We are indebted to "Scribner's Monthly" for the following remarks
concerning this institution:--"By the will of Johns Hopkins,
a merchant of Baltimore, the sum of $7,000,000 was devoted to the
endowment of a University and a Hospital, $3,500,000 being devoted to
each. This is the largest single endowment ever made to an institution
of learning in this country. To the bequest no burdensome conditions
were attached."... "The Physiological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins
has no peer in this country, and the other laboratories few equals
and no superiors."
In the First Annual Report of the University (1876) we read:--"Early
in the month of February, 1874, the Trustees of the University having
been apprised by the Executors of Johns Hopkins, of the endowment
provided by his will, took proper steps for organization and entering
upon the practical duties of the trust, and addressed themselves to
the selection of a President of the University. With this view the
Trustees sought the counsel and advice of the heads of several of
the leading seats of learning in the country, and, upon unanimous
recommendation and endorsement from these sources, the choice fell
upon Mr. Daniel C. Gilman, who, at the time, occupied the position
of President of the University of California.
"Mr. Gilman is a graduate of Yale College, and for several years
before his call to California, was a Professor in that institution,
taking an active part in the organization and development of 'The
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College,' at New Haven. Upon
receiving an invitation to Baltimore, he resigned the office which
he had held in California since 1872, and entered upon the service
of The Johns Hopkins University, May 1, 1875."--Galloway Cheston.
"In the hunt for truth, we are not first hunters, and then men;
we are first and always men, then hunters."--D. C. Gilman, Oct., 1883.
The "One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe" have been
running around within the observation of the master huntsman and his
men for a year or more: now let the hunters prove themselves to be
men; and the men, hunters. It is impossible to be successful hunters
for Truth, if Error be allowed to go scot-free. Nay, it is utterly
impossible for the Johns Hopkins University to answer the purpose
of its founder if its hunters for Truth do not first hunt Error with
their hounds and hold it up to ridicule, and then, and always, keep
a watchful eye for the Truth lest they should injure it by their
hot haste or wound it with their weapons. Prof. Daniel C. Gilman,
we charge you that the duties of your office render it imperative
that, sooner or later, you lead your men into the field against the
hundred proofs, to show the world that they are hunters worthy of the
name--if, in your superior judgment, you decide that there is Error
to be slain--or, show that your hunters are worthy of the better name
of men, by inducing them to follow and sustain you, out of the beaten
track, in your endeavors to uphold God's Truth, if, in your superior
judgment, you tell them, "There is a Truth to be upheld!"
[End of the Appendix to the Fifth Edition. Nov. 9, 1886.]