D2baU
^" 1908 No. 10
THE
JOHNS HOPKINS
UNIVERSITY CIRCULAR
Daniel Coit Gilman
1831-1908
Baltimore, Maryland
pxjblished by the university
Issued Monthly from October to July
December, 1908
[New Series, 1908, No. 10]
[Whole Number 211]
Entered, October 21, 1903, at Baltimore, Md., aa second class matter, under
Act of Congress of JiUy 16, 1894.
DANIEL COIT OILMAN
Daniel Coit Gilman
FIRST President of the Johns Hopkins university
1876-1901
BALTIMOEE
The Johns Hopkins Press
1908
V
e
THE
JOHNS HOPKINS
UNIVERSITY CIRCULAR
New Series, 1908, No. 10 DECEMBER, 1908 Whole Number, 211
IN MEMORIAM
Daniel Coit Gilman
1831-1908
On Sunday afternoon, November 8, 1908, at 4 o'clock,
an audience consisting of the Trustees, Faculty, Alumni,
and Students of the University, and friends of Dr. Gil-
man, the first President, assembled in McCoy Hall to do
honor to his memory. The order of the exercises was as
follows :
SCRIPTURE READING AND PRAYERS
The Reverend ARTHUR B. KINSOLVING, D. D.
RECTOR OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH
''Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made Heaven
and earth."— Ps. 124: 8.
"Lord thou hast been our refuge from one generation
to another. Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever the earth and the world were made : Thou art God
from everlasting and world without end." — Ps. 90: 1, 2.
3
4 Daniel Coit Gilman [1120
"I know that my Kedeemer liveth, and that he shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth : and though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet from my flesh I
shall see God :
"Whom I shall see for myself,
"And mine eyes shall behold, and not another." — Jol)
19 : 25, 26, 27.
"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and
there shall no trial touch them.
"In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and
their departure is taken for misery,
"And their going from us to be utter destruction, but
they are in peace." — Wisdom 3 : 1, 2, 3.
"They that put their trust in Him shall understand the
truth: and such as be faithful in love shall abide with
Him : for grace and mercy is to His saints and He hath
care for his elect." — Wisdom 3 : 9,
"The righteous live for evermore; their reward also is
with the Lord, and the care of them is with the most
high.
"Therefore shall they receive a beautiful crown from
the Lord's hand; for with His right hand shall he cover
them, and with His arm shall he protect them." —
Wisdom 5 : 15, 16.
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth
in me though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whoso-
ever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." — 8t.
John 11 : 25, 26.
"For we know that if the earthly house of our taber-
nacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, an house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." — II Cor.
5: 1.
"And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in
their foreheads * * *
"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For
the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed
1121] Devotional Exercises 5
them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters;
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." —
Rev. 22 : 4 ; 7 : 16, 17.
Minister: The Lord be with you.
Answer: And with thy spirit.
Minister: Let us pray.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
"O God, whose days are without end, and whose
mercies cannot be numbered; make us, we beseech Thee,
deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of
human life; and let Thy Holy Spirit lead us in holiness
and righteousness, all the days of our lives: That, when
we shall have served Thee in our generation, we may be
gathered unto our fathers, having the testimony of a good
conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in
the confidence of a certain faith ; in the comfort of a rea-
sonable, religious, and holy hope ; in favor with Thee our
God, and in perfect charity with the world. All which
we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
"O God, at whose word man goeth forth unto his work
and to his labor until the evening; who art the fountain
of all wisdom and the true light which lighteth every man
that Cometh into the world ; we beseech Thee regard with
Thy favor and blessing all the schools and colleges of
our land, and especially this University. Assist all who
are guardians of its interests. Give increasingly the
spirit of wisdom to its officers and teachers : enlarge the
number of its friends and benefactors, and reward them
with Thy mercy for whatever good in its behalf they may
6 Daniel Coit Oilman [1122
design or do. Enlighten the minds, purify the hearts,
and exalt the ideals of those who are students here.
Inspire them with high hopes and worthy purposes, and
so prepare them to fulfil their duty in this life that they
may attain the destiny to which Thou dost call us in
the life to come. Through, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
"Almighty and ever-living God, we yield unto Thee
most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful
grace and virtue declared in all Thy saints and leaders
and founders who have been the choice vessels of Thy
grace, and the lights of the world in their several genera-
tions; most humbly beseeching Thee to give us grace so
to follow the example of their steadfastness in Thy faith,
and obedience to Thy holy commandments, that at the
day of the general resurrection, we, with all those who
are of the mystical body of Thy Son, may be set on His
right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: Come,
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. Grant this,
0 Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and
Advocate. Amen.
''0 Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous
life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done. Then, of Thy great mercy, grant
us a safe lodging and a holy rest, and peace at the last;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
1123] President Remscn's Address 7
ADDRESS
IRA REMSEN, PH. D., LL. D.
PRESIDENT OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
We have come together, friends, colleagues, students,
co-workers in many lines of activity', to give some expres-
sion of our respect and admiration for one who for more
than a quarter of a century was the chief factor in the
life of this University. No single life can mean as much
for us as that of Daniel Coit Oilman. And yet it is
diflScult for one who during that long period worked by
his side, who knew much of his hopes, his aspirations, and
his trials, to give adequate expression to the thoughts
that press forward for recognition. Those of us who
had the privilege of working under his leadership would,
it is certain, testify with one voice that the conditions
created by him were well-nigh ideal. His motto was "Do
your best work." The effect these words produced upon
those of us who came here at the beginning will never be
forgotten. We were not hampered by a lot of rules, but
were simply asked to do our work in the way that seemed
best. What better can anyone have? If there ever was
a place where the simple intellectual life was fostered, it
was at the Johns Hopkins University in the early years.
We were all free to work out our own intellectual salva-
tion. If our leader had been meddlesome, narrow-
minded, unsympathetic, without tact, and dictatorial,
our work could not have flourished. He was, in fact,
broad-minded to a remarkable degree; he was sym-
pathetic; he had confidence in those whom he had
brought together ; he had tact ; and was gentle even when
harsh treatment appeared to be justified, as was some-
times the case. He created an atmosphere good to live
in — an atmosphere salutary and stimulating. Whatever
success has attended the efforts of those who have carried
on the work of the University, is to be traced back to this
clear, invigorating atmosphere.
8 Daniel Coit Gilman [1124
Mr. Gilman was a model administrator. By pre-
cept and example he impressed upon us that our
object was to build up a University that should be
useful to the community, to the State, to the Nation
if possible. He told the trustees at his first inter-
view with them that he had no desire to take part
in the founding of a new college in the ordinary sense.
He did not feel that there was great need for another
institution of that kind, but his ambition was fired when
he was given free rein to work upon the problem of a
university as something differing from and supplement-
ing the college. Now, the name university had been used
in this country up to that time to designate institutions
of learning of a great variety of grades. Even to-day it
conveys far from a clear idea of the character of the
institution to which it is applied. But there has been
improvement in thirty years, and there is a well-defined
tendency to apply the name university only to those
institutions of learning that provide more or less ade-
quately for special courses suited to the needs of gradu-
ates of the colleges, who wish to proceed to the study of
specialties. In 1876, the year of the opening of the Joihns
Hopkins University, graduate courses, as these advanced
courses are generally called, were offered in only a few
colleges and even in them the opportunities were most
inadequate. And yet that there was a demand for such
courses was shown by the fact that for years large num-
bers of graduates of our colleges went to Germany to find
opportunity for this advanced work. Mr. Gilman's
central thought was to provide for these graduate
students. The trustees were in full sympathy with
his views, and those who were called to work with
him' were eager to take part. Students came in larger
numbers than we expected, and we soon found it difficult
to accommodate them. The experiment was succeeding.
It was necessary to provide for the ever-increasing body
of students that came to us, and thus the Johns Hopkins
1125] President hemsen's Address 9
University became firmly established in the heart of the
city, whether the authorities would or not.
The main point to be kept in mind in this connection
is, however, that the experiment was succeeding, and
the further fact that the success was due to the admir-
able combination of qualities possessed by Mr. Gilman.
He was forty-four years old when elected to the presi-
dency. That he had made a strong impression on the
leaders in the educational world of that day is strikingly
shown by the fact that, when the trustees asked five
of these leaders to recommend to them a man capable
of organizing and conducting the new university on a
high plane, all five, independently of one another, recom-
mended Daniel Coit Gilman. He was accordingly chosen,
and the world knows the result.
It is given to few to realize their hopes to the extent
that Mr. Gilman did. The conception of a university in
his mind became a reality in the Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity, and indeed the conception has been realized in a half-
dozen or more of the universities of this country that have
followed the lead of the Johns Hopkins University in
establishing graduate courses. The problem of working
out a definition of a university is in a fair way to a solu-
tion, and the name is not likely to be as lavishly bestowed
in the future as in the past.
There are fair-weather leaders who in stormy times
fail. Our leader was sorely tested by storms. The time
came when the very existence of the University was
threatened. No one, not directly involved, can form a
clear idea of the conditions that we lived under after it
was learned that our income was most seriously im-
paired. The work could not go on without an adequate
income. Just as the work was beginning to tell came
the disaster. Had our leader flinched, we should have
lost our courage and the Johns Hopkins University would
probably have been a failure. But now some of his best
traits came into play. He would not let the members of
10 Daniel Coit Gilman [1126
his staff become discouraged. The work must go on.
We must find a way. There must be no change of plan.
There must be no lowering of standards. And, though
there were months and years of anxiety, the work did
go on in spite of the somewhat dismal outlook. There
has never been any serious change of plan, and to-day
the Johns Hopkins University stands for all it stood for
in its formative period, and it stands for more, for,
thanks to the efforts of Mr. Gilman and others-, its
fortunes have to a large extent been restored and the
work has broadened as the necessar}^ funds have been
provided. We cannot forget that he carried us through
the period of storm and stress, new qualities that were
not called for at the beginning being brought into play.
