Washington by Tom Lewis

Author:Tom Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2015-08-13T16:52:55+00:00

At the turn of the century, higher education in Washington, which had lagged behind that in northern cities, underwent a massive transformation. Throughout the nineteenth century, the capital’s colleges and universities had been slow to develop for a variety of reasons, but the chief one was that the capital lacked the educational zeal of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and many other New England communities. Washington did not lack for fine minds—men such as George Bancroft and Henry Adams, Simon Newcomb and John Hay among them—but their roots and education were elsewhere.

The city also suffered from a fantasy that one day, if only Congress would provide the money, it would have a great national university. The thought had proven to be a mental impediment, as it remained an unrealized, but nonetheless diverting, hope that never seemed to die or become a reality. Many, including George Washington, had shared the same dream. In the 1790s, Samuel Blodget, the creator of the 1793 hotel lottery, had promoted a university scheme before his entanglements with James Greenleaf brought him into bankruptcy; a fanciful 1802 map of the city showed its imaginary building west of the White House (where Washington himself had once thought it should be located). Benjamin Henry Latrobe had produced designs for it in 1816, and some in Congress suggested using James Smithson’s legacy to fund it. The idea resurfaced again in 1872, when Senator George Franklin Edmunds from Vermont proposed that Congress charter and finance a national university to be staffed by faculty from America’s other leading universities. Students and faculty, so the thinking went, would draw upon the capital’s resources to enrich instruction and research. But this time, Harvard’s Charles William Eliot scuttled the plan, in fear that the federal government would have a role in university education, or perhaps that the new institution would rival his in Cambridge.

One institution in the capital actually called itself The National University, despite the fact that its faculty and most of its students were part time. It began as a law and medical school in 1870 with great aspirations and even greater pretensions. Cabinet members, generals, admirals, and diplomats were always in attendance at graduation, as was the president of the United States, who served as ex-officio head of the board of trustees. In the 1880s, John Philip Sousa’s Marine Band regularly played marches at the university’s ceremonies. Aside from its questionable credentials, National had the dubious distinction of having tried to withhold a diploma from the person who become its most illustrious graduate. Though Belva Lockwood had done well in her courses and completed the requirements, her professors and fellow students in the class of 1873 objected to her graduation because they did not wish to share the stage with a woman. Only after she appealed to President Ulysses S. Grant did Lockwood receive her diploma. She became the first woman to establish a law practice in the capital; the first woman to ride a penny-farthing from her law office to the

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