698 THE STATE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 



similar fines and licenses that were likely to be constant sources of 

 revenue. 



The founding of St. John's College occurred two years later, in 1784. 

 This act by the State of Maryland was also in response to a local de- 

 mand. It was urged by the citizens of Annapolis that King William's 

 School, although a classical institution, was inadequate to meet the 

 educational demands of the age. It was very properly added that the 

 Western Shore, as well as the Eastern, deserved to have a college ; and so 

 St. John's was established as the counterpoise of Washington College. 

 The legislative act is almost identical with that establishing the earlier 

 institution, although the appropriation was larger. The legislature 

 gave St. Jolni's 4 acres of good laud for college grounds, and building 

 sites and an annual ai)propriation of £1,750 current money. This sum, 

 in the words of the original act, was to " be annually and forever here- 

 after given and gianted as a donation by the public to the use of said 

 college on the Western Shore to be applied by the visitors and gov- 

 ernors of the said college for the payment of salaries to the principal, 

 professors, and tutors of said college." The establishment was to be 

 absolutely unsectarian. Students of any denomination were to be ad- 

 mitted without religious or civil tests. Not even compulsory attend- 

 ance upon college prayers was required so modern were the legisla- 

 tive fathers of Maryland. 



The next step in the higher educational history of jMaryland was the 

 federation of the two colleges into the University of Maryland. The 

 two boards of visitors and two representatives of each faculty consti- 

 tuted the University Convocation, presided over at Annapolis on com- 

 mencement day by the governor of the State, who was ex officio chan- 

 cellor of the University. One of the college presidents acted as vice- 

 chancellor. Thus more than a century ago Maryland inaugurated a 

 State system of higher education which, if it had been sustained, would 

 have given unity and vigor to her academic life. But unfortunately, 

 in 1794, the legislatureyielded to county prejudices and withdrew £500 

 from the £1,250 annually granted to Washington College and began to 

 estaV)lish a fund, the income of which was distributed among various 

 county academies on both shores of the Chesapeake. This was the 

 origin of the subsidies still given in one form or another to secondary 

 institutions in the State of Maryland. In 1805, the remaining appro- 

 priation of £750 belonging to Washington College and the entire £1,750 

 thitherto granted to St. John's College were withheld for the avowed 

 ])urpose of "disseminating learning in the different counties of tho 

 State." 



For six years there was a famine in the land as regards the support of 

 higher education. At last in 1811, the legislature resumed appropriations 

 to St. John's College. Realizing that it had misappropriated to local 

 uses subsidies " granted annually forever " to St. John's, the legislature 

 endeavored for many years to compromise by giving a smaller allowance. 



