Burton, Ernest DeWitt, 1856-1925

Born 1856 Granville, Ohio. Died 1925 Chicago, IL. A.B., Denison University, 1876; D.D., 1897. D.D., Oberlin College, 1912. D.D., Harvard University, 1920. Professor and Head, Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, University of Chicago, 1892-1925; Director of University Libraries, 1910-1925; Acting President, 1923; President, 1923-1925. Oriental Educational Investigation Commissioner, 1908-1909.

From the description of Papers, 1875-1969 (inclusive). (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 52246309

The second period in the history of the University of Chicago Library, comprising the joint administration of Ernest D. Burton and J. C. M. Hanson, was a time of rapid growth for the Library's staff and collections. In 1910, when Burton was appointed Director, the Library held 289,000 books with 100,000 more volumes unprocessed; by 1928, the Library's total holdings had increased to 799,000 volumes. The Library's staff, which numbered only 22 full-time members in 1910, had grown to 94 by 1914-1915 and to 116 by 1927-1928.

The administration which controlled the Library during this period was markedly different from that of Zella Allen Dixon during the University's first eighteen years (see University Library records, Series I). Immediately after Dixson's resignation was accepted by the Trustees in March 1910, Ernest D. Burton, Professor and Head of the Department of New Testament Literature, was asked to assume the position of Acting Director. By July 1910, it being understood that this post would be permanent, Burton began to negotiate with J. C. M. Hanson to accept the position of Associate Director. Hanson, then chief of the cataloging division of the Library of Congress, accepted the offer and assumed his duties in November 1910. Burton and Hanson had widely differing backgrounds. Burton's long tenure at the University and wide acquaintance with the faculty gave him a valuable sensitivity to the distinctive history and traditions of the University. Furthermore, he remained committed to the proposals of the Library Commission of 1902 he had chaired; the strengthening of the departmental library facilities around Harper Memorial Library. Hanson, by contrast, was a thoroughly trained cataloger whose experience at the Library of Congress led him to advocate the consolidation and centralization of library collections whenever possible. Despite these differences, Burton and Hanson worked well remarkably well. Burton retained his interest in the broadest aspects of Library policy and architectural planning, while Hanson was given general authority for the daily operations of the Library. After 1914, when Burton gave less of his time to the Library, and particularly after 1923, when he became the University's third President, Hanson assumed an even larger degree of administrative autonomy.

Hanson's first and most important contribution to the reorganization of the Library was the reclassification of the book collections begun in 1911. When Hanson arrived in Chicago, only half the Library's holdings were cataloged, with those in the General library under the Dewey decimal system and those in the departmental libraries under fourteen other classification systems. A faculty committee appointed in 1909 to study the problem had recommended that the Dewey classification be expanded to include all the Library's holdings. Hanson, however, compiled a lengthy report urging the adoption of the Library of Congress classification he had developed in collaboration with Charles Martel during his years in Washington. In April 1911, the committee reversed its decision, and in a unanimous written vote authorized the reclassification of all Library collections according to the Library of Congress system. Although reclassification was begun immediately, progress was impeded by the lack of existing catalog records and dispersion of titles and editions among many departmental libraries. During the course of the project, seven smaller libraries were consolidated with the General Library, leaving the University with seventeen departmental libraries. By 1928, reclassification was virtually complete, with the chaotic collections of 1910 reorganized under a single system of classification and all volumes in the Library accessible through a consolidated card catalog in the General Library.

The progress of the reclassification project made other reforms and innovations possible as well. In 1913, in the face of opposition from older faculty members, Hanson established the Library's first serial record, consolidating all serial holdings records in a single file. Hanson also introduced a program for selling the Library's printed catalog cards to subscribing libraries. This program, launched in 1913, followed the example of earlier systems at the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and the John Crerar, and effectively defrayed the costs of printing cards for the Library's new consolidated catalog.

