INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE FIRST PRESIDENT.
In his inaugural address, the President of the Johns Hopkins University, after a grateful reference to the founder and his generosity, and a reminder that the endowment, large as it appears, is not large when compared with the acquisitions of many other institutions, called attention to some of the special distinctions of this gift. Among them were named: the freedom from conditions; the absence of political or ecclesiastical control; the connection with an endowed hospital; the geographical advantages of Baltimore; and the timeliness of the foundation. Five agencies for the promotion of superior instruction were next briefly discussed, universities, learned academies, colleges, technical schools, and museums. The object of these paragraphs was to suggest the distinctive Idea of the University, and to show that while forms and methods vary in different countries, the freedom for investigation, the obligation to teach, and the careful bestowal of academic honors are always understood to be among the university functions. Wherever a strong university is established, learned societies, colleges, technical schools, and museums are clustered. It is the sun and they are the planets.
Twelve points were then enumerated on which there is a consensus so general that further discussion seemed needless.
1. All sciences are worthy of promotion; or in other words, it is useless to dispute whether literature or science should receive most attention, or whether there is any essential difference between the old and the new education.
2. Religion has nothing to fear from science, and science need not be afraid of religion. Religion claims to interpret the word of God, and science to reveal the laws of God. The interpreters may blunder, but truths are immutable, eternal, and never in conflict.
3. Remote utility is quite as worthy to be thought of as immediate advantage. Those ventures are not always most sagacious that expect a return on the morrow. It sometimes pays to send our argosies across the seas,--to make investments with an eye to slow but sure returns. So it is always in the promotion of science.
4. As it is impossible for any university to encourage with equal freedom all branches of learning, a selection must be made by enlightened governors, and that selection must depend on the requirements and deficiencies of a given people, in a given period. There is no absolute standard of preference. What is more important at one time or in one place may be less needed elsewhere and otherwise.