Daniel Coit Oilman 

 1831-1908 



The Trustees of the Carnegie Institution of Washington direct 

 that the following Minute be made in the permanent records of 

 the Institution: 



Daniel Coit Oilman, one of the original incorporators and the 

 first President of the Institution, from the beginning a Trustee 

 and a member of the Executive Committee, died in Norwich, Con- 

 necticut, October 13, 1908, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 



The central achievement of Mr. Oilman's life in the organiza- 

 tion and development of the Johns Hopkins University during 

 the quarter-century of his presidency marks an era in the history 

 of higher education and productive scholarship in America. In 

 this epoch-making work Mr. Oilman manifested largeness of 

 conception, high administrative capacity, sound and discrimi- 

 nating judgment in the choice of teachers, wide and varied intel- 

 lectual interests, sympathy with the sciences both of nature and 

 of humanity, resourcefulness and steadfastness of purpose, and 

 loyalty of character. 



In addition to his activities in the cause of higher education, Mr. 

 Oilman rendered efficient service as a member of the Venezue- 

 lan Boundary Commission and as president of the National Civil 

 Service Reform League, of the American Oriental Society, and 

 of the American Bible Society, and he took an active part in the 

 administration of the Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund, the Oen- 

 eral Education Fund, and the Russell Sage Foundation. Before 

 coming to the Johns Hopkins University he had been professor 

 of physical and political geography at Yale and president of the 



