The Revival of Georgetown’s Philodemic Society (Part I)

By Manuel A. Miranda, F’82

Georgetown University’s administrations have never given care to its greatest treasure: its student traditions. And so, for two hundred years it has fallen to students and alumni to curate?the University’s most transcendent cultures.?

One such treasure is Georgetown’s Philodemic Society.??The debating society was founded in 1830 as part of the Catholic patriotic project to prepare young Catholics in rhetoric and the eloquence needed for them to participate as full citizens and leaders in the new Republic, where a few decades before, in living memory, they could not vote or hold office.???

The Society claims to be the oldest??collegiate debate society in the Western Hemisphere. That is true, with explanation.??Other early colleges had societies that were founded as literary societies and are older.??William & Mary had fraternal, republican societies (Phi Beta Kappa?and the Flat Hat Club) that no doubt engaged in debate.??But Georgetown's Philodemic was expressly established for debate, taking the fundamental Jesuit instruction in Rhetoric and applying it to Debate as part of the great civic experiment that excited and entertained everyone in the new federal city.??Specifically, the Society’s purpose, memorialized in Latin, translated as “to cultivate eloquence in the defense of liberty.”??Appropriate to a place of learning, the emphasis was on “colit” – to cultivate.??

Being in the federal capital in an age without multimedia entertainment, the Philodemic became a sensation, welcoming visitors for public debates and grand orations and eventually leading historic processions through the city and the Maryland countryside.??Eventually, its alumni would organize Georgetown's first student government and its alumni association, fund the new sporting teams, set in motion a much-needed fundraising apparatus, and build buildings. Society presidents were the top student leaders and frequently rallied students to protest after key debates. This included the Philodemic’s call for the Jesuit administrators to desegregate the College in 1950, which they did.?

The only part of the Philodemic’s??claim on history that is arguable is in the word “continuing.”?

By 1970, when so many of Georgetown's student traditions suffered fatal or near fatal collapse, the Society had discarded it's long-standing tradition of convening regular public on-campus debates.??It continued, however, to field a nationally-competitive team that debated under the name “Philodemic Society.”??The on-campus public debate tradition, however, was lost for over 20 years. There are Philodemic alumni of that period who never even saw the historic Philodemic Hall, much less debate in it.??The Society, however, did exist and did debate with great success in national competitions and had a succession of University-salaried professional coaches and even admissions recruiters.???

The Revival's Start

Over the past 10 years there have been a few attempts by students to write the history of the Philodemic Society,?some of them quite good. ??Some have attempted to address the past 33 years but none have done justice to the history of the Philodemic’s revival beginning in the bicentennial year of 1989. In part this is because would-be historians depended on secondhand stories, and in part because the revivers of the Philodemic were too modest.??Sadly, some of the revivers never got to see the fruit of their efforts as the Philodemic soared again by 1995.??Of course, there is also the proclivity of undergraduates to ignore the efforts of the past, or even that there is a past.??

I have boundless appreciation for the grandeur of the vision and effort put in by the students who revived the Philodemic’s on-campus debate tradition beginning in 1989, as I discuss later, but I would like to think that the revival began in the Spring of 1987 in my living room.?

Jesuit Father Joseph T. Durkin had been my friend since 1982, and later my fraternity brother. When someone suggested to me that I go speak with him, I remember that I had thought the man was dead.??In fact, he was almost 80 and would live at Georgetown until age 100.??I had stared up at his portrait in the Pierce Reading Room in Lauinger Library many times.??

Fr. Durkin was not only a legendary history professor and scholar, he had written two histories of Georgetown University: the “Early Years” and the “Middle Years.”??I would later joke with him on whether he would write the “Final Years.”??

I was the chairman of a committee raising funds to endow scholarships in the name of Rev. Daniel J. Power, S.J., which I am proud to say still gives out four scholarships every year.??Father Power had been a powerful Georgetown Jesuit, well known in Washington as a pioneer of public radio. He had served as faculty advisor to my fraternity?Alpha Phi Omega, which he had kept safe for almost 20 years.

Sitting in the parlor at the old Jesuit community, I asked Fr. Durkin, who I had just met, if he would write a biography of Fr. Dan Power that we could use to raise funds.??Without hesitation, he snapped his fingers, pointed at me and said, “I’ll do it.”???And he did.

Five years later, as Joe Durkin, then 84,??sat in my living room while I washed up and dressed for dinner, I shared my view that all Georgetown’s histories had been written from the perspective??of Jesuit and administrative achievements and that no one had written a history about student culture and traditions, and the role of student clubs.??Quite unplanned, I suggested to the great historian if he would consider undertaking a tutorial course on Georgetown's history from the perspective of student life and leadership as part of Georgetown’s approaching bicentennial celebration.??

Without hesitation, Fr. Durkin snapped his fingers, pointed at me and said, “I'll do it.” And he did.??I claim that moment as the causational start of the revival of the Philodemic Society and its on-campus tradition.??

A few months later, after taking the New York Bar and enjoying a European vacation, I arrived at Georgetown, as I had nine years earlier, for the start of Fall classes. Before starting my legal career in the canyons of Wall Street, I had volunteered to help Fr. Durkin as TA for his bicentennial tutorial course on Georgetown's student history.??Dean of Student Affairs John J. DeGioia had kindly assigned me a free single on campus and I was set.?

?When I arrived, only five students had registered for the course. I spent my first weekend making it 35, and the rest of the month making that manageable.??Eventually, Fr. Durkin would publish the best student-written histories of the course in the landmark?book ?entitled?Swift Potomac’s Lovely Daughter.??Three of the student essays were about the history of debate at Georgetown and, of course, the Philodemic.

One of those essays was by a sophomore who had been one of the five original registrants to the tutorial course.??I first met him in the archives of Lauinger for our first scheduled meeting. I remember thinking that the handsome young man was an unlikely lover of Georgetown’s traditions.??He was from Los Angeles and had gone to Beverly Hills High.??Unlike others, he needed no prompting. He would study the history of the Philodemic, he told me, and proceeded to lay out all that had already collected.??

Two years later he and I sat at a café on the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker Streets well into the morning hours. We discussed, wrote and assembled the Constitution and Bylaws of the revived Philodemic, using old models collected in his binder, together with the oath, rules, and format.??

His name was Eric Marc George, C’90, L’93, and in his Junior year he would become the Philodemic Society’s second founder.??

(Part II of the Revival history is here .)

Manuel Miranda is the founder of the?Alumni Philodemica?and secretary of The Sodality for the Historic Preservation of Philodemic Hall, a new association of Philodemic alumni and supporters.?