{"id":3885,"date":"2018-02-27T17:17:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T21:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=3885"},"modified":"2018-02-27T17:24:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T21:24:28","slug":"mark-hopkins-on-education-1841","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/mark-hopkins-on-education-1841\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Hopkins on Education (1841)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Williston Seminary in 1841, at the time of its dedication. The single school building, the neoclassical “White Seminary,” is at right. Next to it is the “Town Hall,” formerly the Meeting House, but no longer functioning as such since the construction of the First Congregational Church, at left, in 1836. At this time there were no buildings on the west side of Main Street. The Village Green and Seminary Grounds extended down to the Manhan River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Mark Hopkins (National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1892)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On December 1, 1841, Williston Seminary opened its doors to its first group of students.\u00a0 For the dedication address, Samuel Williston invited the Rev. Mark Hopkins (1802-1887), President of Williams College, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, and one of the nation’s leading thinkers on education and educational reform.\u00a0 Hopkins was known as a gifted teacher, who favored Socratic engagement over lectures.\u00a0 One of his Williams prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, President James A. Garfield, commented that an ideal college comprised “Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.”<\/p>\n

True to the oratorical tradition of the time, Hopkins spoke for well over an hour.\u00a0 His subject was the condition of education in the United States, of the need for a variety of reforms, and how Williston Seminary, of which he was a founding Trustee, might address them.\u00a0 It is a fascinating and valuable document.\u00a0 (Readers who wish copies of the full text may email<\/strong><\/a> the archivist.)<\/p>\n

One passage, on pages 7 and 8 of the printed speech, concerns the importance of an educated citizenry, arguing that anything less constitutes a danger to democracy itself.\u00a0 It is reproduced below. \u00a0 Notwithstanding the optimism of the last excerpted sentence, Hopkins’ words continue to resonate, 176 years after he spoke them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A portion of page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
A portion of page 8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“That the people can be thus educated there is no doubt. The question whether they will be, is of greater interest than any other.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,25],"tags":[471,469,472,470,468],"class_list":["post-3885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-founders","category-williston-seminary","tag-471","tag-dedication","tag-democracy","tag-education","tag-mark-hopkins"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3885"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4935,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions\/4935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}