Johns Hopkins University - Hullabaloo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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The early organization of the University by departments, and various other influences, individual and social, gave rise to a large number of associations, seminaries, societies, conferences, journal- clubs, reading parties, conversation classes in French and German, Shakespeare and Browning clubs, a field club, an archaeological society, etc. These various organizations generally embraced both instructors and students in kindred departments or congenial groups. Sometimes special reading clubs met in a professor's private library. Professor Charles D. Morris, almost from the very beginning of the University, used to invite to dinner at his house on Sundays little companies of graduate students from different departments in order that men might become better acquainted. Later on, there met every Friday evening at his house a class in Greek. After an hour's session the class adjourned to meet invited guests from other fields of study. The professor always provided an oyster supper, with beer and cigars. Some department parties have taken the form of laboratory or library teas. The biologists, influenced perhaps by japanese student- example, were at one time very artistic tea-drinkers. Some of them became so refined that they used iridescent champagne glasses for tea-cups. Dr. Samuel F. Clark became famous for his laboratory teas at a young ladies' college in Massachusetts, where he went to lecture before he became professor in Williams College. Dr. Hart- well's teas in the Director's office at the Gymnasium will not be forgotten. The Historical Seminary, from time to time,has had social sessions, with guests from Bryn Mawr School and the Woman's Col- lege of Baltimore. President Gilman has entertained, at the Univer- sity and in his own home, many companies of students, graduates and undergraduates, companies small and great,-students, grouped by departments, by specialties, nationalities, States, sections of country, in short by almost every available totem. Individual professors, trustees, and Baltimore families have shown varied but unceasing kindness and attention to Hopkinsians from the beginning of our student-life in this proverbially hospitable city. Soon after the opening of the University, in 1876, a little group of fellows and instructors began to hold Saturday evening sessions for literary and social purposes. For the first hour we read and dis- cussed in German some of the prose writings of Lessing. VVe then adjourned to a private room over a restaurant in West Madison Street to discuss oysters and other subjects. The second session proved so much more enjoyable than the first that other men joined our number, and we soon constituted a kind of German club or Saturday evening 13

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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

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Kneipe. The German language continued to be spoken. Many of our original fellows and instructors had studied in Germany, and were familiar not only with the German language, but also with German customs. There was very little formality in our meetings. We had no presiding officer, no constitution except the unwritten law of the Kneipe. Literary exercises and all professed objects of culture were excluded by common consent. Themain object of assembly was good-fellow- ship. There were in those days no annual dues. Individual mem- bers paid for what they consumed. Dutch treat was the law. The Kneipe was an esoteric body, but at the same time more or less peri- patetic. It had no local habitation, simply a name. We met in upper private rooms of restaurants on Madison and Eutaw streets. We wandered at will from one meeting-place to another with perfect unconcern. This German club flourished for about two years, when for some reason it fell into what Mr. Cleveland used to call innocuous desuetudef' Some said the club suffered from the growing tendency of young Hopkins instructors toward matrimony. The social attrac- tions of Baltimore certainly began to lure influential members into other associations. On the 16th ofjanuary, I87Q, there met by invitation in the spaci- ous apartment of two senior fellows, in anaancient mansion on Frank- lin Street, a pleasant company of survivors from the old German club. Many new men had come among us, and it was determined to break the thickening ice between the different departments by a social reunion. In those private rooms, belonging to the Sihler brothers, assembled asjolly a company of young fellows as ever met in a secret society hall ofan American college. There were representatives of the oldest and best fraternities in this country, but all ancient rivalries were now forgotten, all jealousies were laid aside. There were men in that gathering from Harvard and Yale, from Amherst and Princeton, from Michigan University and the University of Virginia, from a dozen American institutions of prominence, and from famous German univer- sities like Heidelberg, G6ttingen,and Leipzig. Some were American- ized Germans, and some were Germanized Americans. In short, it was a cosmopolitan society of very good fellows. Without describing the exact nature of our proceedings, it may be said that the singing of student songs, German and English, was a conspicuous feature in the programme. Even secret society songs were given away in the most reckless manner. It was very delightful to hear men from different colleges vying with one another in some , 14