Despite advances in classification and cataloging, the Library was still hampered by the lack of adequate space to house all its collections and operations. Harper Memorial Library, dedicated in elaborate ceremonies in June 1912, and designed to serve the needs of the University for nearly a century, began to attract strong criticism within a year of its opening. Sumptuous and impressive though it may have been as a memorial to the University's first President, the Library was compromised from the beginning by the encroachment of non-library functions and offices. The completed building held the General book stacks, the General reading room, catalog room, and Library staff offices; but it also housed offices for the President and his secretaries, an assembly room, classrooms and offices for the Modern Language group and the departments of History, Political Economy, Political Science, and Sociology, and the departmental libraries of the Modern Language group, Philosophy, and History. The entire building, consisting of two basement levels, six floors, and a mezzanine, was served by two passenger elevators and a cumbersome system of lifts and pneumatic tubes required to page books from the underground stacks. Workspace for the staff was inadequate within three years, and by 1919 Burton concluded that usable book stack space had also been exhausted. The original plan for Harper was further hampered by the interruption of bridge connections between the buildings of the Harper group: the bridge to Haskell Hall was closed for several years, a link to Swift Hall was never built, and the Geology and Geography departments refused to permit the erection of a bridge between the Law School and Rosenwald Hall.

By December 1922, the general overcrowding of Harper Library and the need for coordinated planning caused President Judson to appoint the Commission on the Future Policy of the University Libraries. The Commission, headed by trustee Harold H. Swift, included in its membership trustees Martin A. Ryerson and Charles W. Gilkey, President Judson, and professors John M. Coulter, Albion W. Small, Leonard D. White, and Ernest D. Burton. Hanson was not made a member, due no doubt partly to the fact that his opposition to departmental libraries was already well known. The Commission, like its predecessor twenty years earlier, was charged with a comprehensive review of the Library's needs and the formulation of appropriate recommendations. Discussions among members, however, soon revealed a deep division of opinion. The Tentative Report of the Commission, released to the University community in 1924, contained not one but two separate proposals for the future direction of the Library: Plan I, which called for the erection of a new 10-story library building large enough to hold all the departmental libraries and located in the center of the main quadrangle; and Plan II, which called for the fulfillment of the plan of 1902, with modern language and social science buildings flanking Harper and a new Harper annex replacing Haskell Hall. Plan I, supported by Hanson and many librarians at other institutions who had been consulted by the Commission, promised greater centralization but threatened to dwarf the campus with a huge new building. Plan II, largely the work of Burton and E. A. Henry, the head of the Readers' Department, offered a less expensive solution more in keeping with the architectural scale of the quadrangles, yet insured the retention of the dispersed departmental system. While the Tentative Report was printed and distributed, and comments drafted. By 1924, large amounts of money had already been raised for the completion of the Harper group, and Swift and other University officials feared that any fundamental change in building plans would disrupt a successful campaign. Even if these difficulties could have been overcome, wide disagreement within the faculty on questions of Library policy would have made a compromise plan difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Following the retirement of President Judson in February 1923, Ernest D. Burton was named Acting President of the University. Five months later, the appointment was made permanent, although Burton continued to hold the title of Director of the Library. Hanson's elevation to the Directorship might have been expected in due course had it not been for his strong advocacy of centralization and the resulting tensions in his relations with some of the faculty. After Burton's death in 1925, a formal search for a new Director was initiated, while the Library Board was revived as an administrative body to supervise Library operations. In December 1926, M. Llewellyn Raney, librarian of Johns Hopkins University, accepted the position of Director with the understanding that he would devote the first year of his appointment to travel and the study of operations at other libraries. Accordingly, at Raney's request, Hanson was named Acting Director from July 1927 to February 1928, after which he joined the faculty of the Graduate Library School. Following several months during which E. A. Henry served as Acting Director, Raney assumed full control of the Library in July 1928.

In a special report to the Board of Trustees in 1925, shortly before Burton's death, Burton and Hanson summarized their achievements as an administrative team since 1910. "The last fourteen years," they wrote, "have witnessed important changes. The entire library system of the University has been harmonized and coordinated, so that nearly all books are now purchased, cataloged, classified, and bound under the direction of the central administration and on a system which will compare favorably with that of any other university." If the degree of centralization and coordination was not as complete as Hanson, the professional librarian, had hoped, he could take pride in the remarkable progress achieved under Burton's direction and could draw satisfaction from the fact that the University Library would in the coming years be led for the first time in its history by a Director who was also a professional librarian.

From the guide to the University of Chicago. Library. Office of the Director. Ernest Dewitt Burton and J. C. M. Hanson. Records, 1910-1928, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)

Ernest DeWitt Burton was born on February 4, 1856 in Granville, Ohio. He was the third son of Nathan Smith Burton and Sarah Johns Fairfield Burton. His father was a Baptist minister and both his parents were teachers. Burton began his college education in 1872 at Griswold College in Davenport, Iowa but after one year he transferred to Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He received his B.A. from Denison in June 1876.

