From the opening of the University until now a sharp distinction has
been made between the methods of university instruction and those of
collegiate instruction. In the third annual report, September 1, 1878,
the views which had been announced at the opening of the University are
expanded and are illustrated by the action of the Trustees and the
Faculty during the first two years.
The terms university and college have been so frequently interchanged in
this country that their significance is liable to be confounded; and it
may be worth while, once more at least, to call attention to the
distinction which is recognized among us. By the college is understood a
place for the orderly training of youth in those elements of learning
which should underlie all liberal and professional culture. The ordinary
conclusion of a college course is the Bachelor's degree. Usually, but
not necessarily, the college provides for the ecclesiastical and
religious as well as the intellectual training of its scholars. Its
scheme admits but little choice. Frequent daily drill in languages,
mathematics, and science, with compulsory attendance and frequent formal
examinations, is the discipline to which each student is submitted. This
work is simple, methodical, and comparatively inexpensive. It is
understood and appreciated in every part of this country.
In the university more advanced and special instruction is given to
those who have already received a college training or its equivalent,
and who now desire to concentrate their attention upon special
departments of learning and research. Libraries, laboratories, and
apparatus require to be liberally provided and maintained. The holders
of professorial chairs must be expected and encouraged to advance by
positive researches the sciences to which they are devoted; and
arrangements must be made in some way to publish and bring before the
criticism of the world the results of such investigations. Primarily,
instruction is the duty of the professor in a university as it is in a
college; but university students should be so mature and so well trained
as to exact from their teachers the most advanced instruction, and even
to quicken and inspire by their appreciative responses the new
investigations which their professors undertake. Such work is costly and
complex; it varies with time, place, and teacher; it is always somewhat
remote from popular sympathy, and liable to be depreciated by the
ignorant and thoughtless. But it is by the influence of universities,
with their comprehensive libraries, their costly instruments, their
stimulating associations and helpful criticisms, and especially their
great professors, indifferent to popular applause, superior to
authoritative dicta, devoted to the discovery and revelation of truth,
that knowledge has been promoted, and society released from the fetters
of superstition and the trammels of ignorance, ever since the revival of
letters.
In further exposition of these views, from men of different pursuits,
reference should be made to an article on Classics and Colleges, by
Professor Gildersleeve _(Princeton Review_, July, 1878), lately
reprinted in the author's "Essays and Studies," (Baltimore, 1890); to an
address by Professor Sylvester before the University on "Mathematical
Studies and University Life," (February 22, 1877); to an address by
Professor Martin on the study of Biology _(Popular Science Monthly,_
January, 1877); to some remarks on the study of Chemistry by Professor
Remsen _(Popular Science Monthly,_ April, 1877); and to an address
entitled "A Plea for Pure Science" (Salem, 1883), by Professor Rowland,
as a Vice-President of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. Although of a much later date, reference should also be made to
an address by Professor Adams (February 22, 1889) on the work of the
Johns Hopkins University, printed in the _Johns Hopkins University
Circulars_, No. 71. An address by Dr. James Carey Thomas, one of the
Trustees, at the tenth anniversary, in 1886, may also be consulted
_(Ibid._ No. 50). Reference may also be made to the fifteen annual
reports of the University and to the articles below named, by the
writer of this sketch. The Group System of College Courses in the Johns
Hopkins University _(Andover Review,_ June, 1886); The Benefits which
Society derives from Universities: Annual Address on Commemoration Day,
1885 _(Johns Hopkins University Circulars_, No. 37); article on
Universities in Lalor's _Cyclopaedia of Political Science_; an address
before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, July 1, 1886;
an address at the opening of Bryn Mawr College, 1885.