Isaac Stiles Hopkins
1841 - 1914
Isaac Hopkins graduated from Emory College in 1859 and from Georgia Medical College in 1861. He passed up a career in medicine to enter the Methodist ministry. He returned to Emory to chair the natural science department in 1869. After leaving Emory for a two year period to teach physics at Southern University in Alabama, he returned in 1877 as a professor of Latin.
Hopkins’s deep interest in wood-working and machine shop work led him to build a small workshop behind his home where he took many young men under his wing, teaching them the trade. His workshop classes were so popular that at times there were not enough tools to go around. So eager were some of his apprentices, however, they purchased their own tools.
His address to Emory alumni in 1883, “The Relation of Technological Training to General Education,” summarized the poor state of technical education in schools and argued for the establishment of a technical vocational program at Emory. When he became the ninth president of Emory College in 1884, he launched such a program. Hopkins personally solicited funds and supervised all the purchasing of equipment for the school. So successful were his efforts, the state of Georgia passed legislation in 1885 to establish the Georgia Institute of Technology. Hopkins was chosen to be its first president. He also served as the first chair of the physics department, professor in the school of physics, and pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. Hopkins retired from Georgia Tech in 1896 and devoted the rest of his life to serving in the church.
The Atlanta Constitution paid tribute to him in a 1911 article entitled, “In Log Cabin Village of Oxford, Georgia Tech Had Its Inception.” That article said in part,
The Atlanta Constitution paid tribute to him in a 1911 article entitled, “In Log Cabin Village of Oxford, Georgia Tech Had Its Inception.” That article said in part,
A man who gave nearly 40 years of his life to the education of the young men of the south; whose far-seeing wisdom and splendid intellect did so much toward laying the foundation of Georgia’s future greatness through development of her sons, deserves some recognition from the generation he has served so faithfully.
Hopkins Hall on the Emory campus in Oxford was named in his honor. In addition, one of the two columns comprising Emory University’s Haygood-Hopkins Memorial Gateway, informally known as the university’s “front door,” was named in his honor in 1937. Its inscription reads: “A pioneer in technical education, he was one of the builders of the New South.”