Professor Stuart W. “Bill” Leslie, who was commissioned earlier this year by President Ronald J. Daniels to write the first comprehensive history of the University, sat down with The News-Letter this week to talk about his research and how the project is shaping up.
Leslie, a professor of the history of science and technology, has been given five years to work on the book, during which time he will also teach the freshman seminar “Johns Hopkins: The Idea of a University.”
“I had written histories on Stanford and MIT, so I have some experience,” Leslie said. “Those were very critical histories; this will be critical in a different way. I’ve been here 30-some years and I’ve appreciated the chance to be here, and it will hopefully have some lessons for the future too, about where Hopkins has been, where it is now, and where it might be going.”
A few books about the University’s history have been published in the past.
“There was a very good book written here by a grad student which covers the first decade or so [of the University]. It’s called Pioneer, by Hugh Hawkins, and it’s really the study of Gilman’s vision for Hopkins. The faculty he hired, the fellows he brought here; his idea was that it wouldn’t just be graduates, and it wouldn’t just be undergraduates, there would also be visiting fellows. When you look at the roster of who came here as grad students, it was a who’s who of the intellectual world of 1876. A constellation of scholars,” Leslie said.
Hawkins’ book, however, left out many of the important characteristics of the University, which Leslie plans to address in his history.
“Hawkins’s is a very good account of the first decade or so, but what it doesn’t do, and what I hope to do, is say something more about the intellectual life of the University, because the professors who were here and are here really founded modern discipline,” Leslie said.
Leslie had not studied the history of Hopkins at all before agreeing to write his book. He will officially begin writing next summer, but for now he is researching the University’s most notable professors as well as donors who heavily impacted the University.
In researching professors, Leslie endeavors to grasp some of each department’s subject matter. For example, in order to learn about Basil Gildersleeve, a classical scholar for whom an AMR II house is named, Leslie is reading a book of his essays.
This type of interdepartmental learning is reminiscent of the way that Hopkins used to operate.
“People in those days really talked to one another,” Leslie said. “They would have meetings of the philological society, which sounds very specialized, but professors from all different fields would show up and contribute. People were far less isolated. Today, we’re pretty much in our offices and we’re talking to people on other continents, but really very few of us know what’s going on in the English department downstairs or in the Romance Languages field upstairs, but that wasn’t the case in the early years of the University.”
Leslie also talked about how common it was for undergraduates to have meaningful conversations with the president, an easier feat when there were 500 students in the school as opposed to today’s 6,000.
“Gilman’s belief was that scholarship and publishing is important, but our most important product has been students,” Leslie said.
Leslie’s book will not be organized chronologically. Instead, it will be broken up into chapters describing different aspects of the University’s academic practices that have specifically set it apart from other universities. It will also include the decades of history that Hawkins’ and other more recent books did not cover.
“It brings it up to date, it includes all the schools of the University,” Leslie said. “Hawkins only included what was called the School of Philosophy, now the School of Arts and Sciences, so this book has to include medicine, public health, SAIS, Peabody, etcetera.”
The book will be divided into sections such as “the laboratory,” “the seminar” and “the clinic.” Leslie will show how these methods of academic instruction have been used by the departments and how they have evolved over time.
Leslie will be giving a talk about the research he has done so far at Mason Hall on Nov. 5. With a structure similar to his book, Leslie will utilize the murals in Shriver Hall to teach the audience about some of the University’s more interesting historical trivia.
“I’ve learned great respect from our predecessors, almost an intimidating respect,” Leslie said. “It’s very humbling. You realize how you’re part of an incredible tradition, and everyone knows Hopkins is the first American research university and all that, but I know real appreciation for the breadth of scholarship.”
