Wabash’s Monument to Liberty and Education: The History and Meaning Behind the Goodrich Room
There is a common phrase that is often said about walls: “If only they could speak.” If you have ever ventured inside the Goodrich Room on the second floor of the Lilly Library, you will immediately notice that it is a unique room. As far as I’m concerned, it is one of a kind. Many distinctive features stand out to the observer: the size (it is approximately sixty feet long, forty feet wide and twenty feet high), the large oval table which can be divided into smaller sections to convey group discussions, and the limestone walls inscribed with important people and events from history. The room is often used as a quiet place to study, as well as for Student Senate and faculty meetings. Yet, the room is more than a place to get some homework done or to hold meetings. It is a testament to the history of freedom. It is, in a sense, a monument, designed to act as a tool for students to understand and interpret the historical evolution behind the idea of individual liberty. You maybe asking yourself, “Why was this room built in the first place? What is its intended purpose? And why build it at a small liberal arts college for men in the middle of Indiana, of all places?” To arrive at the answers to these questions, one must first examine the architect behind the room, Pierre F. Goodrich.
Photography by Adam Current '11
The Goodrich family was one of Wabash’s greatest supporters, both financially and institutionally. The family is credited with numerous financial donations that have helped make Wabash what it is today. James P. Goodrich, father of Pierre as well as the 29th Governor of Indiana, contributed to the building of the Pioneer Chapel and also gave the dedication speech on January 10, 1929. He became a member of the board of trustees for Wabash in 1904 and received an honorary Master of Arts degree at the 1915 graduation ceremony for his dedicated service to the college. In 1937, he contributed $150,000 for the construction of what was then Wabash’s science hall, now known as the Goodrich building. When he died in 1940, James Goodrich left Wabash with a sum of $100,000. While Wabash was fortunate to have received the generous philanthropy of James Goodrich, I should note that he was not a Wabash alum. To my surprise, he attended Asbury College in Greencastle, Indiana (now known as DePauw University) for two years, but was forced to drop out due to lack of funds to pay for his tuition. It seems somewhat ironic that one of Wabash’s greatest contributors attended its rival school, and later down the line his son would attend Wabash.
The life of Pierre F. Goodrich was one full of dedication to the promotion of academic excellence and liberty. He graduated from Wabash in 1916 and led a successful business career, giving back to the college. While he contributed financially to the college, his greatest contribution dealt with advancing Wabash’s academic programs. Former Wabash President Frank Sparks described Pierre Goodrich as having “a profound influence on the intellectual life of Wabash in the post-World War II era.” Goodrich was very involved in the Great Books movement during the 1940s. Along with Frank Sparks and Byron Trippet, Goodrich traveled the country investigating various Great Books programs. After having explored a series of programs at various colleges and universities across the country, Wabash developed its own version of the Great Books program in 1946. We know it today as Senior Colloquium.
Yet Goodrich’s greatest contribution to Wabash began in March 1957 with the construction of the Goodrich Seminar Room. The room was later dedicated on June 4, 1959. Over two thousand books were donated from Goodrich’s personal library, many of whose authors’ names are inscribed on the walls. In a letter written in November 1961 to Donald E. Thompson, college librarian at the time, Goodrich explains the purpose behind the room: “It is hoped that the individual who enters this room will immediately feel the humbling presence of the centuries of written communication portrayed by the walls… [and have] the desire to use the books on the shelves plus one’s own experience in life to better understand it. If you are now sufficiently humbled and sufficiently curious you can explore [these] questions: What am I? Can I? Ought I?” The books that are shelved around the walls are arranged in chronological order, “on the theory that man at any given point of time is influenced by the conversation which he is able to find in the written records of the past and in current discussion if he wishes to better understand.”
The names and events that can be seen on the walls illustrate the development of freedom over time, the fragility of civilization, and humankind’s enduring need for liberty. The books that line the walls are a collection of works that represent the long conversation that has endured over the years pertaining to mankind’s struggle against tyranny. While the inscriptions that adorn the walls exemplify the significance behind the important figures and events in the history of liberty, it is not by any means a definitive list. It only suggests the many possible approaches to gaining a better understanding of the evolution of liberty. Goodrich spent a great amount of time and research exploring the various cultures from around the world and across time. One can see that the cultures of Mesopotamia, India, China, and the Islamic world are represented alongside various western cultures, all of which shared a common appreciation for the development and preservation of liberty.
There are two unique symbols on the walls which stand out amongst the numerous names and events. When you walk in and face the right side of the eastern wall, you will encounter a cuneiform inscription. This is considered to be the first recorded instance of the word “liberty” being written down. Pronounced amagi, or literally “return to the mother,” the inscription is a replica taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash. According to the noted scholar Samuel Noah Kramer in his work From the Tablets of Sumer, “Lagash was the site of the first recorded social-reform movement. Once considered a relatively free society of farmers, cattle breeders, boatmen, fishermen, merchants, and craftsmen, the Lagashites found that a change in political power had stripped them of their political and economic freedoms and subjected them to heavy taxation and exploitation by wealthy officials.” The exact nature of the meaning behind the term remains unclear, but it is thought that due to the heavy taxation imposed on the citizens of Lagash, families were forced to sell their children to the state in order to pay off their debt. Under the reforms of Urukagina, whose name can be seen to the right of the inscription, those children that had been sold off to the state were returned to their mothers. This symbol also serves as the logo for the Liberty Fund, an organization created by Goodrich in 1960 whose mission is to “encourage a deeper understanding of the requisites for restoring and preserving the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.”
Another symbol that stands out is the radiant sun that adorns the left side of the eastern wall. The sun sets in a precarious position: is it at the beginning of the timeline or at the end? Does it reflect the knowledge that has been endowed upon humanity or does it symbolize the lamp that lights the path of uncertainty of the future? Goodrich made this an ambiguous aspect of the room and left it up to the observer to decide.
Goodrich also designed the room also to serve as a tool that allows students and teachers to engage in Socratic dialogue, something Goodrich believed strongly in and saw as an important feature of a liberal arts education. He states that the Socratic discussion offers an “opportunity for both breadth and depth of education for those who have the will to use this activity whether they be a professor who supposedly knows all there is to know or the student who is supposed to learn.”
With the recent decision to reduce all college courses from three to two, I think it would be pertinent to mention a few things regarding the change. The replacement of Cultures and Traditions with a new course will not damp the spirit of the liberal arts here at Wabash. As my colleague, Adam Brasich, pointed out in the previous issue, the process by which the liberal arts is practiced is not a static concept nor is it universal, but rather changes over time and is practiced differently across the world. I would argue that the spirit behind the liberal arts remains the same, but the implementation and practice changes due to the progress that is encountered in life.
That being said, the new course has been devised to “foster student engagement with fundamental questions of humanity, from multiple different perspectives and with texts (broadly defined) from multiple disciplines” and “To foster a sense of community starting with the freshman class and extending throughout the college. The course will be guided by the overarching question of what it means to be human.” This is nothing revolutionary. It is an age old question that is often asked and should continue to be asked. Even Pierre Goodrich stated in his Education Memorandum that, “In order to arrive at a concept of education, it is necessary to consider the nature of man as a guide toward the search for…ultimate truth concerning man and the universe—man’s cause, purpose, and destiny in the universe; hypothetical truth or working truth; and revealed truth; [and] the capacity of human beings to act, to will, to adjust themselves, to live, and to succeed in a society of free and responsible [individuals].” What better way to understand this question than to venture into the Goodrich Seminar Room and reflect on what it means to be human and to be free?
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