SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 320 



the clearest and strongest statement occurs in his last will and tes- 

 tament. There he employed the following significant language : 

 " It has been my ardent wish to see a plan devised, on a liberal 

 scale, which would have a tendency to spread systematic ideas 

 through all parts of this rising empire, thereby to do away local 

 attachments and State prejudices, as far as the nature of things 

 would, or indeed ought to admit, from our national councils. Look- 

 ing anxiously forward to the accomplishment of so desirable an 

 object as this is, in my estimation, my mind has not been able to 

 contemplate any plan more likely to effect the measure than the 

 establishment of a university in a central part of the United States, 

 to which the youths of fortune and talents from all parts thereof 

 may be sent for the completion of their education, in all branches 

 of polite literature, in arts and sciences, in acquiring knowledge in 

 the principles of politics and good government, and, as a matter of 

 infinite importance in my judgment, by associating with each other, 

 and forming friendships in juvenile years, be enabled to free them- 

 selves in a proper degree from those local prejudices and habitual 

 jealousies which have just been mentioned, and which, when car- 

 ried to excess, are never-failing sources of disquietude to the pubHc 

 mind, and pregnant of mischievous consequences to this country. 

 Under these impressions, so fully dilated, I give and bequeath, in 

 perpetuity, the fifty shares which I hold in the Potomac Company, 

 . . . towards the endowment of a university, to be established 

 within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of 

 the general government, if that government should incline to extend 

 a favoring hand towards it." 



Here was the individual foundation of a national university. 

 Here was the first suggestion of that noble line of public policy 

 subsequently adopted in 1846 by our general government in rela- 

 tion to the Smithsonian Institution. The existence and ever- 

 increasing prosperity of the Smithsonian Institution are standing 

 proofs that private foundations may receive the fostering care of 

 government without injurious results. Independent administration 

 of scientific institutions may co-exist with State aid. It is a re- 

 markable testimony to the wisdom of George Washington's origi- 

 nal idea, that Andrew D. White, who, when president of Cornell 

 University, happily combined private endowments and government 

 land-grants, lately suggested in The Forum (February, 1889) the 

 thought of a national university upon individual foundations. This 

 thought is a century old, but it remains to this day the grandest 

 thought in 'American educational history. 



George Washington, like James Smithson, placed a private be- 

 quest, so that the general government might extend to it " a favor- 

 ing hand ; " but in those early days Congress had no' conception of 

 the duties of government towards education and science, and unfor- 

 tunately the Potomac stock never paid but one dividend. George 

 Washington's educational schemes were by no means visionary. 

 His stock in the James River Company, which, like the Potomac 

 Company, he had helped to organize, actually became productive, 

 and was by him presented to Liberty Hall Academy, now Wash- 

 ington and Lee University. Washington raised Liberty Hall Acad- 

 emy to what he called " a seminary of learning upon an enlarged 

 plan, but not coming up to the full idea of university." He meant 

 to make it one of the three Virginia supporters of the university at 

 Washington. Liberty Hall, or Washington College, his own Wil- 

 liam and Mary, and Hampden-Sidney, were all to be state pillars of 

 a national temple of learning. 



Was it not in some measure an historic, although an unconscious, 

 fulfilment of that old dream of Washington, when, a hundred years 

 later, Johns Hopkins determined to establish upon the Maryland 

 side of the Potomac a university? Doubtless Johns Hopkins, like 

 George Washington, had no very definite conception concerning 

 the world-wide relations of a great modern university ; but he saw 

 as clearly as did the Father of his Country that the beneficent influ- 

 ence of higher education, if properly endowed, must reach far be- 

 yond the limits of a single State. 