One word more. For reasons that did not seem to his
colleagues adequate, he decided most unexpectedly to
withdraw from the presidency of the University, when
he reached the age of seventy. The thought that another
could possibly be the president of this University seemed
to many of us almost preposterous. But here again he
showed new and admirable qualities. His cordial wel-
come to his successor, his gentle judgment, his apprecia-
tion of whiatever appeared to mark a forward movement,
his rejoicing in the welfare of the University, helped to
make easy what might have been a most difficult path.
His withdrawal from the service was complete. If his
successor ventured occasionally to consult him on some
knotty problem, his answer was invariably "I am out of
it, I cannot help you" : and that answer was prompted
solely by a refined sense of the relations between himself
and the questioner. It was not due to any lack of friend-
liness, for, if anything, the bond of friendship grew
stronger in these latter years.
President Remsen then read extracts from letters
received by him from His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons;
1127] Commemorative Minute 11
Hon. Andrew D. White, formerly President of Cornell
University; President Angell, of the University of Michi-
gan; Dr. S. Weir Mitchell; Hon. Seth Low; President
Alderman, of the University of Virginia. (See page 36.)
MINUTE
Read by Judge HENRY D. HARLAN
PRESIDENT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE HOSPITAL AND A MEMBER
OF THE UNIVERSITY BOARD
The Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University and of
the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the members of the philo-
sophical and of the medical faculties, the students, grad-
uate and undergraduate, many alumni and friends of the
University, assembled to give expression to their com-
mon sorrow in view of the removal by death of their
honored and beloved friend, Daniel Coit Gilman, record
hereby their painful sense of loss, and their profound
and abiding respect, gratitude, and afifection.
The extraordinary services rendered to this institu-
tion, and to the interests of higher education in this
country, during the twenty-five years' administration of
its first President, have received universal acknowledg-
ment. We recall with admiration the sagacity with
which he discerned the opportunity awaiting the new
foundation under the conditions then existing, the con-
structive skill with which he devised plans suitable to
these conditions, and the steadfastness and courage with
which he adhered to these plans under whatever tempta-
tion to diverge from them.
We appreciate the inestimable value, at this formative
period, of certain personal qualities possessed by Mr.
Gilman in an unusual degree. A sound and discriminat-
ing judgment in respect to men; wide and varied
intellectual tastes, interests, and sympathies; resource-
fulness of suggestion in practical things; high-minded-
ness, generosity, loyalty — how conspicuously these rare
12 Daniel Coit Gilman [1128
endowments of nature and character were employed, in
the wise selection of teachers for the leading chairs of
instruction ; in the adjustment of the respective claims
of the various departments of learning; in the tactful,
orderly, efficient conduct of business; in the elimination
from the common life of petty motives and ignoble per-
sonal differences: all this is abundantly known to those
familiar with the history of the past years.
Those who served as teachers under Mr. Oilman's
presidency remember with keen pleasure the relations of
confidence and kindness which he always maintained
with them. Quick to commend anything that deserved
commendation ; scrupulous in his regard for individual
feelings and rights; conceding all reasonable liberty of
opinion and action; capable of understanding and of
making allowance for exceptional gifts; under no stress
of occupation or anxiety, betrayed into petulance, or
injustice, or discourtesy; employing rarely the language
of authority, assuming rather the attitude of co-opera-
tion and comradeship; rejoicing in the successful work
or the well-won honor of one of his colleagues — to use the
word which he always applied to those subordinate to
him — as heartily as though the work or the reward had
been his own ; in time of trouble the tenderest and most
sympathizing of friends: — it is no wonder that these
admirable and delightful traits secured for President
Gilman, from the beginning to the end, the united and
enthusiastic support of his faculty, and enabled him to
secure from them a kind of service to the University
which cannot be commanded and which cannot be
bought.
The relations of the president of a university to the
students under his care are, in our day, less immediate
and personal than w^as the case a generation ago. The
demands upon time and thought, from within and from
without, are so constant and so exacting that he is
deprived of that means of influence which the great col-
1129] Commemorative 3Iinute 13
lege presidents of the past made so potent — the inter-
course of teacher with pupil. In our leading institutions
the president is necessarily an administrator rather than
a teacher. The larger conception of the presidential
office appealed strongly to Mr. Gilman. He did not de-
sire to withdraw into impersonal isolation. He often
addressed the students, more or less formally, upon edu-
cational, literary, or practical themes. He made himself
accessible to them during his working hours, and enter-
tained them hospitably at his home. For many years
he took personal charge of the daily religious service.
Never did he lose sight of the responsibility of an institu-
tion for the development of character, in those subjected
to its influence, as well as for the communication of
knowledge.
Epoch-making as was the work of Mr. Gilman in educa-
tional linesi in the development of the Johns Hopkins
University, his services in a wholly different field of
activity, in the organization, equipment, and opening of
the Johns Hopkins Hospital, are no less worthy of men-
tion. Called by an unexpected train of events to under-
take this novel task, he formulated for this Hospital a
system of medical and surgical attendance and adminis-
tration with unusual features, which has continued in
force for nearly twenty years. He selected the heads of
important departments, established a training school for
nurses, and inaugurated systematic medical teaching in
the Hospital prior to the establishment of the medical
department of the University. He also devised the sub-
division and departmental independence of important
branches of internal administration in the Hospital, and
their effective co-ordination through a single executive
head responsible for the work of all branches — a system
which remains unchanged to-day.
Later, upon the establishment of the medical depart-
ment of the University, he beheld the full realization of
14 Daniel Coit Gilman [1130
far-seeing plans formed at the time he came to Baltimore.
So wisely were they originally made thiat they required
no changes, and after the lapse of many years he had the
satisfaction of seeing them brought to fruition in an
institution which has powerfully influenced medical
teaching throughout the country. During the remainder
of his life he continued in close relation with the Medical
School and the Hospital, and his constant interest and
frequent presence were ever an inspiration to officers,
teachers, and students.
It may be safely said that no one of us has known a
more public-spirited citizen, a more devoted supporter of
every good cause, one more ready to expend labor and
accept sacrifice for the sake of the higher interests of
society. In him appeared — to quote language which
Lord Morley applies to John Stuart Mill — ''that com-
bination of an ardent interest in human improvement
with a reasoned attention to the law of its conditions
which alone deserves to be honored with the high name
of wisdom." Mr. Gilman was indifferent to nothing
which has to do with human welfare. He was an atten-
tive and serious student of the problems which press so
insistently upon philanthropists and reformers — prob-
lems of poverty and crime and disease ; he was constantly
in search of better methods in education, in the adminis-
tration of government, in the ordering of municipal life;
he had an enlightened interest in many subjects less
directly connected with immediate utility — geographical
exploration, archaeological research, biographical and
historical inquiry. It was he who first called the atten-
tion of the citizens of Baltimore to the movement for
associated charities, bringing about the formation in this
city of the Charity Organization Society. It was he who
preserved from extinction the Mercantile Library. He
served as a member of the Board of School Commis-
sioners, and as one of the Commission which framed the
1131] Contmenhorative Minute 15
present charter of the city of Baltimore. As a trustee
of the Peabody Institute, of the Pratt Library, of the
Samuel Ready School, as one of the council of the
Municipal Art Society, he showed his readiness to take
part in all efforts for the betterment of the community
in which he lived. For many years he was actively con-
cerned v/ith the work of Southern education, as one of
the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund and of the
Slater Fund for the Education of the Freedraen. He
was long the president of the American Oriental Society.
During recent years he was the president of the Ameri-
can Bible Society. He succeeded the Hon. Carl Schurz
in the presidency of the National Civil Service Reform
League. By invitation of the President of the United
States, he served as a member of the Venezuelan Com-
mission in 1896-7. He was a member of the General
Education Board, and one of the trustees of the Russell
Sage Foundation. On his retirement from this Univer-
sity he became the first president of the Carnegie Institu-
tion— thus called for the second time in his life to the
arduous task of leadership in an unexplored field. This
incomplete enumeration of the undertakings in which he
co-operated, and of the interests which he labored to
promote, bears impressive testimony to his alert intelli-
gence and to the catholicity of his social feelings.
Our grief at the removal from the earthly scene of a
friend so honored and cherished, and our well-nigh over-
whelming sense of the loss inflicted upon many a worthy
cause in the withdrawal from the ranks of its supporters
of so vital and forceful a personality, are tempered and
assuaged when we consider how perfectly in accord with
what he would himself have desired was the manner of
his departure. The life which had traversed so wide a
circuit of labor and duty returned to the home of its
youth, and, laden with honors, with unabated energy of
mind, without pain, in the serenity of the religious faith
16 Daniel doit Gilman [1132
which had been its mainstay through the long years,
passed into the life immortal.
"that force,
Surely, has' not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar.
In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength.
Zealous, beneficent, firm."
ADDRESS
R. BRENT KEYSER, ESQ.
PRESIDENT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY
When we read of men erecting monuments to them-
selves, we are apt to think of pyramids and temples and
shafts of stone, forgetting that there are monuments
which are of the intellect and of the spirit, even more
enduring and more impressive. And, as in all times, men
have stood before these monuments of stone to gather
inspiration from the examples of those who erected them,
so, in this day, do men gather to admire the example of
those whose deeds and works remain with us in the
intangible but impressive evidence of the spirit.
Of all the many such monuments created by Mr. Gil-
man, in the varied interests to which he gave his energies,
the Johns Hopkins University stands greatest, and may
best be called his life-work. It is therefore most proper
that the Trustees of this University should pay their trib-
ute of admiration, and it is my privilege to bring to you
this afternoon their testimony.
