A university is as diverse
in its members as it is in its pursuits. There are men whose
distinction comes primarily from the study or the laboratory;
others whose renown is won in the classroom or lecture hall;
still others whose major contribution comes from their
administrative activities. But anyone who looks at the nearly
forty years which Joel Hildebrand has devoted to the University
of California is hard put indeed to decide in which of these
areas his finest achievements lie.
Consider him as research
scientist. He is a member of the National Academy of Science,
perhaps the highest professional recognition that can come to an
American scientist. His experimental work in solubility, to name
but the principal field of his researches has brought him honors
on two continents. In 1944, he was chosen by the Physical
Society in London to deliver the Guthrie Lecture in the Royal
Institution, and was elected, in the same year, Honorary Fellow
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He had already been awarded,
in 1939, the William H. Nichols Medal by the New York section of
the American Chemical Society for his work in the solubility of
non-electrolytes. He has held editorial positions on various
chemistry journals. Nor is he without honor in his own
university. He was elected Faculty Research Lecturer for the
year 1935 by the Academic Senate, the greatest research honor
that the University can pay one of its won. And in 1939 the
degree of D.Sc. was conferred upon him by his Alma Mater, the
University of Pennsylvania.
Consider him also as
teacher. The reception of his Remsen Lecture, "A Philosophy of
Teaching" at John Hopkins University in 1949 made evident the
national esteem in which his teaching is held. But there are
many thousands of alumni who do not need to be told of his
excellence in this wise. Their recollections of Chemistry 1A-B
are brightened by the memory of vivid lectures and dramatic
demonstrations in the mysteries of chemistry, of enlivening
digressions in the realms of art, music and mountaineering. This
introductory course is undoubtedly Joel's greatest love in the
University. And well it might be. For out of this course have
come many majors and graduate students whose own later work has
helped give the college of chemistry at Berkeley a reputation
that is surpassed by no other scientific college in the world.
There are indeed professors on our faculty, in various fields,
who can look back with appreciation upon this course.
With all regard for his
introductory course, one cannot skip lightly over his graduate
teaching, for here too he has left a permanent imprint. He has
had many collaborators in research publications among graduate
students, more than a few of whom are now holding professorships
and other important positions in the field of chemistry.
The qualities which go
into fine teaching are beyond count or measure. But two are
unmistakable. The first is genuine love of communication; the
second is a continuing capacity for seeing one's subject not as
a set of results already achieved, but as exciting problems to
be solved. On the testimony of students old and new, Joel
Hildebrand's teaching shines with both of these qualities.
Prizing communication as an art and as the highest obligation of
the teacher, he has worked tirelessly to improve the techniques
which are its vehicles. He knows too, how lifeless even the
greatest of achievements of science can seem to young minds when
they are separated from science as method, from science as
spirit of inquiry. Only as method and spirit can these be
awakened in young minds that urge to discovery which keeps a
discipline alive and growing.
There are the
achievements, in research and teaching, which lie at the heart
of a university, and they can be exceeded by no others. They are
the achievements in which Joel Hildebrand rightly takes greatest
pride. But outstanding as they are, his career cannot be
encompassed by them. For no record of the University during the
past thirty years would be complete without consideration of him
as an administrator.
Three times has has served
as dean; first as dean of men, later as dean of the college of
letters and science, and at the present time, as dean of the
college of chemistry. Twice he has been elected to the
vice-chairmanship of the Academic Senate, the highest elective
position in the body. He has served on virtually every important
senate and administrative committee in the University. It is
fair to say that no member of the faculty now living has
contributed more, in love and insight, to the welfare of the
University. By no means least among his administrative
contributions is the considerable number of younger men he has
brought directly into administrative work and to whom he has
communicated some of his own sense of devotion to the
University. His conception of the University has not been
narrow. Physical scientist though he is, he has nevertheless
brought both sympathy and understanding to the problems of the
humanities and the social sciences. He has never stood upon age
of office in the performance of his administrative duties, nor
has he allowed the formal powers of his office to be a
substitute for personal initiative and influence.
These are University
achievements. What of his life outside the University? Here too,
there is richness and diversity. From the first World War he
emerged as a lieutenant colonel, having entered the army as
captain. During that war he served as commandant of the Gas
School and Experimental Field in France, and received the
Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts. In the second World
War he served as scientific officer for the OSRD, attached to
the American Embassy in London. From the British government he
received the King's medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom
for his contributions to the Allied cause.
