think they would treat your memorial like some random football stadium or sporting arena!
Oh sweet, sweet Bill, I just don't know what to say...
Yours ever in library love,
Jo
Of course, the next thought in my mind was... I wonder what they've done to Regenstein?
But that's a query for another blog post because...
But that's a query for another blog post because...
RSS Feed