Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Hip Hobart, Forever!

“There is little similarity between the Hobart of today and the rude frontier institution from which it has emerged. Dramatic changes have occurred in enrollment, plant and curriculum. Yet the College we know today is in a real sense an ever-growing memorial to its past: a tribute inscribed physically in ivy-covered buildings, spiritually in cherished ideals and traditions.”

These observations ring as true today as they likely did when the late Anthony Bridwell ’49, L.H.D. ’82 recorded them in Twenty Generations of Hobart, a brief history of the institution published in 1954. The following pages revisit some of those dramatic changes and cherished traditions, the points of progress and continuity, and the remarkable eras and enduring principles that have shaped Hobart College these past 200 years.