When Johns Hopkins died, he not only left to the Trus-
tees of his University the care of its physical well-being,
but he imposed upon them the much more important func-
tion of giving to the earthly body which he had provided,
a spiritual and intellectual character that should be to
that earthly body what the inherited instincts and spirit-
ual yearnings are to the child. He charged them with
1133] Mr. Eeyser's Address 17
providing what we may, with all reverence, call its soul,
without which the physical body would be a useless shell,
and the great benefaction would fail of its obligation to
humanity. It is due to those first Trustees, chosen by Mr.
Hopkins, that we are gathered here this afternoon to do
honor to the memory of the man, whom they in their
wisdom chose to be the first President. It was because
of their high ideals that Mr. Oilman came among us, and
brought to this community his unselfish devotion and his
untiring energy, and it seems proper that their names
should be mentioned in this gathering. In speaking for
the Board of Trustees, I feel that Mr. Gilman would wish
me to mention those, his early friends and comrades in
the great work of his life, that they may, in memory, be
present with us this afternoon. Those first Trustees were
Galloway Cheston, Francis T. King, Lewis N. Hopkins,
Thomas M. Smith, William Hopkins, John W. Garrett,
George W. Dobbin, George Wm. Brown, James Carey
Thomas, Charles J. M. Gwinn, Eeverdy Johnson, Jr., and
Francis White, — now all gone to that further land.
In May, 1875, Mr. Gilman began his work as first Presi-
dent of the Johns Hopkins University, being then not yet
forty-four years of age, and on February the 22nd, 1876, at
its first public gathering, he made his Inaugural Address.
In this address were first published to the world, the ideals,
the characteristics, the spiritual and intellectual attrib-
utes of the infant university. Up to that time it had
possessed earthly attributes; from thence on it became a
living, spiritual influence. What that influence was to
be, can best be judged from Mr. Oilman's own words.
The new university was *'to develop character — to
make men." Its purport was ''not so much to impart
knowledge to the pupils as to whet the appetite, exhibit
methods, develop powers, strengthen judgment, and invig-
orate the intellectual and moral forces ; to prepare for the
service of society a class of students who will be wise,
18 Daniel Coit Gilman [1134
thoughtful, progressive guides in whatever department of
work or thought they may be engaged ; to impart a knowl-
edge of principles, rather than of methods."
It was to stand for the doctrine that "religion claims
to interpret the word of God, and science to reveal the
laws of God;" that "the interpreters may blunder, but
truths are immutable, eternal, and never in conflict." He
chose as the motto of the University "The truth shall
make you free."
He laid out a plan, capable of indefinite expansion
and based upon the fundamental principles of human
progress — a plan, which, after a third of a century, is
to-day as pertinent, as vital, as the day it was first con-
ceived. Across some of the items we can write "begun
and well continued," but across no one of them can we
write "accomplished," for plans based on eternal prin-
ciples are eternal. Methods and conceptions and knowl-
edge may change, buildings rise and decay, teachers and
students add their quota of interpretation and pass on,
but the work, the real work, of a real university is never
completed — and so he planned it.
The University was to be, in similitude, a shipyard
where ideas and methods and influences are built with
much toil, and, when ready for use, are launched out to do
their part in the commerce of mankind, and when one is
launched, the space it occupied in the building is imme-
diately utilized to lay the keel for a new and larger craft,
embodying the experience of all that has gone before,
together with the new ideas since the last was planned.
It was therefore a matter of vital import that the Uni-
versity should be established along lines which would bear
this test of eternal truth.
That the lofty standard established for the University
was in a very great degree due to the personal character
and influence of Mr. Gilman, may be seen if we consider
how completely the ideals which he conceived for the
1135] Mr. Key set'' s Address 19
institution correspond to the purposes that swayed his
own life.
In this same Inaugural Address, speaking of the world-
wide discussion regarding the aims, methods, deficiencies,
and possibilities of education, then engaging the atten-
tion of thoughtful men, he asks, "What is the significance
of all this activity?" And he answers thus: ''It is a
reaching out for a better state of society than now exists ;
it is a dim but an indelible impression of the value of
learning; it is a craving for intellectual and moral growth ;
it is a longing to interpret the laws of creation ; it means
a wish for less misery among the poor, less ignorance in
the schools, less bigotry in the temple, less suffering in the
hospital, less fraud in business, less folly in politics; it
means more study of nature, more love of art, more les-
sons from history, more security in property, more health
in cities, more virtue in the country, more wisdom in leg-
islation, more intelligence, more happiness, more reli-
gion." To satisfy this cry of humanity was the labor of
love which he set for the youthful University.
Did he not set the same task for himself? Let us con-
sider these words of his, not as a plan of life for the Uni-
versity, but as a plan of life for himself. Consider his
services to humanity, as known to us all, and see if the
spiritual and intellectual character which he gave to this
University was not part of his very self. Is it not true,
then, that he erected a monument, not of brick and
mortar, not of stone or marble, but of spirit — the spirit
which was in him. And is it not meet that we should
bring tribute — we, who both oflicially and personally
may learn from him, not by precei^t alone, but also by
example, how to attain to the motto of the wise men of
old:
"Let us learn on Earth those things the knowledge of
which will remain in Heaven."
20 Dmiiel Coit Gilman [1136
ADDRESS
HENRY M. HURD, M. D., LL. D.
SUPERINTENDENT OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL
I desire to speak briefly in behalf of the Board of
Trustees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in regard to
President Gilman's connection with that institution.
Although the connection seemed fortuitous and almost
accidental, it was fraught with benefits to the Hospital
and prepared the way for intimate relations with the
Medical School when it was later established. When in
the winter of 1888-9 the Hospital, after twelve years of
preparation, was approaching completion, there was on
the part of the Trustees much uncertainty as to the best
method of organizing the work and putting the institu-
tion into active operation. The President of the Board
of Trustees, the late Francis T. King, who had been
selected by Johns Hopkins to supervise the erection of
the Hospital, and who had been wisely and sagaciously
interested in the project, found himself unequal to the
task of opening it for patients by reason of ill-health; and
advancing years. It was felt by all that the undertaking
was of no ordinary proportions and called for the assist-
ance of a skilled and wise organizer. One night as Mr.
King lay sleepless and perplexed over the question of a
proper person to undertake the work, the conviction sud-
denly came to him that President Gilman must do it.
Later in my acquaintance, Mr. King often spoke of the
relief which he felt when, shortly after, at his suggestion,
the Trustees in January, 1889, formally appointed Mr.
Gilman Director of the Hospital, and committed to him
the task of providing the Hospital with "a system," as
had been expressed in the report of one of the commit-
tees— "a system which should serve as a guide to other
institutions." He entered upon his new duties imme-
diately with his usual ardor and energy. He familiar-
3137] Dr. Eurd's Address 21
ized himself with the literature of the subject and corre-
sponded with experts both at home and abroad. He
visited hospitals and large hotels in other cities to see
their methods and details of management, and studied
their kitchens, laundries, and linen-rooms. He inspected
even such minor matters as table linen and napkins. Out
of all this personal work he evolved a system of organ-
ization which has served excellently well ever since. I
saw a very suggestive diagram a few days ago in which
he portrayed visually, so that every one might clearly
understand, the relations of trustees, chief executive
officer, heads of departments, and employes. He assisted
in the selection of medical officers ; he saw personally and
selected and recommended for appointment all subordi-
nate officers and defined their duties and responsibilities ;
he familiarized himself with the proper spheres of the
housekeeper, the purveyor and the superintendent of
nurses, and "set their bounds," and thus secured har-
mony and co-operation. He thus spent several very
active months until the whole machinery of the establish-
ment was put in motion upon the opening day in May,
1889 — and a well-ordered and inspiring day it was! He
remained thereafter in daily attendance for many weeks
and gave close attention to every detail of administra-
tion. I have in my possession several notices of routine
appointments written for the bulletin board in his own
clear and legible hand. He came often to the Hospital
before breakfast, and on occasion spent a night there,
and this, too, when burdened with University duties. To
him we owe a system of internal administration with
many novel features, which, as has been mentioned in
the minute just read, have continued unchanged until
now. I need not repeat what has been already so clearly
stated.
His kindness of heart and keen sympathy with the poor
and friendless led him to modify many stringent regula-
tions then generally in force in other hospitals as to Sun-
22 Daniel Colt Gilman [1138
day visiting. Feeling that the laboring man could ill
afford to lose time from his labor during the week day to
visit a member of his family sick in the hospital, he
arranged from the first for a visiting hour on Sunday.
Likewise, impressed with his observation that Sunday
was a long and lonely day for people far from home, he
arranged that the mail should always be sent after on
that day, that the sick might be cheered by news from
home.
He was interested in employes of every grade and left
an impress of kindness, consideration, and courtesy upon
all branches of Hospital service. He selected very wisely
the first principal of the Training School for Nurses and
the first head nurses. He was ever after much interested
in the Training School and often visited it, and on sev-
eral occasions made addresses to the pupil nurses. To
his suggestion the Johns Hopkins Hospital owes the pos-
session of the reproduction of Thorwaldsen's statue of
Christ, the gift of Mr. Spence, of Baltimore, which adorns
our rotunda and suggests rest and healing to sick and
suffering. He suggested a system of publications on the
part of the Hospital and watched the successive issues of
the Bulletin and Reports with kindly critical interest.
He kept himself constantly in touch with the work of the
institution, and, if in hours of discouragement I sought
his advice, he was ever hopeful and optimistic. ''Look at
the results," he would say, "they are grand."