The Baltimore public has been accustomed to see or hear some 

 new thing every year with regard to the number of students from 

 this city, from Maryland, Japan, and each individual State of the 

 American Union. The following facts represent a novel grouping 

 of students according to the great sections of country from which 

 they come. There have been some misapprehensions in our com- 



munity concerning the region benefited by this university. Our 

 new arrangement of statistics shows that during the present year 

 there have been studying at this institution 98 graduates from the 

 South, 47 from the West, 26 from the Middle States, 18 from New 

 England. It is plain that this university is drawing college-men 

 from the same sources as those from which Johns Hopkins drew 

 his wealth ; namely, from the South and West. In the under- 

 graduate department there are now 139 students from the South, 

 18 from the West, 14 from the Middle States, and 4 from New 

 England. Plainly, most of " our boys " come from the same sec- 

 tions of country as our graduates. The sum total of men from the 

 South is 237; from the West, 65; from the Middle States, 40; 

 from New England, 22. In short, the South has more than three 

 and one-half times as many representatives as the West, six times 

 as many as the Middle States, and more than ten times the num- 

 ber from New England. The total number from all the other 

 States combined is nearly doubled by the South. About one-half 

 of our entire student public comes from the State of Maryland. 

 Considerably more than one-half comes from the three Southern 

 States which Johns Hopkins wished especially to benefit. From 

 this brief review of statistical facts, four points are clear : first, the 

 intent of our founder has been realized ; second, the South and the 

 West are chief sources of our student-supply ; third, in these direc- 

 tions are the lines of least resistance and greatest influence for the 

 Johns Hopkins University ; fourth, one-half of our student public 

 comes from other States than Maryland, — a fact indicating that 

 the local idea is happily balanced by the national idea. 



There are pleasing evidences of internationality in the life and 

 influence of the Johns Hopkins University. Some of our professors 

 came hither from England and. Germany. Almost all the members 

 of our faculty have studied at one time or another in European in- 

 stitutions. The annual register for 1888 shows twelve students 

 from Canada, seven from Japan, and one representative from each 

 of the following countries : China, England, Germany, Mexico, 

 Italy, and Russia. 



Of the graduates, we see Westerners called eastward to college 

 positions, Northerners called southwards, and Southerners called 

 northwards. The president and trustees of the Johns Hopkins 

 University have established here a national university upon a local 

 and individual foundation. 



How can the foundations of a national university, resting upon 

 individual endowment, be further strengthened ? Simply by exten- 

 sion and more endowments of the same sort. A great university 

 grows, as a great city grows, by the individual association of prop- 

 erty investments along avenues already opened. There are men 

 who dream of founding towns and universities apart from existing 

 centres of population and capital ; but he is a wise founder who, 

 like George Peabody, Johns Hopkins, or Enoch Pratt, recognizes 

 the vantage-ground of a noble city, and plants there institutions 

 which will work together through coming ages. The principle 

 holds with reference to individual endowments for the higher edu- 

 cation. They always accomplish the most good when they are 

 connected with some central foundation which gives them at once 

 stability, unity, and individuality, as in the associated institutions of 

 a large city. 



Extension by private philanthropy is the manifest destiny of the 

 Johns Hopkins University. There will perhaps be the individual 

 endowment of a college ; perhaps of a university library, bearing 

 the name of the giver, like the Andrew D. White Library at Cor- 

 nell University ; of a laboratory, a museum, or an observatory, like 

 those at Harvard or at the University of Virginia. Some day we 

 ought to have an art-gallery like that at Yale. What is most 

 needed, however, is a central academic building and library to 

 shelter fitly the "fair humanities," — the studies of ancient and 

 modern literature ; philosophy and ethics ; history, politics, and 

 social science. Baltimore, in the course of time, will have as many 

 foundations, bearing individual names, as there are now in the 

 older institutions of the country. Glance through the catalogues 

 of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or the University of Virginia, and see 

 the great host of private bequests, some large, some small, but all 

 of them carefully guarded and applied to specific objects, such as 

 the increase of the library or the support of scholarships and fellow- 

 ships. There may be as much individuality in a great university 



