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"Tell you what/' said the banker. ''You go out and get the other $4,900,000 — then come back and we'll talk some more."
Howard dispiritedly related the cou' versation to his colleagues. 'It's plain," he concluded, "that we can't sell an idea. We've got to have some thing tangible."
The late William Volker agreed to purchase a tract of land for a campus. The eight-acre Dickey estate, in Kan' sas City's rolling and wooded Rockhill district, was decided upon.
And on December 16, 1930, a new board of trustees for the University of Kansas City was formed. Ernest Howard was elected chairman.
It was three years, however, before the first student-filled saddle shoe crossed the threshold. The opening was a matter of conjecture until the last minute. National economy was at its nadir. There was considerable speculation as to the number of students who would enroll; whether the j University would then fill a need; I whether it should be opened at all. \ Those were matters Ernest Howard I and the trustees had to decide in the ; spring and early summer of 1933. \ They had an obhgation, they felt, to j operate the school. But how deep I was that obligation? Should they j operate a university for three students? A dozen? Fifty, or five hundred?
Finall)^ they plucked an arbitrary figure out of the air. If 125 fullyquahfied students should enroll, they decided, classes v/ould be held. They personally underVvTOte faculty salaries for the first year, hired Dean O. G.
September, 1948
Sanford and 18 instructors, and announced an opening date.
Long months stretched flat across a shimmering Midv^estern summer, but with the first soaking September rain, students came, 264 of them to crowd the three-story converted mansion with the raucous noises of young minds at work. The University of Kansas City was in session.
At first, it was a touch and go operation. Although 30 to 40 per cent of all Kansas City high school graduates go on to college (about twice the national average), it took a while for the idea of a four-year university right at home to penetrate.
Still, Mr. Howard and the trustees did not actively soHcit students. They wanted the growth of the infant institution to be natural, not forced. They assembled a good faculty, built a sound curriculum and worked endlessly to enlist financial aid.
In 1936, Dr. J. Duncan Spaeth was appointed first president. Summer courses were offered and proved popular.
Two years later, 3 3 -year-old Clarence R. Decker assumed the presidency. He was the youngest university president in the United States, and president of the youngest university.
That fall, enrollment climbed to 1,500, and the Kansas City School of Law, founded in 1895, became the School of Law of the University.
The student body continued to grow, and so did the school. In 1941, the Kansas CityWestern Dental College, fifth largest in the country, became the School of Dentistry. Tv/o