Johns Hopkins University - Hullabaloo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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.-, 7 - SOCIAL LIFE AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS. HY lIIERliliR'l' li. ADAMS. An historical sketch of social life at the johns Hopkins Univer- sity may be a fitting introduction to the Class Book of '92, a work which well describes student life and college societies as they are to-day. In this Columbian year of America, when the arts and industries of many lands are seeking place in thc Wor1d's Columbian Expo- sition, there will be established in Chicago a new University. Sixteen years ago, when the centenary ofAmerican Independence was memo- rably celebrated by a World's Fair in Philadelphia,the johns Hopkins University was opened to students in Baltimore. This brief period between 1876 and 1892 has been the spring-time of academic develop- ment in this country. Old colleges have expanded, and new univer- sities have sprung up quickly in Massachusetts, Washington, and California. With the opening of the Johns Hopkins University, students first discovered that a novel type of academic life had appeared in America. It was a life so free, so scholarly and helpful, so full of enthusiasm and high ideals, that it seemed to its participants a veritable Renaissance, an emancipation of the modern mind. Students and teachers felt an eager delight in science for its own sake. Hopkinsians felt like exclaiming, as did the German humanist, Ulrich von Hutten: O jahrhundert! Die Geister erwachen. Die Studien bliihen. Es ist eine Lust zu leben ! One of the original twenty Fellows who, in that centennial year of 1876, came to Baltimore from different lands and institutions, has ll

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PROFESSOR HERBERT B. ADAMS

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recently given fine historic expression to the academic spirit which characterized the revival of learning in this Monumental City. In his suggestive article on Present Ideals of American University Life, published in Sc1'z'67ze1f's Jlffzgczzine for September, ISQI, Dr. Josiah Royce, a graduate of the California and of the johns Hopkins Univer- sities, now a professor of philosophy at Harvard, said: The beginning of the johns Hopkins University was a dawn wherein ' 'twas bliss to be alive.' Freedom and wise counsel one enjoyed together. The air was full of noteworthy work done by the older men of the place, and of hopes that one might find a way to get a little working power one's self There was no longer the dread upon one lest a certain exercise should not be well written or a certain set examination not passed. No, the academic business was something much more noble and serious than such ' discipline' had been in his time. The University wanted its children to be, if possible, not merely well informed but productive. She preached to them the gospel of learning for wisdom's sake, and of acquisition for the sake of fruitfulness. One longed to be a doer of the word, and not hearer only, a creator of his own infini- tesimal fraction of a product, bound in God's name to produce it when the time came. While this scientific, scholarly spirit, this inward zeal for the advancement of learning, was the original and abiding characteristic of all worthy members of the Johns Hopkins University, there has developed among our students and instructors a social life which is not without historic interest. We began where all popular insti- tutions begin, whether in the civic, ecclesiastical or academic world, with general assemblies. By invitation from time to time, trustees, faculty, and students, in fact the whole academic body, met in Hopkins Hall or the University Library. The occasions were varied, but usuallythere were brief informal addresses, after which the assembly resolved itselfinto a committee of the whole for conversation, acquaint- ance-making and other social purposes. Simple refreshments were generally served in the Library. These social reunions still survive, but they are not so frequent as they used to be. At the beginning and end of every academic year there may be seen in the Gymnasium, or elsewhere, overgrown types of our original academic assemblies, which are not without their demo- cratic and public use. Whatever social differentiation the academic body may experience, we should always hold to the student-assembly and folk-mote. Otherwise we are in danger of degenerating into social cliques and academic snobbery. 12