The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University. Volume I: From Academy to University, 1789-1889 by Robert Emmett Curran, S.J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS103 TheBicentennialHistory ofGeorgetown University. Volume hFromAcademy to University, 1 789-1889- By Robert Emmett Curran, SJ. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1993- Pp. xviii, 445. »25.00.) In view of Georgetown's special status as the nation's oldest Catholic institution of higher education, and the only one founded by the first Catholic bishop, John Carroll, it is fitting that the first volume of R. Emmett Curran's bicentennial history of Georgetown sets a new standard of excellence for institutional biographies of Catholic colleges and universities. And to have done this is no small accomplishment, given the high quality of other recent works in the field by C. Joseph Nuesse, Joseph B. Connors, Donald P. Gavin, and Gerald McKevitt, SJ., to mention only the most outstanding.1 For that matter, it required a certain boldness on Curran's part to include the first century of Georgetown's history in his bicentennial project, since that span of time had already been covered in two quite competent books by John M. Daley, SJ. (Georgetown University: Origins and Early Years [1957]), and Joseph T. Durkin, SJ. (Georgetown University: TheMiddle Years, 1840—1900 [1963]). Curran's decision to cover the whole of Georgetown's history derived from his conviction that "there was a distinct value to a new, integrated account of the institution" from its eighteenth-century beginnings as an academy to its present status as a complex multiversity. Three more specific considerations reinforced this conviction: ( 1 ) the availability of sources Daley and Durkin could not use; (2) the development of new techniques of historical investigation , especially prosopographic; and ( 3) Curran's desire to set Georgetown's history more solidly in the context of the ecclesiastical, educational, and regional communities to which it belongs (p. xv). The book at hand triumphantly vindicates his decision to go back once more over the ground covered by Daley and Durkin, and makes us look forward more eagerly than ever to the second volume, which will reveal a century ofGeorgetown's history about which virtually nothing is now known. Curran's organization of the first century is beautifully symmetrical (three "parts" of four chapters each, with each chapter in turn divided into labelled 1C.Joseph Nuesse, The Catholic University ofAmerica·A CentennialHistory ( 1990); Joseph B. Connors,/OHraey towardFulfillment: A History ofthe College ofSt Thomas ( 1986); Donald P. Gavin,/o*n Carroll University: A Century ofService ( 1985); Gerald McKevitt, S.J., The University of Santa Clara: A History, 1851-1977 (1979). Other recent works deserving of notice are Charles F. Donovan, SJ., David R. Dunigan, S.J., and Paul A. FitzGerald, SJ., History ofBoston College (1990), an updating of Dunigan's 1947 study of the same name; William H. Dunn, C.S.C., Saint Edward's University: A CentennialHistory ( 1986); and HermanJ. Muller, S.J., The University ofDetroit, 1877— 1977: A CentennialHistory (1976). Among somewhat older works William B. Faherty, SJ., Better the Dream: Saint Louis: University and Community, 1818-1968 (1968) is of special value. 104BOOK REVIEWS subsections, usually ten to twelve in number), and he succeeds nicely in combining narrative movement with comprehensiveness of coverage. The designations he applies to the three parts—"The Academy: Beginnings, 1773— ¦ 1830"; "From Academy to College, 1830-60"; and "From College to University , 1860—89"—reflect Curran's sense of the main stages of institutional growth. He is, however, quite well aware of the ambiguous nature of these classificatory labels, and his division seems based more on the dominant academic ethos of each period than on its specific organizational or curricular features (although the latter are, of course, dealt with very fully). The story Curran tells reveals anything but an easy, continuous, built-in progression from academy to college to university. On the contrary, one is struck repeatedly by the uncertain, up-and-down rockiness of Georgetown's development, and by the crucial role of individual leaders in moving it ahead, impeding its progress, or in a few cases endangering its existence. The latter peril was greatest in the early days, and Curran's research fully confirms John Carroll's indispensable contribution as founder, the almost fatal setback inflicted by the rigidities of Leonard and Francis Neale, and the...