In the name, "Old Main," there is a suggestion of a score of collegiate Gothic quadrangles clustering about their common mother, but these existed only in the dreams of Doctor Todd, and the most tangible expression they found was in a blue-print which was hung in a conspicuous place in his study and presented his scheme of placing the different schools in that hoped-for day when the multimillionaire untied the strings of his money-bags.
"Our founder, Stephen McGraw," Doctor Todd was fond of explaining, "gave us the nucleus of a great educational institution. Our task is to build on his foundation. It is true that in fifty years not a new stone has been laid, but that must not discourage us. We shall go on hoping and working."
Dear old Doctor Todd! He still works on and hopes. He has had bitter disappointments, but they have never beaten him down. Had Stephen McGraw left his money and not his name to the university, the doctor's task would have been easier, for it is not the way of men to beautify another's monument. Once, I remember, a Western capitalist was persuaded to make a great gift to McGraw. He made it with conditions, and for a while our hopes blazed high and with exceeding fury. The collegiate Gothic quadrangles were within our reach, as near to us as the grapes to Tantalus. A half-million dollars was promised us if we raised a like sum within a year. Doctor Todd tried to effect a compromise by accepting two hundred thousand dollars outright, but the philanthropist did not believe in making beggars of institutions by surfeiting them with charity. So we cheered him right heartily and went to work to gather our share. I remember it all very well because I sang in the glee-club concert which we gave in the opera house to help the fund, and because our classroom work was very light, as the president and half of the faculty were canvassing the State for aid. We worked desperately--faculty, alumni, and students. Even Mr. Pound gave ten dollars from his meagre salary, and the Reverend Sylvester Bradley, three times moderator of the synod, a round hundred. With only a month in which to make up a deficit of four hundred thousand dollars, we did not abandon hope. Every morning in chapel the doctor prayed earnestly for a rain of manna or a visitation of ravens, which we knew to be his adroit way of covering a more mercenary petition. But heaven never opened, and a check never fluttered to earth from the only source from which it could be expected. The year ended and our would-be benefactor gave his money outright to Harvard or Yale, I forget which, for a swimming tank or a gymnasium.