After graduating, Burton taught at a number of schools including Kalamazoo College in Michigan and Norwood School in Ohio, and in 1879 he entered Rochester Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York. His former teacher and mentor, W. Arnold Stevens was now part of the faculty there. Burton spent three years at the seminary, studying the New Testament, and graduated in 1882. He taught New Testament Greek at the seminary the following year. He was ordained a Baptist minister in the summer of 1883 and soon thereafter received a post at the Newton Theological Institution near Boston.

Burton had met Frances Mary Towson in Rochester and when he had secured a permanent position at Newton, they were married. The ceremony was performed on December 28, 1883 by Burton’s father, N. S. Burton. Ernest and Mary Burton had one daughter, Margaret, who shared many of her father’s interests in religious work.

Burton enjoyed his work at Newton where he befriended Charles Rufus Brown, an Old Testament scholar, and Shailer Mathews, a fellow student from Rochester who would later join him at the University of Chicago. In 1889 at Newton he also became friends with William Rainey Harper when the latter was giving a series of lectures in Boston.

When Harper became the president of the newly formed University of Chicago in 1891 he invited Burton to join the New Testament Department. Burton was reluctant to leave Newton, however, and initially refused the invitation. Nevertheless, Harper was persistent, and after three months of negotiations, in March 1892 Burton was elected professor of New Testament Interpretation in the Divinity School, professor of New Testament instruction and head of all New Testament work in the university.

After entering his new post in July 1892, Burton’s responsibilities immediately expanded. He became associate editor of Biblical World, a journal established at the opening of the university. In 1897 he temporarily left this journal to become the editor of the Journal of Theology. Additionally, he became involved in the American Institute for Sacred Literature in 1889, an organization that promoted the systematic study of the Bible outside of schools. The Institute produced pamphlets, leaflets and correspondence courses to encourage popular study of the Bible. Burton, with Harper, the Institute’s organizer, was an enthusiastic participant in the production of these materials

Burton’s research interests in the New Testament and New Testament Greek are reflected in his publications. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek was published in 1893, soon after his arrival in Chicago. With W. A. Stevens he published A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels for Historical Study in 1894 and Records and Letters of the Apostolic Age one year later. Burton was a scholar who had adopted modern historical techniques for the study of the Bible, an approach that some traditionalists criticized. Burton remained unmoved by his critics, saying that he would continue to use and teach the modern approach.

Burton was awarded an honorary D.D. in 1897 by his Alma Mater, Denison University.

Burton’s health was in decline in 1901 and while recuperating at Harper’s request he researched building design and architecture. He collected information on campuses throughout the country and especially on library buildings.

Burton’s New Testament work continued with the publication of Constructive Studies in the Life of Christ with Shailer Mathews in 1901 and Principles and Ideals of the Sunday School also with Mathews in 1908. In the interim between these two books he also published Short Introduction to the Gospels, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, and Principles of Literary Criticism and Their Application to the Synoptic Problem. In addition he produced many essays, articles, and editorials for the Biblical World and the American Journal of Theology.

Besides teaching and writing, Burton was also deeply interested in missionary work. This interest had begun early in his seminary days, and he had seriously considered becoming a missionary. In 1908 he was appointed head of a commission of investigation to the east to explore “educational, social, and religious conditions in the Far East.” The Oriental Investigation Commission was to be organized by the University of Chicago and its expenses met by John D. Rockefeller. Travelling through England, Turkey, India, China, Japan, and Korea, the commission’s journey lasted for more than a year. Burton kept detailed notes of interviews and records of what he learned in his journal and reports. He was also involved in many missionary organizations such as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the Foreign Missions Conference of North America and the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference.

In 1910 Burton became the director of the University libraries. Under his tenure as director, Harper Library was built and the books were reorganized in the Library of Congress system of classification. Besides centralizing the location of many books, the library holdings grew from approximately 218,000 volumes to one million. Burton remained Director of Libraries until his death.

Burton continued to research and write on the New Testament, publishing A Harmony of the Synpotic Gospels in English with Edgar Goodspeed in 1917 among other works. He also maintained his interest in missionary work in the east and was appointed chairman of the China Educational Commission in 1920. The purpose of this commission was to investigate the state of Christian education in China, and Burton traveled with other members of the commission to that country in 1921. Later the commission produced and published a report of their findings.

