The State of Maryland has been almost extravagantly liberal in bestowing
charters on colleges and professional schools. Over forty such charters
have been given by the legislature and, in many cases, the result has
proved that the gift of a charter was not warranted by the stability of
the institution, to which was thus granted the power of conferring
degrees. In many other cases, however, the institutions have grown and
flourished, and have had an honorable history.
Collegiate education in Maryland did not begin until after the
Revolution. In the colonial period there was no demand for it sufficient
to warrant the establishment of a seat of higher learning. For this
state of things there were several causes. The majority of the early
settlers were planters and frontiersmen, having little need for an
extended education and desiring it still less. Of the wealthier classes,
some were like the fox-hunting English gentry, caring for little else
than sport; and others, who did desire the advantages of a culture
higher than that obtainable from a village schoolmaster or a private
tutor, found it elsewhere. They went over to William and Mary's College
in Virginia, across the ocean to England, or, in case of some Catholics
like Charles Carroll, to the institutions on the continent of Europe.
But, though no college was established in colonial times, there was no
lack of plans and attempts for one. In 1671, while as yet Harvard was
the only American college, there was read and passed in the Upper House
of the Assembly "An Act for the founding and Erecting of a School or
College within this Province for the Education of Youth in Learning and
Virtue." The Lower House amended and passed the bill; but the plan seems
never to have progressed further. According to the bill the Lord
Proprietor was "to Set out his Declaration of what Privileges and
Immunities shall be Enjoyed by the Schollars;" and "the Tutors or School
Masters" were to be of "the reformed Church of England" or, if two in
number, to be "the one for the Catholick and other for the Protestants'
Children."[1]
A second collegiate plan was brought before the legislature in 1732;
but, having passed the Upper House, was seemingly not acted on by the
Lower. This proposed college was intended to be placed at Annapolis and
was to offer instruction in "theology, law, medicine, and the higher
branches of a collegiate education." The governor of the colony was to
be its chancellor and provision was made for a faculty of five, under
whom students were to be instructed in everything from their alphabet
upwards.[2]
A third unsuccessful attempt to secure the founding of a college was
made in 1761,[3] and a fourth in 1763, when contrary to the earlier
course of events, the rock, on which the project was shipwrecked, was
found in the Upper House. The college was to be placed at Annapolis, to
occupy Governor Bladen's mansion, and to have a faculty of seven
masters, who were to be provided with five servants. The expense was to
be defrayed from the colonial treasury, in case a tax to be levied on
bachelors should prove insufficient for the purpose.[4]
The failure of these projects did not dampen the zeal of the advocates
of higher education. In 1773 we find William Eddis, Surveyor of Customs
at Annapolis, writing that the Legislature of the Province had
determined to fit up Governor Bladen's mansion and "to endow and form a
college for the education of youth in every liberal and useful branch of
science," which college, "conducted under excellent regulations, will
shortly preclude the necessity of crossing the Atlantic for the
completion of a classical and polite education."[5] The gathering storm
of war, however, drew men's attention away from this project.