The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Lake Forest University

LAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, at Lake Forest, Ill., is an educational corporation, operating four institutions: Lake Forest College, opened in 1876, offering courses in liberal arts and sciences for both men and women; Lake Forest Academy, a boys' preparatory school, opened in 1858; Ferry Hall, opened in 1869, a girls' preparatory school and junior college, named for the Rev. W. W. Ferry, who left a bequest of $35,000 for such a school, and the Lake Forest School of Music opening in 1916, incorporating and extending the courses in music hitherto given in other departments. A summer school of landscape architecture was instituted in 1916. The charter was procured in 1857 by a group of prominent citizens of Chicago under the leadership of the Rev. W. W. Patterson, D.D., who formed the Lake Forest Association in 1856 and purchased 1,300 acres of land on the high wooded shore of Lake Michigan, 28 miles north of Chicago. Here the town of Lake Forest was plotted in 1857, every alternate lot being assigned to the university, 62 acres being set aside as a campus. The original title of the institution was Lind University, but this was changed in 1865 to Lake Forest University. The college, the academy and Ferry Hall have separate grounds and buildings and independent faculties. They are all provided with a complete equipment of dormitories and commons, as well as a modern educational plant. The faculties number 55 and there are 490 students enrolled. The libraries contain 43,000 volumes. The total value of the grounds and buildings is $1,040,000: the endowment amounts to $1,200,000, including the special Bross Fund of $40,000, the income of which is used for lectures similar to the Bampton and Gifford Lectures, and for a decennial prize in the field of Christian apologetics.