Burton was elected acting president of the university in January 1923 to replace the retiring Harry Pratt Judson. Subsequently he was elected president in July 1923 and served as president until his death in 1925. Although his tenure in office was short, he made great strides to improve the university through a program of building, an increase in fundraising, and initiating the development of a medical school.

Ernest DeWitt Burton died on May 26, 1925 in Chicago.

From the guide to the Burton, Ernest DeWitt. Papers, 1875-1969, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)

The first period in the history of the University Library, extending from the opening of the University in 1892 to the end of Zella Allen Dixson's administration in 1910, was marked by a continuing debate between proponents of departmental libraries and advocates of a consolidated central library. While decentralization of library resources was a common pattern at many colleges and universities during the late nineteenth century, departmental autonomy developed to an unusual degree at the University of Chicago. The recurring waste and inefficiency of acquisition and cataloging under a departmental system drew repeated criticism during the first eighteen years of the University Library's existence, yet the convenience afforded individual departments and faculty served to insure the retention of dispersed book collections.

The origin of these difficulties lay in William Rainey Harper's initial plan for the organization of the University Library. According to the prospectus issued in the first two numbers of the Official Bulletin (January and April 1891), the University Library was to consist of a General Library and a supporting series of departmental, laboratory, classroom, and extension libraries. The University Librarian, the chief administrative figure, was to be an executive officer of the University working under the direction of the University Council. The Librarian would have direct control of the General Library and supervise the operation of the departmental and auxiliary libraries. Each academic department was to be provided its own library and reading room, developed in consultation with the department head and controlled by an adviser appointed from the faculty.

This plan, never more than a rudimentary outline, was temporarily laid aside once Harper turned his attention to the acquisition of books and the recruitment of library staff. In July 1891, Zella Allen Dixson, the librarian of the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, was appointed Assistant Librarian on a half-time basis, with full-time duties to begin in October 1892. Dixson was to prepare the 10,000-volume B.U.T.S. library for transfer to the University of Chicago campus, and there supervise its integration with the 40,000-volume library being received as a legacy of the Old University of Chicago. Several weeks after Dixson's appointment, Harper augmented these collections with a remarkable purchase made in the course of a European tour: the entire stock of the Berlin book dealer S. Calvary, said to number 450,000 volumes. Although the University ultimately received only 96,650 volumes of books and theses from Calvary, the acquisition of the so-called "Berlin Collection" placed the University Library immediately on par with the largest academic libraries in the country.

The size of these holdings and the complexity of organization envisioned by Harper made the appointment of a strong experienced University Librarian crucial. Harper felt he had found such a personality in Zella Dixson's mentor, Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey classification system and head of the innovative state library school in Albany, New York. During negotiations with Harper in early 1892, Dewey expressed an interest in assuming the dual position of University Librarian and Director of the University Extension, offering as well to bring his library school to the University of Chicago. Negotiations collapsed, however, when the New York state regents reassured Dewey of their support and granted him a substantial raise in salary. With Dewey's services lost and other matters pressing him from all sides, Harper suspended the search for a University Librarian and allowed the day-to-day supervision of the General Library to fall to Zella Dixson.

The most serious problem faced by the University Library during its first year of operation was the lack of an adequate building to house the book collections. Although Henry Ives Cobb's plan for the campus had included an impressive University Hall and Library on Ellis Avenue, no donor was ever found to provide funds for the structure. Instead, the General Library was housed in temporary space on the second floor of Cobb Hall during Autumn Quarter, 1892. In January 1893, the Library was moved into new quarters in a temporary Gymnasium-Library located in the northeast quadrangle of the campus. This one-story building, constructed as quickly and cheaply as possible, held the General Library stacks, offices, and reading room, as well as a women's gymnasium, a men's gymnasium, and the offices of the University Press. Constantly exposed to the dangers of fire and storm, the General collections remained in this overcrowded space until September 1902, when they were transferred to the second and third floors of the new University Press Building at 58th and Ellis. A final move to permanent quarters in Harper Memorial Library did not come until 1912.