His extramural activities
in peace time are too numerous to list. I select from them a few
which will perhaps illustrate the range of his living. Early he
became an enthusiastic mountaineer, and there are few who know
more of the delights and mysteries of the Sierra in both summer
and winter. He is a past President of the Sierra Club. It was
during his presidency that the campaign was won to establish the
Kings Canyon National park. When he was beyond his fortieth year
he took up skiing, and even now at the age of sixty-nine he can
be found in the dead of winter gliding down the snowy slopes of
the high Sierra. In 1936 he served as manager of the U.S.
Olympic Ski team. He is co-author of a book, Ski
Mountaineering. He is a skillful photographer, a lover of
music, particularly Bach, a sought-after public speaker who has
appeared before the most varied audiences. Nor would one wish to
omit mention here of his mastery of the limerick of every sort,
and I mean every.
Finally it would be a
grievous error of omission if no mention were made of Joel's
family, for of all is devotions in life none equals this. In
1908 he married Emily Alexander, and from that happy and
fruitful union have come three sons and a daughter, all
graduates of U.C., all members of both Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma
Xi, and, three of them now engaged in making their own careers
in the scientific world. Truly the scientist id greater than his
monographs.
It is not easy to find a
single word which captures the personal qualities that go into
such diversity and excellence of attainment as have been cited
here. Long ago a perceptive observer of the world said that the
real division of mankind is not between the inexperienced and
the experienced but between the inexperiencing and the
experiencing. I think this word, experiencing, comes close to
the nature of his mind. Certainly no one who has been brought,
either as student, colleague, or friend into contact with the
ever widening range of his activities and interests and who has
observed the immense zest which lies behind them will doubt that
Joel has an experiencing mind, that for him, experience is a
process that never congeals.
He came to the University
of California as an assistant professor in 1913, at the age of
32, to become one of that distinguished group of young
scientists who, under the late Dean Gilbert Lewis, were to raise
the department of chemistry to the eminence that it now holds in
the international world of science. He had already attracted
attention by his scientific publications in the seven years that
followed his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. He had
gone to the University of Berlin to study under Nernst and had
brought back much of the ranging spirit of inquiry and tireless
devotion to knowledge that gave German science its matchless
reputation at the beginning of this century.
Wherever he might have
gone from his post of instructor at Pennsylvania he would have
won recognition as a teacher and scientist. His are energies and
aptitudes which would not have been denied. But one likes to
think that of all possible choices, Berkeley was the happiest he
could have made. For the University of California in 1913 was,
like Joel himself, at the very beginning of the development
which was to make it the first of the State universities to
reach parity with the older, greater, private universities of
the nation. In a true sense he and the University have grown
together.
This growth has not been
merely parallel. From the first he made a place for himself
among a group of scholars and scientists whose own unshakable
conception of what a university should be has proved resistant
to every effort, well or ill-intentioned, to diminish its status
as a center of teaching and learning. He was among the most
active and courageous members of the faculty who, in 1920, set
themselves against certain unwise tendencies of University
administration and out of whose "revolution" came the present
form of the Academic Senate. The University of California is
almost unique in the academic world in the extent of organized
faculty participation in the matters of administration ---
appointments, promotions, courses, research policy, degrees,
etc. --- which are the very essence of a university's welfare.
The University of California is perhaps the most democratically
organized university in the United States. In this development
Joel had had a conspicuously influential position. No one has
more insistently driven home the truth that the idea of a
university is carried by its faculty, and unless the channels of
faculty government are kept open the idea of the university must
become weak and sterile. Over a period of many years he has
spoken for, and fought for, the dignity of the academic
profession, for the necessity of its influence in councils of
University government. He has never hesitated to speak out when
convinced that the University was in danger of deviating from
its appointed course. He has had the courage of word when words
were needed and he has had the courage of silence when he felt
that by speaking out he could only harm the unity of the
University. Outstanding as have been his contributions as
teacher and scientist, his activities as citizen of the academic
community are, I think, the ones for which the University will
be longest in his debt.
__________
Nisbet,
Robert A. :Our Distinguished Faculty: Professor Joel
Hildebrand." California
Monthly. Vol. LXL Alumni Publication, University
of California, No. 7 (March 1951),
pp. 5, 26-28.