He remained on terms of intimate friendship with all
of his former associates at the Hospital, and his influence
was always given to educational and administrative bet-
terment. He was never a carping critic, but rather a
devoted, interested friend. When his brief connection
with the Hospital was at an end, he left behind him tradi-
tions of system and order, of a kindly spirit and true
courtesy in his relations with ofiScers, nurses, patients,
and employes, of an appreciation of honest, faithful work
and of high faith in the future usefulness of the institu
1139] Mr. Bryce's Address 23
tion. He was gifted with imagination to conceive the
possibilities of its future and a practical sense which had
enabled him to realize his dreams. Above all he left with
the Hospital an abiding spirit of enthusiasm for scien-
tific study, of loyalty to the higher aims of medicine, and
of cordial co-operation in every department of service.
He was the steadfast friend and trusted adviser of
each and all; and we loved and honored him. No better
illustration could be given of his enduring personality,
versatility, and practical judgment than his successful
work at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. It will live for
many years.
ADDRESS
Right honorable JAMES BRYCE
BRITISH AMBASSADOR
I value this opportunity of joining in paying a
tribute — nor was any tribute ever better deserved — to
the memory of President Gilman. I desire to pay it as
a member of two ancient Universities in Great Britain,
to one who will hold always a leading place in the history
of universities, and, also, especially because I had the
privilege of knowing Mr. Gilman during a period of
thirty-eight years.
It always struck me that there was a singular fitness
in his being chosen to be the first President of this Uni-
versity, whose creation and equipment marked a new
departure in the history of the higher education in
America.
There are no posts in this country which a European
observer finds more important than are the headships of the
great universities. It was said a few moments ago that the
President of a university has no longer the same oppor-
tunities as he once had, of coming into intimate personal
relationship with the students placed in his charge. But,
24 Daniel Coit Gilman [1140
on the other hand, in the development which your univer-
sities have taken, there is opened a wide and still expand-
ing field through which he can mold the character of thou-
sands of your future leaders in Church and State, who
are placed under his charge, and I doubt if there be any
position in the United States which offers greater oppor-
tunities for rendering the finest kind of service to the
nation as a whole. We had the other day an illustration
of the importance which belongs to that post in the im-
pression which has been made upon the whole country by
the news of the approaching retirement, after a career of
splendid usefulness, of the head of the most ancient uni-
versity in America, Dr. Eliot, of Harvard University.
Tributes have been paid to President Oilman's work
by those who knew him here in intimate personal rela-
tionship, who were associated with him, as his successor
has been, in the work of the University and of the Hos-
pital, and on behalf of the Trustees also. All that I can
say is from an outside point of view, which far less
touches the details of work in which administrative
talents are shown, and what I do say I offer with defer-
ence. And yet it is quite fitting that there should be
words spoken by those also who saw the University and
the city from outside, and who looked at your President
in the wider aspects of his career.
There were two things that always impressed me in his
personality as qualifying him for the special work which
he had in this University, and particularly for the work
that fell to him of determining the lines upon which this
new seat of learning ought to be developed. One of
these was his being in close touch with very different
lines of study and inquiry. He was in touch with the
sciences of Nature. He was capable on the one hand of
comprehending and appreciating true scientific methods,
not those only which belong to abstract inquiry, but also
the application of our knowledge of Nature to enterprises
of practical utility. And, on the other hand, he was
1141] Mr. Bryce's Address 25
equally in touch with what we call the human studies —
literature, history, political science, economic science.
He understood the part to be allotted to them also, and
he felt that they were no less essential to the equipment
of a truly great university. No man was better fitted
to adjust the relations of these two great divisions of
knowledge to one another in the organization of a seat of
learning. Then further he had also a true and just per-
ception of the relation that ought to exist in the plans
and organization of a university to secure due attention
to each of the two branches of its work, viz., to Research
and to Instruction. Appreciating the importance of both
of these, he made due provision for each; nor has any-
thing more contributed to the progress of this Univer-
sity. We in England have been much perplexed by this
problem, which his wide and just view of the history and
functions of a university enabled him to solve effectively.
As the creation of Johns Hopkins has been a very
important factor in the recent growth and change in the
character of the higher instruction in this country, his
sound appreciation of the conditions of this problem
deserves the fullest recognition.
He had large plans and high ideals, seeing a long way
ahead. But one was always struck by this also, that his
sense of the ideal and his striving for the ideal never
made him unpractical or dreamy. His mind was steadily
fixed on what could be done with the means that lay at
his disposal. It was, moreover, a singularly fair and open
mind, a mind which was not warped by prejudices or
prepossessions, so, when he had to judge men and select
some one for a ptost, he was able to weigh and sum up the
various merits of different persons and their fitness for
the work which they were to be chosen to do in the Uni-
versity, just as carefully and just as reasonably as he
would weigh against one another the respective claims
of mathematics, of biology, of Latin or German, to a
place in the curriculum.
26 Daniel Coit Gilman [1142
This, too, was conspicuous throughout his action, that
he was always thinking first of his duties, not of himself,
and that he was far more anxious that the work should be
done well than that he should have any credit for the
doing of it. Many were the talks I had with him, not only
about the organization of universities, but also about the
Constitution and politics of your country, and I was
impressed by the open mind and the conscientious spirit
which he brought to the consideration of all those
questions.
He was assuredly in the best sense of the word a good
citizen, a good patriot, a good American. He loved
his country so much as to .wish that everything in it
should be made worthy of the finest traditions of our race
and of the special opportunities which lie before the
American people.
Visible throughout his daily life and work there was a
quiet serenity, a sort of unobtrusively persistent earnest-
ness which largely contributed to the effectiveness of
bis actions. He never seemed to be in a hurry. He never
allowed the petty annoyances of life to disturb him.
Was it not by this serenity of disposition and tranquil
steadfastness that he achieved such great results without
impairing his own strength?
Wisdom grows out of the temper and heart of a man
as well as out of his intellect. Where there is practical
work and delicate work to be done, insight and sym-
pathy must go together. They were happily united in
him; and to their union in its first President your
University largely owes the high position which it so
soon took and which I trust it will long retain among
American seats of learning.
This is an occasion rather for the commemoration of
public service than for reference to the gifts and graces
which make the charm of private life. But I may be
permitted to say that Dr. Gilman was one of the most
true and constant and warm-hearted of friends. He was
1143] Professor Welch's Address 27
one of those friends in whose company it was good to be,
for he was always set upon high things, and he followed
them in a considerate and pure spirit. He was simple,
kindh^, tender. He was one who always gave the best of
himself to his friends.
ADDRESS
WILLIAM H. WELCH, M. D., LL. D.
PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY
As one of the noblest, most distinctive, and most suc-
cessful parts of the work of this University has been that
of the medical department, it is eminently fitting that
there should be on this occasion especial recognition of
Mr. Gilman's great achievement in this field, and 1
esteemi it a privilege, in behalf of my colleagues of the
medical school, to express our sense of deep indebtedness
to him.
It was ordained by the terms of Johns Hopkins' gift
that there should be a medical department of the Univer-
sity, and that the hospital for which he provided should
be a part thereof. The task thus imposed was one movst
congenial to Mr. Gilman. He had already been actively
interested Avith others at the Sheffield Scientific School in
arranging a course of study designed to be preliminary
to the study of medicine, this being the first provision of a
special course of this kind. The address of Professor
Huxley at the opening of the University in 1876 was
largely concerned with the subject of medical education.
The establishment of the chair of biology at the begin-
ning of the work of the University had especially in view
the needs of the future medical school and prepared the
way for its successful foundation. The choice of Newell
Martin as the first professor of biology proved to be
most fortunate and of great significance for the develop-
ment in this country of biology in relation to medicine.
28 Daniel Coit GUman [1144
At the time and under the conditions then existing Mr.
Gilman, by securing the establishment of this chair and
the appointment of Professor Martin to fill it, manifested
great wisdom and foresight and did the best possible
service to the future school of medicine.
In the interval between the opening of the University
and that of the Hospital in 1889, and of the medical
school in 1893, Mr. Gilman gave much time and thought
to questions of medical education and the character of the
future department. He brought to this study the most
enlightened, sympathetic, and active interest. He secured
the opinions and advice of eminent authorities in this
country and in Europe. He was himself greatly inter-
ested and well-informed regarding the newer develop-
ments of medicine in the fields opened to exploration by
Pasteur and Koch, and he realized that medicine was en-
tering upon new paths of knowledge and of service to
mankind. He was particularly attracted by the life and
work of Pasteur.
Early in the history of the University Mr. Gilman con-
stituted the nucleus of a medical faculty by bringing to-
gether for deliberation upon certain questions relating to
the contemplated medical school Professor, now President,
Remsen, Professor Martin, and Dr. Billings, and in 1884
T was summoned to join in these deliberations. It was
realized from the start that there was an opportunity for
the University to achieve for higher medical education
a work quite comparable in character to that which it was
accomplishing for university education in general. It
was this ideal which animated Mr. Gilman in all his
efforts in behalf of the medical school. The attainment
of this ideal of a medical school upon a true university
basis, under the administration and largely through the
efforts of Mr. Gilman, is of historic importance, and will
be remembered as one of his greatest achievements in the
cause of higher education.
1145] Professor Welch's Address 29
When, by the generous provision of a special endow-
ment, it was possible to open the medical school in 1893,
Mr. Gilman brought to us the same qualities of leadership
which had served the University so well since its founda-
tion, the same wisdom in the selection of the staff, the
same sagacity in counsel, the same power of organization,
the same inspiring optimism, the same high ideals of at-
tainment. He established with the heads of the various
departments those close, personal and sympathetic rela-
tions which were always an encouragement and stimulus
to the best work. He rejoiced exceedingly in any good
work or any distinction of any member of the staff, and
half the pleasure of any such success was to share it with
our president.
I should like here to refer to the great interest which
Mr. Gilman had in the work of Major Walter Reed and
his colleagues of the army yellow fever commission, and
to the important service which he rendered in organizing
the Walter Reed Memorial Association and accepting the
chairmanship. It was principally through his efforts that
the fund was raised to commemorate the work of Walter
Reed and his colleagues in discovering the mode of con-
veyance of yellow fever, and thereby making possible the
control of this dread pestilence.