Continual problems of space were compounded by the difficulties of inadequate administration. When the Library opened in the fall of 1892, it had been made part of one of the five divisions of the University, the University Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums, which was to include the General and departmental libraries, the General Museum and all special museums, and the laboratories of the University with their apparatus and materials. The division was to be headed by the Director of the University Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums, but this position, like the position of University Librarian, was never filled. In the absence of a Director or a University Librarian, the main administrative responsibilities devolved on the Board of Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums, a fifteen-member body formed in January 1893. The Board, consisting of President Harper, Zella Dixson, and members appointed from the faculty, soon found itself immersed in such matters as the pasting of labels into books, the setting of fines, the wording of gift acknowledgements, and the enforcement of regulations governing the printing and distribution of University theses and dissertations.

By far the greatest portion of the Board's time, however, was devoted to the persistently troublesome issue of departmental libraries. Organized informally as soon as the University opened, these libraries quickly began ordering books and establishing catalogs and rules under the direction of the faculty adviser and his student assistants. Four departmental libraries were already in operation by the end of Autumn Quarter, 1892; by early 1893, there were thirteen, and by Spring Quarter, 1895, the number had increased dramatically to twenty-four. The lack of a central library building and the inadequate space available for the General Library collections might have forced the development of a departmental system in any case, but the strong influence of the departments and their faculty, when combined with the lack of a strong Library administrator, made the drift of events permanent. Departmental libraries were soon scattered all over the growing campus, and provision for them became a standard element of each newly constructed University building. By 1898, departmental libraries held 65,000 volumes housed in forty-two separate rooms in ten buildings: Kent Laboratory, for example had three rooms devoted to the Chemistry, Public Speaking, and Music libraries, while Cobb Hall had eighteen library rooms holding seven departmental collections ranging from History and Political Economy to English.

The problems inherent in such a poorly controlled system were readily apparent. The fact that departmental libraries were administered by a faculty member, not a professional librarian and that the staff consisted solely of graduate students meant that cataloging was often irregular or incomplete. As departments moved frequently from building to building, so did the libraries-so frequently, in fact, and with such little concern for the system that in 1898 the Board directed departments not to move their libraries without first giving notice. Volumes in departmental libraries were not intended to circulate (except over-night in unusual circumstances), but by 1899 the ease of faculty and student access produced such steady losses of books that the Board recommended to the Trustees that a private detective be hired to investigate the situation. Stocks for departmental libraries came in part from departmental purchases, but they also developed through transfers from the holdings of the General Library and the un-cataloged mass of the Berlin Collection. Two or more departmental libraries could thus often claim priority for the transfer of the same volumes as each attempted to fortify its own holdings at the expense of the General collections.

Increasingly, the Board of Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums was forced to enter the fray as an adjudicator of such disputes and of other questions arising from the management of the departmental libraries. In 1895, William I. Thomas of the Sociology Department was appointed Superintendent of Departmental Libraries; he was given "general oversight of the administration of departmental libraries" and charged with examining all departmental book purchase and transfer requests, but his powers were limited to recommendations to the Board on actions it might take. In November 1896, the Board appointed Thomas to head a Committee on the Development of the Departmental Libraries in Connection with the General Library. Thomas's committee, after assessing the complete range of problems generated by the departmental system, recommended that the growth of departmental libraries be rigorously controlled through two new regulations: that 50 per cent of each department's book budget be allocated for books in its field in the General Library, and that each departmental library be limited to 3,000 volumes, after which any new acquisitions would be balanced by transfers back to the General collections. The Board considered Thomas's report in January 1897, but tabled it after an inconclusive discussion.

Efforts to reform the departmental system and plan for the future of the General Library did not resume until two years later. In April 1899, several days after President Harper expressed renewed concern for the physical safety of the General collections, the University Senate appointed a committee consisting of Professors Ernest D. Burton, J. L. Laughlin, Harry P. Judson, T. C. Chamberlin, and John U. Nef to consider the entire Library situation and its relation to educational policy. After surveying alternative systems of organization, the committee recommended that science libraries remain in departmental buildings, but that libraries in the social sciences and modern languages be located in a central library building. Following this lead, the Board of Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums in 1899-1900 directed the consolidation of twelve departmental libraries into three new group libraries: the Classical Group (Comparative Philology, Greek, Latin, and Archaeology); the Historical Group (Political Economy, Political Science, History, and Sociology); and the Modern Language Group (Romance Languages, Germanic Languages, English Languages, and English Literature).

