The History of University Education in Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University (1876-1891). with Supplementary Notes on University Extension and the University of the Future

When Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876, it detonated a revolution in American higher education. This contemporaneous account traces the university's first fifteen years: the hiring of German-trained faculty, the establishment of rigorous graduate programs, and the radical proposition that universities should create new knowledge rather than merely preserve the old. Bernard C. Steiner, writing as a contemporary observer, captures the fierce debates surrounding this new model, critics who dismissed it as elitist and impractical, defenders who saw it as America's ticket to intellectual parity with Europe. The supplementary essays extend into 'university extension' and 'the university of the future,' reflecting on how this new institution might serve beyond its gates. For anyone who wonders where the modern American research university came from, this is a vivid, firsthand account of its invention.