I have endeavored in these few words to indicate in
some measure, although very inadequately, the profound
indebtedness of the Johns Hopkins Medical School to Mr.
Gilman, but I cannot express that personal debt which
we, his colleagues, as he was accustomed to call us, owe
to him. We loved him as a friend, we revered him as our
leader and wise counsellor, we shall cherish his memory
as an inspiration, and this will remain a precious posses-
sion of the medical school throughout its existence.
30 Daniel Coit Gilman [1146
ADDRESS
HONORABLE CHARLES J. BONAPARTE
ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
A really great teacher deals, not with books, but with
men; his labors bear fruit, not in the expanded learning
of those who have known his care, but in their strength-
ened principles, their purified lives, their added useful-
ness to other men and to themselves. It is well and of
moment that he train up scholars, for on scholarship
rests civilization ; but it is better and of far greater
moment that he train up good citizens and good men, for
civilization withjout righteousness is but armed iniquity
and gilded nastiness.
And to do this, to fulfil this paramount, this vital duty
of his profession, the teacher must be himself a good citi-
zen and a good man ; he will teach better by his life than
by his word or pen ; a learned recluse may give to the
world greater knowledge; in our day, at least, he cannot
give the world higher and stronger manhood.
These truths shine forth in the life and the life-work
of that great teacher to whose memory we pay just
honor to-day. He was a stranger to no wise movement
for public betterment in our city, and a worker, nay a
leader, in many among those of wider scope. He was a
founder of the Charity Organization Society, of the
Civil Service Eeform Association of Maryland, of the
Baltimore Reform League, of the Municipal Art Society,
of the New Mercantile Library; in our midst he aided to
administer such trusts of enlightened beneficence as the
Peabody Institute, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and
the Samuel Ready Orphan School; he served the people
of Baltimore as a member of our New Charter Commis-
sion and as a Commissioner of our Public Schools.
Beyond the borders of Maryland, he was President of
the American Oriental Society, of the American Bible
1147] 3Ir. Bonaparte's Address 31
Society, of the Slater Fund to educate the Freedmen, of
the Carnegie Institution at Washington, and of the Na-
tional Civil Service Reform League; he was Vice-Presi-
dent of the Peabody Southern Education Fund and of the
Archaeological Institute of America; he was a Trustee
of the General Board to promote Education throughout
our Union, and of the Russell Sage Foundation to im-
prove conditions of work and life among our people. Bj
the wise choice of President Cleveland he aided in en-
lightening the foreign policy of our country, in safe-
guarding the peace of the world, through service as a
member of the Venezuela Border Commission.
This numbering of his good works leaves a multitude
without mention: the life lately closed was so full of
fruitful and unselfish labor, so rich in blessings to his
fellow-men, that it were easier to say what he did not
than what he did to benefit the community wherein he
dwelt, his country, and mankind. A youth seeking learn-
ing from this University finds depicted in the life of its
first President the model of what he and his fellows must
be to do credit to their Alma Mater and to merit honor
from good men. Such may be his most fitting monu-
ment: every young man who enters life, equipped within
these walls to bear its burdens and fulfil its duties, and
who proves himself worthy of the dignity and happiness
of an American freeman, will be a legacy to his country
from him who has just left us, will be a reminder to his
countrymen of their debt to Daniel Coit Oilman.
32 Daniel Coit Gilman [1148
ADDRESS
BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE, PH. D., LL. D.
PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY
In the many tributes already paid to the revered and
beloved first President of the Johns Hopkins University
the old-fashioned functionary known to foreign universi-
ties now as the Public Orator, now as the Professor of
Eloquence, would find ample material for a formal
address on this memorable occasion. To the crowning
achievement of his life, to the organization of this school,
by which; men date a new era in the history of American
education, converged as to a centre all the lines of his
earlier activities. It was for this in the Providence of
God that he was imbued with the noble traditions of a
great college, that he was brought into contact with the
scientific and social life of Europe, that he made himself
familiar with the work of the librarian, that he mastered
the system of public education, that he discharged the
active duties of a professorship, that he planned the
machinery of a great scientific school, that he served as
the head of a great university. The preparation for the
supreme task of his life was as elaborate as his personal
endowments were rare; and from the centre thus gained
there went forth a radiation of beneficent influences that
were felt in every part of the community and the coun-
try. It was the glory of the Johns Hopkins University
that its President was foremost in every good word and
work. It was no fountain sealed — it was a source of life
and light. Such was the central sphere, such the ever
enlarging cycles of his philanthropic endeavor; and so
effective was his work that he seemed to be the one great
• champion of each cause that he espoused. Wherever he
appeared there came light and hope and confidence. His
wide vision was matched by his discernment of spirits
which is the secret of power, his marvellous resourceful-
ness by his wonderful sense of order. There have been
1149] Professor Gildersleeve's Address 33
many to tell of these things, of his untiring energy, of his
unfailing courtesy, which was the effluence of a sympathy
unfeigned, his large and gracious hospitality, his inex-
haustible generosity, which not only responded to every
appeal for help, but even divined the needs of those who
hid their trouble as if it were a treasure. His native
dignity had no touch of austerity. His presence was a
bright presence and a pure presence. There are few who
like him have not sinned with their lips under the temp-
tation of the infectious mirth of the social circle. High
qualities all these — but they are marred in some men by
a self-seeking spirit which regards all praise of others
as an encroachment on vested rights. No man so utterly
free as was he from envy and jealousy. He rejoiced in
the successes of his followers more than in his own. He
delighted to espy the first recognition of a member of his
academic stalf, to get the first appreciative newspaper
clipping, to secure the first copy of a new book by one of
his men in advance of the author himself. If recognition
was slow in coming to one of his associates, its value was
enhanced when it came by the eagerness with which he
tried to make good the long arrears. Chief trait of all
was his faith in his high calling — the faith that led him
to triumph, that sustained him under trial. Optimism
men call it. He was known as an optimist. And so he
was in the best sense. He lived as looking forward to
the best, as hoping for the best, as seeing Him who is
invisible. All these things have been brought out with
varying stress, now in unstudied interview, now in
formal resolution, by those who have undertaken to
speak his praise, to tell of their love and reverence. But
to say again what others have said and said better than
I could say it — that is not the office to which I have been
called to-day. I have been asked to speak because to me
the man, Daniel Coit Gilman, was not a mere synonym
for an array of high achievements, an assemblage of high
qualities, a treasury of noble thoughts, a source of happy
34 Daniel Coit Gilnicm [1150
influences. He was much more to me than all that, and
though others of his colleagues were nearer to him than I,
still there are circumstances in our common history that
would make it recreancy in me not to respond to the re-
quest that I should undertake to represent the thought,
the judgment, the feelings of those who shared his work
and followed his standard.
I am the oldest, if not the earliest of his Baltimore fel-
low-workers now living. For twenty-five years, a consid-
erable stretch in the longest life — a period that sufQces
for the true mission of most men — for twenty-five years,
for more than twenty-five years, we were friends in coun-
cil, and he often playfully referred to the early days of the
University when he and I constituted the faculty. Those
days soon passed, but the memory of them is precious to
the survivor, and at a time when each man is talking to
his neighbor of the common loss and recalling this incident
and that, to illustrate the character and the career of the
departed master, I may be forgiven for bringing forth my
treasured remembrance of the hour when we first met in
my old academic home, and when, all unsuspected by me,
he was taking my measure for the office I was destined to
fill, my treasured remembrance of the long consultation
in Washington when he invited me to share his work, and,
contrary to his wont, for he kept early hours, pursued
until the night waxed old, the high theme of the Univer-
sity that was to be. Together we journeyed in the cause
of the University, in which the founder himself had made
provision for my native South — to Staunton, to
Richmond, to Raleigh. But time would fail me to
tell the story of that early fellowship, or even to
touch on the salient points of those far-off days.
''The old favor sleeps" is the plaint of a Greek
poet, but I am happy to think that with him the
old favor never slept or slumbered, and in my last inter-
view with him just thirty-three years— just a genera-
1151] Professor Gilder sleeve's Address 35
tion — after he sought me out at the University of Vir-
ginia, we could look back on all that long period of un-
broken friendship and unforfeited confidence, — and when
I go over in my mind the details of that last interview, I
cannot help thinking that his never-failing benignity
had in it something of the tenderness of a last farewell.
No wonder that I have dreaded for years lest this hour
should come to me, that I had hoped he should be the one
to say the little that was to be said about his fellow-
worker and his follower, and that I should not have to
face the impossible task of summing up his achievements,
of portraying his character. You see, my friends, I
cannot even at this time dissociate my private loss from
the public loss, nor can I suppress the personal note in
this public tribute. My plea must be that my relations
to him have their counterpart in the experience of all
those who were privileged to work under the first Head
of the University — and hateful as the first person always
is — I find that I cannot better illustrate than by my own
example the potent influence of the great administrator,
or rather let me say the great Taskmaster. It is indeed
a homely word, but it is one he himself would not have
disapproved, he who lived as ever in his great Task-
master's eye. No Egyptian taskmaster was he with
cruel criticism and meddlesome interference; no unwise
taskmaster to burden himself with the assumption of
duties which he had assigned to others.
There were two men of genius in the little band the
first President first gathered about him. Now the wind
of genius bloweth where it listeth and no one dreams of
setting a task to men like Sylvester and Rowland, yet
they, too, were ministers to his far-reaching plans; and
momentous as the work of these men was in itself, its
effectiveness was due in large measure to the infinite tact
of the man who guided the fortunes of the University.
Few men would have been large-minded enough to appre-
36 . Daniel Coit Oilman [1152
ciate the value of those idealists — few men would have
known how to make a plain path before them.
