There was, however, a lighter side to Machen’s life at Johns Hopkins than is suggested by his brilliant record under illustrious scholars. In view of the emphasis upon graduate study and the general tone of the university, one might have anticipated that a student of his scholarly disposition would have shown little interest in typically American college life. As a matter of fact, however, he was a representative college undergraduate who entered enthusiastically into many extracurricular activities and developed an intense loyalty to his college. In connection with the “Half-Century” drive for funds in 1926, he did not feel that he could conscientiously contribute to the general funds “because the present movement for an increased endowment seems to be intimately connected with the plea for the abolition of an undergraduate department.” He did contribute, however, to the Gildersleeve Fellowship in Greek which was initiated by Professor Miller. His protest was, in part, directed against the fact that the Hopkins alumni would be left in “what is, in American life, the deplorable condition of men without a college.” But, another consideration was that he regarded such a plan as “distinctly a retrograde step in American education. It is a retrograde step, I think, because of the impetus which it gives to the movement away from genuine culture and toward an earlier commencement of specialization in the life of American youths. True progress would lie in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of encouraging the scantily educated sophomore to think that he is fit to enter upon a specialized course and to enjoy that complete liberty of which Dr. Flexner’s article (in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’) speaks, what ought to be done is to tell the student that there is no royal road to learning, that short cuts lead to disaster, and that, underneath all true research, there lies a broad foundation of general culture.”
From: J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir by Ned. B. Stonehouse; reprint (Willow Grove: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2004), p. 35. Originally published in 1954.
Ned B. Stonehouse (1902-1962) was a member of the founding faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1929-1962) as Professor of New Testament. Among his other books are The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ and (as editor) The Infallible Word. He also served as the founding General Editor of the New International Commentary on the New Testament (1946-1962).
