St Johns College - Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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IVICDOWELL HALL

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v 5, H5 E v 3 Q

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porated with the college, we find him occupying the posi- tio11 of Professor of Languages in the newly-organized institution. This school is noted ill the annals of the State as the nursery of some of her greatest men, amongst others the distinguished lawyer and statesman, VVilliam Pinkney. Information, however, regarding this seminary is but meager, although the act of 1750 indicates that the school was not without influential friends and supporters. Ill the meantime, in 1732, as appears by a paper 11ow lyi11g in the executive department at Annapolis, proposals for founding a college at Annapolis were read i11 the Upper House of Asse111bly and recommended to the considera- tltill of the Lower House, but no legislative effect was given to these proposals. This project was again revived in 1763. A com- mittee of the General Assembly recommended that the house i11 the city of Annapolis wl1icl1 was intended for the Governor of the province, be completely finished a11d used for the college proposed to be establisliedfl the money for the worl: to come out of the public treasury. The annual cost of the faculty, consisting of seven mas- ters, with the five servants, was provided for. The measure, however, failed to pass the Upper House. Ten years later the intention of establishing a college i11 Annapolis was again manifested, as we learn from a letter written Gctober ith, 1773, by 'Williani Eddis, surveyor of customs, at Annapolis, to a friend i11 England. I11 this letter he states that Hthe Legislature has determined to found a college for the education of youth in every liberal and useful branch of science, which will preclude the necessity of crossing the Atlantic for tl1e completion of a classical and polite education. A building on the banks of the Severn, originally intended for the Governors mansion, but described i11 the letter as K' a melancholy and mouldering monument, was desig- nated as the proposed collegeiate edifice. This building is now McDowell Hall, the central one of five constituting St. Iohn's College. The Revolution interfered with the carrying out of the plan, but in i784 tl1e charter of St. John's College was granted, two years after a like charter had been given for the establishment of W'ashington College at Chestertown, on the Eastern Shore. It was intended by the terms of the charter that the two colleges thus founded should constitute one univer- sity under the 11an1e of the University of Maryland. By act, 1785, the property a11d funds and students of King W'illiam's School were conveyed to St. John's College. Among the chattels passed to the college were a number of quaint and curious volumes l' brought over by tl1e Rev. Dr. Bray from England, and which still remain in the library of St. johnls. - On November 11, 1789, the college was formally opened, and the dedication was performed with much solemnity, all the public bodies being in attendance, and