And now I go on to make my confession as to his deal-
ings with another of his staff, with his only close con-
temporary in that first company. No man considers
himself a problem, for every man fancies that he knows
himself. But looking backward it seems to me that T,
too, must have been a. problem. With twenty years
behind me of familiarity with university work, in which
questions of administration as well as problems of in-
struction were always coming up, with all the spirit of
independence bred by the conditions of my nativity, by
the atmosphere of my only academic home, a man of his
own age and so not overawed by the old experience of
another — I might have given trouble to a man less famil-
iar with the stops of human will. And yet while I was
free as air in the conduct of the special work I was
appointed to do, I have been so swayed by what I once
called his mild but fatal insistence that I have engaged
in lines of effort that were foreign to my habits and my
inclinations, and much that I have accomplished from
my entrance upon the work of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity down to this day has been due to his initiative.
He knew that we were children of the same creed, he
knew that we had both been trained to respond to the call
of the stern daughter of the voice of God — to obey the
mandate "This is the way. Walk ye in it."
And so it came about that a man who was radically
un-American in his aversion to public performance, who
in twenty years had only four or five public discourses
to his account — was called on over and over again in the
early years of the University to represent by formal
addresses and popular lectures the spirit of the new insti-
tution; and, if for many years I have seldom figured in
that capacity, it has been because he found other work
for me to do, work for which he deemed me better fitted,
though it was work for which, I must confess, I had little
1153] Professor Gildersleeve' s Address 37
relish. That editorial work involved self-abnegation, it
meant a subordination of personal ambition to the pro-
motion of the interests of American scholarship, it meant
resigning at least in a measure the delightful, if arduous
exercise of constructive activity. It was after all follow-
ing in his footsteps and subscribing to his faith in the
power of the press— for he was a believer in the power
of the press, and the Johns Hopkins Press, which he
founded in the face of criticism, will hold the University
to its high mission and maintain the University in its high
repute, whether the worshippers at the academic shrine
be few or many.
And so it was that he revealed to me, as he revealed to
so many, the path of duty, and after walking in it with
steady if not eager feet all these years I have publicly
acknowledged my obligation to him and publicly con-
fessed that I could not have been more usefully employed.
My recompense of reward is his recompense of reward and
the circumstances are not unlike. For he also was too
much of a student not to regret that in his busy life he
had not found time to set his seal to some supreme
achievement in letters or science. But it must have been
a consolation to him— nay, I am sure it was a consolation
to him— to know how many of the successes of his follow-
ers bore the impress of his administrative genius. And it
is only as one of many that I have attempted to show
how he energized as well as organized the Johns Hopkins
University, only as one of many that I bear this testimony
to our great Taskmaster. No testimony is needed, none
would suffice for those who knew him as a friend.
The audience then arose and sang the Doxology, and
the exercises closed with a brief prayer and the benedic-
tion by Professor Edward H. Griffin, Dean of the Col-
lege Faculty.
38 Daniel Goit Gilman [1154
LETTERS RECEIVED BY PRESIDENT REUSE N
CARDINAL GIBBONS
I take pleasure in saying . . . that I have always
admired Dr. Gilman. He was a splendid type of the
public-spirited citizen. Our city had no more ardent and
efficient worker for its material and intellectual progress.
There was no movement inaugurated for the city's
improvement which did not receive not only his approval,
but also his whole-souled support and active co-operation.
But above and beyond all other works which have
stamped the name of Dr. Gilman upon the affectionate
memory of the citizens of Baltimore, which have merited
their gratitude, and which we can point to with especial
pride, stands pre-eminent the great university which he
established and over which he presided so admirably and
so long.
HONORABLE ANDREW D. WHITE
I need not tell you how fully earned the tribute is
which you purpose to pay to Dr. Gilman. He has deserved
well, indeed, not only of Baltimore and of Maryland, but
of the whole United States. The republic of science and
letters throughout the world also owes him a great debt.
I have known him well ever since we were fellow
students at Yale, fifty-five years ago, and I have never
known a day during that whole period when his thoughts
were not upon some enterprise for the good of his fellow-
men.
What he did at Johns Hopkins was a work of genius.
We all knew him before as an admirable worker in
various fields, but I think that none but his most intimate
friends realized, until he founded your institution, the
real originality of that mind which was destined to render
1155] Letters Received 39
such vast services to the higher education in our own
country and in others. It has been my good fortune at
various times to labor with him in various enterprises,
and to be thrown into very close and confidential relations
with him, and I can say that in every capacity in which
I have ever seen him tried, he has proved himself a master.
Eecognition of his merit was far wider than it at first
might seem, and it is to me not only a pleasure but a duty
to testify that the welcome he received from the foremost
men of science and literature in Berlin, when he visited
that capital and university preparatory to taking charge
of the Carnegie Institution, was very striking. I had pre-
viously had occasion to know of the deep impression his
personality and ideas made at Oxford and Cambridge in
England, and it was with especial satisfaction that I saw
such recognition coming from other sources, equally high,
but less inclined to admire American university achieve-
ments. The realization of his ideas in Baltimore, even
though not yet complete, has marked an epoch in the
history of civilization in our country.
I might dwell upon the personal characteristics
revealed in this intimate relation between us, which has
lasted more than half a century, but the qualities which
I have known in him and which: have led me not only to
respect and admire but to love him, must have shown
themselves to many who will be present with you, and,
beside this, I hardly dare trust myself to open a subject
so full of memories which are among the greatest and
most sacred treasures of my life.
PRESIDENT ANGELL
I beg to express my thanks for the invitation to be
present at the meeting in commemoration of President
Oilman, on November 8th. I regret that my engagements
render it impossible for me to accept. I should be glad to
40 Daniel Coit Gihnan [1156
express, by my presence, my great personal regard for
him and my high; appreciation of the great value of his
services to higher education in this country.
PRESIDENT ALDERMAN
Permit me to thank you for remembering me in extend-
ing the invitation to be present at the meeting in com-
memoration of Dr. Gilnian, on November 8th. I regret
that it is not possible for me to be present, for I assure
you that my spirit is in thorough sympathy with the
purposes of the meeting. It was my fortune to know
Dr. Gilman well for the last eight or ten years, and, of
course, I knew, as a student, of his service to American
education, and especially the tremendous service he per-
formed in the building of Johns Hopkins University. No
American who has worked in the field of education has a
clearer title to just and honest fame.
PRESIDENT JUDSON
The University of Chicago feels acutely the great work
which; President Gilman did in the founding of Johns
Hopkins University. American universities, to-day, owe
a large part of their advanced ideas and of their achieve-
ments in the line of real university work to the founda-
tion and example of -Johns Hopkins. President Gilman's
memory will be enshrined in the history of American uni-
versities for all time.
DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL
I cannot let pass the formal invitation to the commemo-
ration service for Dr. Gilman without a word of regret
on my part that I cannot be present. I have just arrived
at home and am overwhelmed with correspondence and
1157] Letters Received 41
engagements, and have also to be in Baltimore later in
the month at the meeting of the National Academy of
Sciences.
We must, all of us, deeply regret the passing away of
this estimable and accomplished gentleman, who has done
so much for education and, indirectly, for the science of
the country.
HONORABLE SETH LOW
I regret very much that it is not possible for me to be
present at the meeting in commemoration of Dr. Oilman,
to be held on Sunday next. My friendship for him as a
man and my appreciation of his work both urge me to
attend; but, unfortunately, circumstances forbid.
I avail myself of this opportunity, however, to say that,
in my judgment, Dr. Oilman's influence upon the higher
education in the United States was so fruitful that he
will be permanently remembered as one of America's
greatest educators. It was said of Augustus that he
found Eome brick and left it of marble. With equal
truth, it may be said of Dr. Oilman that he found the
United States a land of colleges that gave to men a
broadening education, and he left it a land of universities,
also, that train specialists as well as they can be trained
anywhere in the world, in every department of human
knov.iedge. This was a gift to the United States sur-
passing, in its possibilities of benediction, all the treas-
ures at the command of Aladdin's lamp. The American
people may well do honor to such a man, while we
who knew and loved him will bear his name inscribed
upon our hearts.
PRESIDENT QUIRK
I beg leave to offer to you as President of the University
and friend of Dr. Oilman, lately deceased, my sincere
expression of sympathy and sorrow. In view of the
42 Daniel Coit Gilman [1158
Doctor's advanced age it was but natural that his end
might be expected at any time; yet such was his bright
and buoyant carriage that one would not readily associate
with him the idea of death and parting. It is for me a
source of pleasure and satisfaction to express to you as
head of Hopkins Universitj^, of which Dr. Gilman was the
first president and organizer, the deep appreciation which
I have always entertained of his courtesy and kindnesses
extended to me while at Loyola, in Baltimore. His large-
mindedness, his power of organization, and his keen
scrutiny into character have been qualities generally
extolled in the public press. Yet I dare say that you will
agree with me when I affirm that his finest qualities were
that broad and impartial judgment which made him, so to
speak, catholic in his view of men and things, and that
courtliness of manner which was the constant, outward
reflection of that judgment.
I am sure that this brief word of condolence will meet
with a kind reception on the part of one who knew him
so intimately as yourself, and who could therefore appre-
ciate his great worth as a friend and educator.
1159] Dr. FranJclin's Tribute 43
ARTICLE IN "THE NATION," OCTOBER 22, 1908
Dr. FABIAN FRANKLIN
The great achievement with which the name of Presi-
dent Gilman will always be chiefly associated is that of
having naturalized in America the idea of a true univer-
sity. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to point to
any other instance in which a fundamental advance in the
aims of the higher education in a great nation has been so
clearly identified with the work of one man. To say this
is not to claim for Mr. Gilman any great originality of
conception, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, any
monopoly in the work of shafting the methods by which
the ideas underlying the creation of the Johns Hopkins
University were brought into definite and concrete form.
