A rather remarkable and interesting educational experiment is about to
be tried at Baltimore, in Maryland, where a University -of a more advanced kind than the Colleges and Universities of the States, and endowed already with a capital of £700,000 (3,500,00o), is to be devoted to the most advanced Univer- sity studies. The services of the most eminent men, whether in America or Europe, are to be secured for this University in those departments of knowledge in which Chairs are to be immediately established. The new University was inaugurated at Baltimore on February 22, and, as owing its origin to the bequest ' of Air. Johns Hopkins, is to be called the Johns Hopkins University ; already, moreover, one , of the, most original, if not the most original, of English mathema- ticians, Professor J. S. Sylvester, has been secured for the Chair of pure mathematics. The University buildings, which are to be in a park in the neighbourhood of Baltimore, will only rise slowly as they are needed, the fund being meantime accumulated for the further execution of the trust. Some attempt of this nature,—namely, to grade Universities as the English Endowed- Schools Commissioners attempted to grade Schools,—is n real requisite in this country no less than in the United States, for great loss of power is due to the endeavour to teach beginners or even little-advanced students in the same classes with far- advanced students. We shall watch with interest and curiosity the development of this great experiment in the United States. Why should not Oxford or Cambridge grade her Colleges to some extent, so as to answer the same purpose?
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