In October 1900, the library question was taken up by yet another University body. During the regular quarterly meeting of the University Congregation, Professors Judson and Burton debated the merits of the departmental system, Judson recommending the greatest possible degree of consolidation, while Burton argued that interdisciplinary needs could be met by a consolidated catalog and a system of underground book-railways linking the General and departmental libraries. Following this discussion, the Congregation polled the departmental library committees and found that a consensus existed to permit science buildings to keep their departmental libraries, but that other departmental libraries would agree to locate in a central building only if their separate identities were maintained.

These conclusions were passed on to the Board of Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums, which in turn appointed Burton, Frederick I. Carpenter, and Zella Dixson as a committee to review them. The committee returned its recommendations to the Congregation in November 1901: that science department libraries be retained in their own buildings; that six Group Libraries (Philosophy and History, Theology and Semitic Languages, Classical Languages, Modern Languages, Mathematics and Astronomy, and Music and Fine Arts) be located in or attached to the General Library; and most significant of all, that the new central library building be located not at the designated Ellis Avenue site but instead on 59th Street at the south edge of campus, near the presumed site of the future social science and modern language buildings. After a second poll of the departments produced no further signs of agreement on the issue of consolidation, the Congregation asked the Board of Trustees to establish a commission to consult with an architect and formulate a proposal for an integrated library system.

The Joint Commission on Library Building and Policy, appointed by the Trustees in June 1902, included President Harper, Trustee Martin Ryerson, and Professors Carpenter, Coulter, Small, Judson, and W. G. Hale, with Burton serving as chairman. After discussions among its members and meetings with architect Charles Coolidge of the firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the Commission submitted its report in August 1902. Quickly approved by the Congregation, the report was endorsed by the Trustees in September 1902. In short, the Commission's plan called for the central library to be housed in a long narrow building on a constricted site at the south edge of the quadrangles. The central library would be surrounded by departmental buildings, each with its own group library, and would be connected to them by bridges. To the west would be erected the Modern Language and Classics buildings, with the Historical and Social Science departments to the east, and Law, Philosophy, and Divinity to the north. The Commission also proposed the creation of a general catalog which would include the holdings of both the General and departmental libraries. The central building itself, housing the General Library, and some departmental stacks, was to provide space for 1,500,000 to 1,750,000 books and permit the growth of the General and Humanities Group collections for the next 75 to 100 years. Shortly after the adoption of the Commission's report, President Harper appointed Burton to tour libraries, universities, and colleges in the eastern United States and report on physical and administrative solutions to library problems adopted at other institutions. Burton's suggestions were incorporated into ongoing planning for the central library, although funds for construction of the building had not yet appeared.

When President Harper died in January 1906, the idea quickly grew that some sort of permanent memorial to his name should be established on campus. John D. Rockefeller agreed to give up to $600,000 toward the erection of a library in Harper's memory if $200,000 could be raised from other sources. This was quickly accomplished through the creation of the Harper Memorial Fund. Ground for Harper Memorial Library was finally broken on January 10, 1910, and the cornerstone was laid on June 14.

1910 was a turning point in the Library's history in another sense as well. Not only was the long-needed central building underway, but, Zella Dixson resigned her position as Associate Librarian effective July 1. Although the official announcement stated that she was leaving to devote her time to private literary interests, it appears likely that her resignation was forced. During her eighteen years as head of the General Library, Dixson had often been the focus of faculty complaints. Her courses in library science, first offered through the Extension in 1897, drew such criticism from the American Library Association that the University dropped them in 1902. Part of Burton's tour of the East in 1903 had in fact been devoted to inquiries about possible successors to Dixson.

If Zella Dixson's departure was a propitious development, the end of the first period in the Library's history was nevertheless marked by irony. President Harper's inability to secure the services of a University Librarian was, as Richard Storr has noted, his greatest and most puzzling failure as an academic organizer, while Harper's devotion to the departmental system had set in motion precisely those forces which made the construction of the library named in his honor so tortuously difficult to achieve. As late as 1903, in the wake of the Library Commission's report, Harper still found himself, in the President's Decennial Report, satisfied with the departmental system: "Without question," he wrote, "this policy is attended with some disadvantages, but upon the whole it may be said that it secures advantages which more than outweigh the disadvantages." Zella Dixson's successors, Ernest D. Burton and J. C. M. Hanson, would have to confront the legacy of this position, the organizational weakness it had encouraged, and the awkward administrative compromises it had produced, embodied now in the permanent form of Harper Memorial Library.

From the guide to the University of Chicago. Library. Office of the Director. Zella Allen Dixson. Records, 1892-1910, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)