George Washington University - Cherry Tree Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY : A SESQUICENTENNLAL ESSAY Fig. 8 — The Law School of the Columbian University, where classes were held from 1865 to 1884.

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: A SESQUICENTENNIAL ESSAY much new construction. The size of the governmental establishment did not shrink. New activities such as those of the Pension Bureau demanded tremendous staffs. These civil servants represented a new clientele for higher education. They found themselves in a newly expanded town which had not yet caught up with the amenities of a great city. Opportunities for amusement and cultural enrichment were conspicuously absent. TURN OF THE CENTURY WASHINGTON. They could lounge in the hotel lobbies at Willard’s, the Metropolitan or National and gape at the great in the world of politics, at Indian chiefs here to petition the Great White Father, or the picturesque characters that the city has never lacked. There were Fine eating places like Harvey’s and famous saloons like 1234. But a fellow’s capacity, financial, gastronomic, and alcoholic, had limits. Those whose thirst was for self-improvement found an opportunity in the existence of a college coupled with the shortness of their working day. The Trustees, sensing the demand, organized experimentally a few after-hours courses on a self-supporting basis. The response was so gratifying, that they began to develop later classes for employed students. The part-time student became a major consideration in college plan- ning. Many of these young men had caught the Washington fever and saw through the study of law the gateway to a political career of eminence and power. The Law School was reopened in 1865. Fig. 7 — The S.E. corner of University Hall. The building in which Law School classes were held between 1884 - 1899, stood at the corner of 15th and H Streets. THE MOVE FROM COLLEGE HILL. The city had grown up to the college boundary. The institution was in dire financial straits. The plant was run down and there was no money for its wholesale renovation. Why not sell College Hill, take the money, build a plant in the heart of the city and in this convenient location build up the part-time student clientele which would use the same quarters used earlier for full-time students, and thus add vastly to revenue from tuition? This philosophy was adopted. Gradually on H Street, between 13th and 15th Streets, all of the departments were located in newly built structures. What had been a resident college now became an urban university. For not only had the name Columbian College been changed to Columbian University, but the offerings of the University had been broadened to a true university scope. Unfortunately, however, H Street did not become the royal road to affluence. What was gained from the sale of College Hill fell woefully short of the cost of the new and ambitious construction downtown. The necessary demands for giving a wide variety of courses, many on a graduate level, prevented the profitable conduct of instruction that had been hopefully but speciously expected. to a hoped for solution. The population of the city had mushroomed in size. The war had brought vast hordes of civil servants and military to the city. There had been Fig. 6 — • Sketch of Civil War College Hill, drawn by George Durfee. Durfee a Union soldier was encamped in the area in the Spring of 1862.

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: A SESQUICENTENNIAL ESSAY When the massive burden of debt reached the limit of the University’s credit, rapid and radical surgery was necessary to save a sinking patient. All but the Medical School property was sold and even a mortgage was placed on that to get the institution out of the red and insure the restoration of the endowment. It was under the impact of that crisis that, excluding the medical department, the University in 1912 transferred all of its activities into a single building at 2023 G Street in the old, decaying First Ward. Slow and patient acquisition of property around that modest nucleus, and the development of a university plan, coupled with the growth of the city, the erection of large federal and private structures in the area, the creation and extension of parks along the river and the central location have placed the University in an area of great value and historic significance located on a multi-million dollar site. By happy circumstances the developing city has placed the University in a unique position, too easily realized to require description here. Fig. 9 — The George Washington University in 1912, located on Eye Street, between Vermont Avenue and 16th Street. All departments except Chemistry, which was in the Medical School were located in these six buildings. EVOLUTION INTO TODAY. Finally, financial ele- ments have been involved in much that has been said about the first two great conditioning elements in the University ’s evolu- tion — the church and the city. But something must be said, perhaps repeated, a- bout finance as a condi- tioning factor. During more that the first century of its existence, the institution never had any money to grow on. It ran constantly into debt, it bailed itself out through herculean efforts only to get in debt again, with more bailing out. The reason why the institution passed out of its Baptist control was financial, not doctrinal. If Baptist money had been available at anytime during the nineteenth century to underwrite the institution the secularization of the University would certainly have been long postponed. The only operation that was ever fully funded in advance was the purchase of College Hill. The construction of its first buildings forced it to incur a heavy debt. It had to float a loan For operating expenses to begin its activities. But the dictates of fate were speaking the voice of poverty when College Hill was sold, and when the H Street property was disposed of. In all of this change, the great continuing force has been a faculty which waited for its salary when it had to, which took partial pay when no more was available, which moved from College Hill to midtown, to Foggy Bottom, which included inspired teachers and which today participates in the good fortune which time has brought. The institution has always been in transition, and is today. Its long history of a century and a half has demonstrated its ability to adjust to meet today, and to remember yesterday as it girds itself for tomorrow. — Dean Elmer Louis Kayser University Historian