It is perfectly true that the time was ripe for the great
forward step that was taken in Baltimore in 1876 ; vague
aspirations in that direction existed in a number of places,
and fragmentary efforts toward higher university work
were made here and there, by some exceptionally gifted or
exceptionally equipped professor in one or another of our
leading institutions of learning. But there is no telling
how long a time the actual ripening might have required
if it had been left to the gradual increase of these sporadic
efforts, which had no systematic support, and which were
not even recognized, by any but the merest handful of men,
as pointing toward any broad or significant result. The
first great merit of President Gilman was that, from the
moment that he was called to Baltimore, the object which
he s-et before himself was that of making the institution
which was to arise there under his guidance a means of
supplying to the nation intellectual training of a higher
order than could be obtained at existing colleges and uni-
44 Daniel Goit Gihnan [1160
versities, and thus distinctly raising the standards of
American science and scholarship. The wisdom of Johns
Hopkins in placing no restrictions on the discretion of
his trustees, and the intelligence and broadmindedness of
the trustees themselves, gave President Gilman a rare and
enviable opportunity to carry out this high purpose; but
it must not be forgotten that, in the practical execution
of such a task, there arise a thousand difficulties, tempta-
tions, and insidious dangers, any one of which may por-
tend serious damage, and all of which, taken together, may
mean utter failure. To be firm against local prejudices
or desires when in conflict with; the great end in view; to
be uninfluenced by personal claims and unafraid of tempo-
rary complainings; to disappoint the natural hopes of
those who were anxious to see imposing buildings and big
crowds of students, and to await the recognition which
attends the genuine achievement of a vital but not super-
ficially showy result — these are things that look easy in
the retrospect, but that did not seem by any means mat-
ters of course before the event.
As to the actual methods adopted in the inception of the
Johns Hopkins University, it would be an error to attrib-
ute them to the unaided initiative of President Gilman.
He felt his way ; he had at his side, in the original group
of six professors, men vt^ho were not only eminent scholars,
investigators, and teachers, but able advisers. Three were
American and three English ; and of the three Americans,
two had been thoroughly imbued with the methods of the
German universities in which they had been trained. It
was, of course, in the main, the adoption of German uni-
versity standards and methods that characterized the new
university at Baltimore, and differentiated it from any-
thing that had theretofore existed in America; and in
determining just how far to go in this direction the views
of tw^o such men as Gildersleeve and Remsen were natu-
rally of the utmost value and influence. Anything like an
1161] Br. Franklin's Trihute 45
exact imitation of the German university was not
attempted; but the conclusion was soon arrived at that
the German doctorate of philosophy must be set up as the
fixed goal of students, and that the German Seminar must
be one of the chief instruments of instruction. That
before receiving the university degree the candidate must
have shovv^n the training of an investigator in his chief
subject, as well as the acquisition of a certain amount of
specialized knowledge, was thus fundamental in the Johns
Hopkins plan from the beginning ; it need hardly be added
that, as a matter of course, productive research was,
generally speaking, understood to be an indispensable part
of the activities of the professorial body. That the com-
bination of the work of research with the work of teaching
was a cardinal part of President Gilman's programme
from the outset, is evident from his inaugural address
delivered February 22, 1876, half a year before the univer-
sity was opened ; and the promptness with which the uni-
versity began the publication of the American Journal of
Mathematics, the American Chemical Journal, and the
American Journal of Philology gave evidence of the prom-
inence, in President Gilman's mind, of the idea of furnish-
ing all necessary facilities and encouragements for the
prosecution of research.
The project of establishing twenty fellowships, to be
held for a period of from one to three years by young men
of good attainments and of unusual promise, had been
adopted by Mr. Gilman before he had gathered his pro-
fessors together, and it proved to be a factor of the first
importance in the creation of that inspiriting atmosphere
which distinguished the early years of the Johns Hopkins,
and which all who shared in the labors and the enthusi-
asms of that time cherish among the brightest memories
of their lives. The fellowship and scholarship method of
attracting students has, in the past thirty years, spread to
great dimensions in our country, with results that are not
46 Daniel Coit Gilma/n [1162
without their objectionable side; but neither at the Johns
Hopkins nor elsewhere is the idea of the fellowship now
what it was when Mr. Gilmian gathered in the aspiring
young men who held the Johns Hopkins fellowships in the
first few years. It may be somewhat difficult to point out
the exact difference; but perhaps this may best be indi-
cated by saying that the Johns Hopkins fellowship in
those days did not seem a routine matter, an every-day
step in the regular process toward a doctorate or a pro-
fessorship, but a rare and peculiar opportunity for study
and research, eagerly seized by men who had been hunger-
ing and thirsting for such a possibility. Of course, not
every one of the twenty was a rara avis, nor was every one
equally enthusiastic. But, on the whole, here was a little
phalanx of gifted and ardent young men gathered from
every quarter of the country, some of them fresh from
study in Germany, and nearly all filled with the idea that
a new world was opening out for American learning and
that they were the first to be admitted to the privilege of
entering upon its intellectual joys. At least one member
of the first band of fellov/s, a man who has reached the
highest distinction as a philosophical thinker and writer —
Professor Royce — some years ago recorded in a charming
way his recollections of those inspiring days, and what he
says about them is no more than those who were his con-
temporaries at Johns Hopkins will recognize as true.
Among the qualities of President Gilman to which the
splendid success o^ ^he young university was due, none is
more frequently or more justly pointed to than his rare
talent in the choice of men. With the small faculty with
which the work was begun, it was of essential importance
that every appointment, or nearly every appointment,
should be of pre-eminent excellence ; and such was the case.
Moreover, the qualities of the various professors — their
temperament, their predilections, their methods, their
origin and antecedents — were extremely diverse; and it
1163] Dr. Franklin's Tribute 47
was in a measure this very diversity that gave Johns Hop-
kins that peculiarly intense and picturesque vitality that
was so marked in its early years. It would never in the
world have done to have a whole faculty of Sylvesters;
anything like a systematic programme would have been
out of the question, and still more out of the question
would have been the carrying out of any programme
whatever. But, on the other hand, the presence of one
Sylvester was of absolutely incalculable value. Not only
did he fire the zeal of the young men who came for mathe-
matics, but the contagion of his intellectual ardor was
felt in every department of the university, and did more
than any other one thing to quicken that spirit of ideal-
istic devotion to the pursuit of truth and the enlargement
of knowledge which is, after all, the very soul of a univer-
sity. It was one of the finest traits of President Oilman
that he not only appreciated qualities like Sylvester's
sufficiently to lead him to select such a man in the first
place, but — what is far more noteworthy — was capable of
such genuine sympathy with him, such, participation in
his aims and enthusiasms, as to overcome all the barriers
and difficulties and vexations that necessarily attended
dealings with a man having in so extraordinary a measure
the trying temperamental peculiarities that are the privi-
lege of genius. It was not only in the selection of men,
but in dealing with them, that Oilman showed the gifts
of a remarkable administrator. Nor does this adequately
express the source of his hold on his colleagues, for that
was due not merely to skill or sagacity, but also to the
really extraordinary breadth of his interests. There was
nothing great, nothing significant in any field of efifort,
that failed to appeal to his imagination and to arouse in
him the keen interest of a man who?e mind was ever open
to the possibilities of achievement and to the promotion
of culture in all its forms.
48 Daniel Coit Gilinan [1164
Mr. Giiman's career did not begin with the foundation
of the Johns Hopkins University, and did not end with
his retirement from its presidency after twenty-live years
of service. Nor was his activity during that twenty-five
years confined to his university work. He took an impor-
tant and sometimes a leading part in every movement for
educational and social betterment in Baltimore; he was
selected by President Cleveland as a member of the Vene-
zuela Boundary Commission, and effectively applied his
skill as a geographier and his talent for the organization
of a complex work to the task of that body ; he succeeded
Carl Schurz as president of the National Civil Service
Eeform League; he took an active and important part in
the administration of the Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund,
and the General Educational Fund. Before the Johns
Hopkins days, he had done fine work at Yale, especially
in the development of the Sheffield Scientific School ; and
his acceptance of the presidency of the University of Cali-
fornia resulted in its almost immediate transformation
from an insignificant to an important institution. He
edited the works of Francis Lieber and wrote a life of
James Monroe and a number of papers on subjects con-
nected with education and with government. After his
resignation from Johns Hopkins, he became the first presi-
dent of the Carnegie Institution, and continued at that
post during the years in w^hich its work was taking shape.
But, after all, the central fact of his life, and that which
gives it genuine historical importance, was the formation
of the Johns Hopkins University. From this event will
always be dated the raising of America's chief institu-
tions of learning to the jilane of real universities, and
indeed the beginning, in our country, of productive intel-
lectual activity on a large scale in the higher fields of
research. If anybody is inclined to think that there was
nothing but coincidence in this — that it was only a matter
of the time and the money coming fortunately together —
1165] Dr. Franldiii's Tribute 49
it is worth while to call his attention to the way in which
history repeated itself, when, seventeen years after the
foundation of the university, the gift of the moderate sum
of half a million dollars, by Miss Garrett and others,
rendered possible the opening of the Johns Hopkins Medi-
cal School. It was not an accident that such men as
Welch and Osier — not to mention others — were found for
the work then undertaken ; it was not an accident that the
result of that work was such as was characterized by Pres-
ident Eliot when he spoke of "the prodigious advancement
of medical teaching which has resulted from the labors
of the Johns Hopkins faculty of medicine." However
ripe the time may have been, it awaited the awakening
touch of the right men, set on the right track, encouraged
and aided to do the right thing, before the result was
accomplished. President Gilman was, all his life, a centre
of hopeful and creative effort ; he had a genuine love for
large and useful achievement, and he had both the stead-
fastness of purpose and the clearness of judgment neces-
sary to the realization of such achievement ; he took a keen
interest in those who worked with him and those who
worked under him ; he was quick to discern excellence of
every kind, and eager to help its possessor to the best
opportunities for the exercise of his powers; he filled
every year of his long life with energetic and beneficent
activity; he was kindly and generous; he never lowered
the dignity of his office; and he leaves behind him a rare
record of high and lasting service to his country and to
the cause of learning:.
