Swift Potomac's Lovely Daughter

Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown LAUINGER MEMORIAL LIBRARY GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY REV. ]OSEPH IDURKIN, SJ. COLLECTION IN AMERICAN STUDIES D D Q.D Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Swift Potomac's Lovely Daughter Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown This volume is part of a series of publications resulting from the Bicentennial celebration of Georgetown University (1789-1989). The seminar on which it draws was sponsored and supported by Georgetown University's Bicentennial Office. Sharon Romm SERIES EDITOR Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Swift Potomac's Lovely Daughter^ Two Centuries at Georgetown through Students' Eyes Joseph Durkin, SJ. Editor Georgetown University Press Content made availableWashington by Georgetown, D.C. University Press and Digital Georgetown GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SEP 28 1990 Copyright © 1990 by Georgetown University Press All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Swift Potomac's Lovely Daughter / Joseph Durkin, editor, p. cm. ISBN 0-87840-501-1 1. Georgetown University—History. 2. Georgetown University— Students—History. I. Durkin, Joseph. LD1961.G52S95 1990 89-48744 378.753—dc20 CIP Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Contents Foreword ix Preface xi I. The Written Word History of the Georgetown College Journal Christopher Donesa 3 Poetry of Georgetown Students Collected by William F. Tehan, S.J. 1845-1850 Andrea Querques 31 The Educated Catholic Gentleman: A Collection of Writings Josephine Lecraw 61 Religious and Ethical Teachings at Georgetown University—Reflected in Student Writings Deborah Wallace 87 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown vi /Contents II. The Spoken Word The Cultivation of Eloquence at Georgetown College: A History of the Philodemic Society from 1830-1890 Eric M. George 103 The Philodemic Debating Society: The Pursuit of Eloquence and Truth from 1894 to 1939 David E. Cannella 121 A Glimpse of the Philodemic Debating Society (1938-1968) Marc B. Stahl 135 Dramatics at Georgetown: The Mask and Bauble Society Thomas Steinthal and Daniel Hood 159 III. Students' Lives The Yard President, Symbol of Tradition and the Conservative Stance: A True Georgetown Gentleman Mark Johnson 181 Prologue: A Bad Day for Tradition Jonathan Bacal 203 Early Student Customs, Curricula, and Relaxations William Devaney 215 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Contents I vii The Social Traditions and Institutions at Georgetown University in the Twentieth Century Kevin G. Mahoney and Mark C. Corallo 221 Community Service at Georgetown, A Longstanding Tradition Jennifer L. Smith 235 The Georgetown College Cadets John Lombard and Justin Davis 249 Coeducation at Georgetown Margaret Dowley and Jessica Seacor 261 Contributions of, and Benefits Received by Black Students at Georgetown James Griffin and John Shumake 285 The History and Influence of Latin American Students at Georgetown University Laura Clauson 293 IV. Sporting Life Pre-Varsity Sports at Georgetown Joseph Wagner 313 The History of the Georgetown Crew: Guardian of the Blue and Gray Lawrence H. Cooke 321 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown viii I Contents Highlights of Georgetown Track and Field Sports and Baseball Edward F.McHugh 341 Football at Georgetown: Some Highlights Hugh Golden 347 Basketball at Georgetown College Michael Aiken 361 V. Books, Buildings, and Test Tubes The Classics at Georgetown Matthew M. Yaeger 369 Gaston Hall: The Making of History Eileen D. Roberts 381 The Healy Building: Instilling a Belief in Georgetown University Jeffrey Renzulli 405 The History of Chemistry at Georgetown University (1789-1900) Liam S. Donohue 421 The Chemo-Medical Research Institute of Georgetown University (1931-ca. 1960) Antoinette Wannebo 441 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Foreword It is often said that young people do not have a sense of history. If that is true in general, it is not true for the members of the student seminar who produced the historical essays in this volume. They share with us their sense of being part of the living history of Georgetown University during the Bicentennial Cele- bration of its founding in 1789. This book has its origin in a meeting of the Bicentennial Com- mittee wherein Father Joseph T. Durkin, S.J., Georgetown's sen- ior historian, suggested as a Bicentennial project that students be invited to explore the University's history. In what has to be some sort of record for a quick response in an academic institu- tion, that suggestion became an oversubscribed student research seminar in a matter of days. We expected about a dozen students to enroll. But Father Durkin, in his Pied Piper manner, welcomed over thirty students to participate in the ambitious project of searching the University Archives for information about students and their varied activities in Georgetown's first two hundred years. The result is this fascinating study of what today's students find interesting and significant in the historical record of yester- day's students. These reports can stir many a lively debate on whether campus and students are better or worse today—in fact, whether deep down they are all that different. Between the lines, we sense the excitement of discovery and the realization of the importance of the past in understanding the present. And occasionally, we are told of the lessons we might learn for the future. Inevitably, there are gaps in the record and some of our questions are left unanswered, but that merely whets our appe- Content made available by Georgetown University Press and DigitalIX Georgetown x I Foreword tite for Father Emmett Curran's definitive history of the Univer- sity, the first volume of which will appear shortly. This student history, a collection of papers from a faculty seminar on the Georgetown experience, and Father Curran's first volume are among the first books to appear as part of the printed record of Georgetown's Bicentennial celebration. At this writing, six issues of the Bicentennial Almanac and various com- memorative programs have appeared, as well as a pictorial es- say Georgetown: A Meditation on a Bicentennial. The proceedings of many of the Bicentennial conferences are being prepared for publication. All of these books will form an impressive Bicen- tennial Series. I am most grateful to the men and women who have made this Bicentennial year the success it has been. In particular, I wish to thank Father Joseph Durkin, S.J., his student historians, and Father John Breslin, S.J., the director of the Georgetown University Press, for their collaboration on this important Bicen- tennial publication. CHARLES L. CURRIE, SJ. Director of the Bicentennial Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Preface On the premise that no part of a university is more important than its students (with the teaching faculty coming in a close second) the editor of the present book believed that the students should participate prominently, and recognizably, in our Bicen- tennial celebration. The editor, in what he has finally persuaded himself was not for him an unfortunate moment, suggested that a selected group of students should be let loose—with appropriate direc- tion—in the Georgetown University Archives with the aim of mining those precious records for information about the history of the undergraduate schools. It was agreed that, in this quest, two conditions would be honored: (1) the data excavated would be either in substance or emphasis news, and (2) it would be, as far as possible, relative to student activities such as debating, drama, athletics, social service involvement, student customs, and so forth. Twofold also were the goals of the editor: besides that of add- ing important details to the general history of the University, he wished to witness the very special joy in the faces of the young researchers as they realized they had discovered something long lost in the darkness of the past. This deep and even thrill- ing satisfaction, as every real scholar knows, is inimitable: it is what makes intellectual work a constant celebration of the mind's power to create. The following were some of the questions which the researchers asked the documents to answer—with, in many in- stances, unexpected results: Did student interest in the plight of the needy outside cam- Content made available by Georgetown University Press and DigitalXI Georgetown xii I Preface pus begin in the 1960s and not before that time? What were the contributions of our black students to the cultural life of the campus, and, generally speaking, have black students felt "at home" here? What were some of the highlights in George- town's athletic history? Was a Hoya quarterback-receiver com- bination the actual invention of football's forward pass? How did it feel to be a female student at Georgetown after 1969? What was the quality of the student writing in the Georgetown College Journal? The response of the Archives to this last query is one of the most surprising of all, as well as the unique manner in which the magazine was created and managed. Which student customs and relaxations of the nineteenth century are par- ticularly interesting,

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