Shown above is the tombstone of
Rev. Edmund A. Walsh, S.J.,
in the Jesuit Cemetery on the Main Campus of Georgetown
University.
This was the cover of the concluding report for the Conference on the School of Foreign Service
that in October 1968 had been the University's official celebration of
the
50th Anniversary
of the founding of the Georgetown Foreign Service School.
I was the director of that Conference and the author of this
Report.
Carroll Quigley recounts how, in 1918-19, the School of Foreign Service was founded at G.U.
(N.B. Notwithstanding claims to the contrary, the SFS was
not the first such school in America.
The George Washington University already had a "School of
Diplomacy" by the year 1900.
Furthermore, the founder of the SFS was not the Rev. Edmund A. Walsh,
S.J.
He was not even in D.C. at the time when G.U. decided to
establish the SFS.)
The most important part of the story
is how, during the 1950s and the 1960s,
the G.U. Administration undermined the School of Foreign
Service.
(N.B. This was accomplished through a three-step
process
beginning in 1951,
when the G.U. Administration
took away the SFS's budgetary autonomy,
accelerating in 1955,
when the G.U. Administration
merged the SFS's faculty into the College's,
and culminating in 1970,
when the G.U. Administration hired as SFS Dean
the young Dr. Peter F. Krogh
conditioned on his agreeing that henceforth
the school's curriculum would be controlled
by the departments of G.U.'s College of Arts and Sciences.
The most unusual commencement
address ever given at Georgetown University
was one that (you can be sure) will never be publicized by G.U.'s
officials.
This was the SFS Tropaia Speech given in June 1970 by graduating
senior Harvey J. Volzer, '70,
excoriating both his classmates and the school for their
dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Bibliography:
|
Rev. Edward B. Bunn, S.J., ed. On The Hilltop: Reminiscences and Reflections on their Campus Years by Georgetown Alumni. Washington: Georgetown University, 1966 |
|
Joseph T. Durkin, S.J., Swift Potomac's Lovely Daughter: Two Centuries at Georgetown through Students' Eyes. Foreword by Charles L. Currie, S.J. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990. |
|
Rev. Louis J. Gallagher, S.J. Edmund A. Walsh, S.J.: A Biography. New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc, 1962 |
|
The Parr-Smith Archives. (The records of John F. Parr, SFS Dean 1958-61, and of D. Harrison Smith, SFS History Teacher 1956-61). |
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Carroll Quigley. "Is Georgetown University Committing 'Suicide'?" The HOYA. Friday, April 28, 1967, pp. 8-9. |
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Carroll Quigley, Ph.D. "Father Walsh as I Knew Him" PROTOCOL. 1959. pp. 7-11. |
|
Seth P. Tillman. Georgetown's School of Foreign Service: The First 75 Years. Washington: Georgetown University, 1994 |
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