50 Daniel Goit Oilman [1166
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Mr. WILLIAM C. OILMAN
OF NORWICH, CONN.
Daniel Coit Gilman was born in Norwich, Connecticut,
July 6, 1831. His father, William Charles Gilman,
born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1795, spent his youth
in Boston, and in 1816, at the age of twenty-one, made
his residence in Norwich, where he married, in 1820, Eliza
Coit, born in 1796 and daughter of Daniel Lathrop and
Elizabeth (Bill) Coit. He was the fifth in a family of
nine children, eight of whom lived to maturity.
He was connected in direct line of descent with many
well-known New England families, of whom the first
representatives came to this country between 1620 and
1638. Among them, besides Edward Gilman, the first of
that name in America, -were the families of Clark, Coffin
Dudley, Woodbridge, Perkins, Trueworthy, Coit, Abe!
Adgate, Bill, Chandler, Gager, Huntington, and Lathrop
all of English stock.
In his early years he attended the Norwich: Academy
where, among his instructors, w^ere Calvin Tracy, L
Carey, S. L. Weld, and William Henry Huntington, some
time of Paris. In his fourteenth year he removed with his
father's family to the city of New York, where he con
tinned his studies with his former instructor, Mr. Tracy
and later prepared for college with Dr. John J
Owen, editor of Greek and Latin text-books. He
was also for a short time in the mercantile house of his
father, where he acquired some practical knowledge of
business. During these years, as indeed throughout his
collegiate course, by teaching and by his ready pen he
contributed not a little to his own support. In 1848, at
the age of seventeen, he was admitted to Yale College and
was graduated B. A. in 1852. His residence in New
1167] Biographical Sketch 51
Haven was in the family of his uncle, Professor James L.
Kingsley, whose varied learning, accurate scholarship,
and keen perceptions were stimulating and inspiring.
In college he took a highly honorable position in scholar-
ship, was president of the Linonian Society, one of the
editors of the Yale Literary Magazine, a member of Delta
Kappa, of Alpha Delta Phi, and of the Beethoven Society,
the Atalanta Boat Club, of Skull and Bones, and of Phi
Beta Kappa. In the year following his graduation he
was engaged in private teaching and literary work in
New Haven, continuing at the same time his own studies,
and was entered for some months as a resident graduate
at Harvard College, where his home was with Professor
Arnold Guyot. In connection with S. Hastings Grant
he became interested in the work of the New York Mer-
cantile Library, and in Norton's Literary Gazette, which
under their editorial direction commanded respect for
its fair and independent criticism. As a result of their
efforts the first annual convention of American Librarians
was held in August, 1853. In December, 1853, he and
his life-long friend, Andrew Dickson White, sailed for
Europe as attaches of the American Legation at St.
Petersburg, under Ex-Governor Thomas H. Seymour,
minister-plenipotentiary. Pending the arrival of Gov-
ernor Seymour, whom he preceded by a few weeks, he
traveled in England, and when he was not yet twenty-
three years old, under the auspices of Mr. Richard Cob-
den and Mr. John Bright, at a large meeting of the
National Public School Association at Manchester, he
delivered a speech which was enthusiastically received,
on "Common School Education in America." His con-
nection with the legation at St. Petersburg afforded
unusual facilities for observing the work of the great
library and other institutions of learning, of technical
schools, and reformatories, particularly for children, of
the Imperial Court, and of the great fortifications at
Cronstadt durinsr the French-English-Russian war. As
52 Daniel Colt Gilman [1168
a correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce,
the Independent, and the Tribune, and as an occasional
contributor to other periodicals', his letters, before the
days of ocean telegraphy, not only from Kussia, but also
from Berlin some months later, when he was a student
in the University, were interesting and instructive. Dur-
ing his residence in Berlin he established lasting friend-
ship with many distinguished scholars, among whom
were Professor Pertz, the historian and royal librarian,
and, in the department of physical and political geog-
raphy in which he was specially interested, with the
eminent Karl Bitter and F. Adolph Trendelenburg. In
1855 he was appointed commissioner from the state of
Connecticut to the Universal Exposition in Paris, where
he became secretary of the board of associated commis-
sioners.
Returning to New Haven at the close of 1855, he wag
made assistant librarian of Yale College in 1856, and
becoming librarian in 1858 he held the position until
he resigned in 1865. During this period he made a
summer trip to Europe in 1857, delivered an oration at
the bicentennial celebration at Norwich in 1859, was
made acting school visitor of the city of New Haven, was
secretary of the State Board of Education, was asso-
ciated with the Hon, Henry Barnard in the publication
of the Connecticut Common School Journal, and, co-
operating with Professor Arnold Guyot, prepared a
series of school geographies and maps. He was also a
contributor to Appleton's American Encyclopaedia, un-
der the editorship of Charles A. Dana, and, with Professor
William D. Whitney and others, assisted Professor Noah
Porter in the revision of Webster's Dictionary.
After resigning the office of librarian in 1865, he de-
voted himself more directly to his duties as professor of
physical and political geography in the Sheffield Scien-
tific School, to which office he had been appointed by the
1169] Biographical Sketch 53
corporation of Yale College in 18G3. Associated with
Professor George J. Brush and others, he was efficient in
extending and developing the work of the school of which
he became practically the chief executive, securing for it
large subscriptions for its permanent endowment, especi-
ally in connection with the munificent gifts of Joseph E.
Sheffield, and Oliver S. Winchester and the family of
Mrs. Cornelia L. Hillhouse for an astronomical observa-
tory. In 1870 he was elected president of the University
of California, but declined the office, which, however, he
assumed on his re-election in 1872. Continuing in that
position for three years, he reorganized and greatly
enlarged the work of the University, and was successful
in establishing it on the firm foundation where it has
continued to grow and prosper.
Called to the presidency of the newly-founded Johns
Hopkins University at Baltimore in 1875, before a brick
or a stone had been laid or a teacher or student enrolled,
he devoted himself heart and soul to its organization and
upbuilding, and at the end of a quarter of a century
resigned the office, leaving behind him in the University
and in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, of which he was the
first superintendent, and in the medical school of the
University, enduring monuments of his genius as an
organizer and administrator, of his inspiring influence
with his colleagues and students as an educator, and of
his wise discrimination in assembling a permanent staff
of brilliant instructors, with eminent scholars and scien-
tists of Europe and America as occasional lecturers.
From the beginning his motto was "men before buildings."
He was a frequent contributor to newspapers and
periodicals relating to social science, civil service reform,
charity organization, general education, and scientific
research. He delivered many academic discourses,
some of which were collected under the titles "University
Problems" and "Launching of a University."
54 Daniel Coit Gilman [1170
He was the biographer of James Monroe, in the States-
men's Series, and of Professor James D. Dana, of Yale
College; was editor of the works of Dr. Francis Lieber
and of Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, and of a new edition of
De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." He was a
contribntor to Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia and was
editor-in-chief of the New International Encyclopaedia.
He was chairman of the Committee of Awards at the
Atlanta Exposition of 1895. He rendered efficient serv-
ice as a member of the Venezuelan Commission in 1896,
under appointment by President Cleveland. In 1897
he declined an invitation to the presidency of the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1898 declined
President McKinley's invitation to serve on the Army
Investigation Commission. He was president of the
American Bible Society; president of the American
Oriental Society; one of the commission to draft a char-
ter for the city of Baltimore, especially in the sections
of Education and Charities; president of the Civil Serv-
ice Reform Association; president of the board of trus-
tees of the John F. Slater Fund; vice-president of the
Peabody Education Fund ; an incorporator of the General
Education Board; was for three years president of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington, and became later a
trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation. He received the
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard Uni-
versity and from St. John's College, Maryland, in 1876;
from Columbia University in 1887; from Yale University
and from the University of North Carolina in 1889 ; from
Princeton in 1896; from the University of Toronto in
1903; from the University of Wisconsin in 1904; from
William and Mary College and from Clark University
in 1905.
In his multifarious and important duties he never
sought political preferment, personal fame, or pecuniary
reward, but through a life of great activity "held his rud-
1171] Biographical Sketch 55
der true," with an unswerving purpose to acquire and
impart useful knowledge, and by bis voice and pen and
personal influence to realize tbe hopes of his youth in
promoting and advancing sound education in all depart-
ments, from primary and technical schools to the highest
institutions of learning.
Between 1853 and 1908 he made ten voyages to Europe,
extending his travels to Algiers, Egypt, and Jerusalem.
The summer of 1908 was spent for the most part in
Southern Europe. He returned on October 7, seemingly
in improved health, and after brief visits to his daughter
and to relatives in Newport he went to the home of his
sisters in Norwich, Connecticut, where he died suddenly
on Tuesday afternoon, October 13, 1908.
He married in 1861 Mary Ketcham, daughter of Tred-
well Ketcham, of New York. She died in 1869, leaving
two daughters, who survive their father.
In 1877 he married Elizabeth Dwight Woolsey, daugh-
ter of John M. Woolsey, of Cleveland, Ohio, and niece of
President Theodore Dwight Woolsey, of Yale University.
His domestic relations were of the happiest, and during
his long official career the liberal and gracious hospital-
ity of his household to all sorts and conditions of men,
from youthful students to eminent scholars of world-
wide distinction, contributed not a little to the promo-
tion of the interests which were dear to his heart.
J
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