The Launching of a University, and Other Papers

Abstract

THE launching of the Johns Hopkins University could not be more fitly or more intimately described than by one who has “the advantage of knowing more than anyone else of an unwritten chapter of history.” Such a record could hardly fail to throw interesting sidelights on the growth of the idea of the University in its modern conception. It is interesting to notice that the launchers of the Johns Hopkins University were largely influenced, not only by the evidence of University Commissions in Great Britain, but also by the writings of Newman and Matthew Arnold, of Pattison and Appleton. The actual founder was as liberal in his ideas as he was in his gifts, and the administrators of his gift made the fullest use of their discretion. President Gilman himself had a roving commission to pick the brains of the older Universities in England, France, and Germany. The main problem was to disengage the University from the college idea, and to give to the University point of view all the distinctness of which it was capable. The. selection of the original faculty was sufficient to secure this result. It included such men as Sylvester, Martin, Rowland, Morris (from Oriel College), Gildersleeve, and Remsen, who succeeded Dr. Gilman as president in 1902. We are given interesting glimpses of these and other noteworthy teachers, as also of other famous English and American savants who were at different times and in different degrees associated with the Johns Hopkins University—such as Freeman and Huxley, Cayley and Kelvin—and of such celebrities as Dean Stanley, Lowell, Child, and Lanier, the poet. The interest of these chapters is, in fact, largely personal and local, interspersed with general reflections on the advancement of science, the conflict of studies, and the idea of research. Brief notices are also given of what are perhaps the two most distinguished features of the Johns Hopkins University—its publications and its medical school.

The Launching of a University, and Other Papers.

A Sheaf of Remembrances. By Dr. J. D. C. Gilman. Pp. 386. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1906.) Price 2.50 dollars net.