His greatest gift has been that of $7,425,000 to the University of Chicago. The first University of Chicago existed from 1858 to 1886, a period of twenty-eight years, and was discontinued from lack of funds. When the American Baptist Education Society, formed at Washington, D.C., in May, 1888, held its first anniversary in Tremont Temple, Boston, it was resolved "to take immediate steps toward the founding of a well-equipped college in the city of Chicago." Mr. Rockefeller had already become interested in founding such an institution, and made a subscription of $600,000 toward an endowment fund, conditioned on the pledging by others of $400,000 before June 1, 1890. The Rev. T. W. Goodspeed, and the Rev. E. T. Gates, Secretary of the Education Society, succeeded in raising this amount, and in addition a block and a half of ground as a site for the institution, valued at $125,000, given by Mr. Marshall Field of Chicago. Two and a half blocks were purchased for $282,500, making in all twenty-four acres, lying between the two great south parks of Chicago, Washington and Jackson, and fronting on the Midway Plaisance, a park connecting the other two. These parks contain a thousand acres. The university was incorporated in 1890, and Professor William Rainey Harper of Yale University was elected President. The choice was an eminently wise one, a man of progressive ideas being needed for the great university. He had graduated at Muskingum College in 1870, taken his degree of Ph.D. at Yale in 1875, been Professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary for seven years, Professor of the Semitic Languages at Yale for five years, and Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature at Yale for two years, besides filling other positions of influence. In September, 1890, Mr. Rockefeller made a second subscription of $1,000,000; and, in accordance with the terms of this gift, the Theological Seminary was removed from Morgan Park to the University site, as the Divinity School of the University, and dormitories erected, and an academy of the University established at Morgan Park. The University began the erection of its first buildings Nov. 26, 1891. Mr. Henry Ives Cobb was chosen as the architect, and the English Gothic style is to be maintained throughout. The buildings are of blue Bedford stone, with red tiled roofs. The recitation buildings, laboratories, chapel, museum, gymnasium, and library are the central features; while the dormitories are arranged in quadrangles on the four corners.