e celebrate
to-day.

The closing sentences of the discourse were addressed to the young men
of Baltimore and to the Trustees.

THE FACULTY.

One of the earliest duties which devolved upon the President and
Trustees, after deciding upon the general scope of the University, was
to select a staff of teachers by whose assistance and counsel the
details of the plan should be worked out. It would hardly be right in
this place to recall the distinctive merits of the able and learned
scholars who have formed the academic staff during the first fourteen
years, but perhaps the writer may be allowed to pay in passing a tribute
of gratitude and respect to those who entered the service of the
University at its beginning. To their suggestions, their enthusiasm,
their learning, and above all their freedom from selfish aims and from
petty jealousies, must be attributed in a great degree the early
distinction of this institution. They came from widely distant places;
they had been trained by widely different methods; they had widely
different intellectual aptitudes; but their diversities were unified by
their devotion to the university in which they were enlisted, and by
their desire to promote its excellence. This spirit has continued till
the present time, and has descended to those who have from time to time
joined the ranks, so that it may be emphatically said that the union of
the Faculty has been the key to its influence.

The first requisite of success in any institution is a staff of eminent
teachers, each of whom gives freely the best of which he is capable. The
best varies with the individual; one may be an admirable lecturer or
teacher; another a profound thinker; a third a keen investigator;
another a skilful experimenter; the next, a man of great acquisitions;
one may excel by his industry, another by his enthusiasm, another by his
learning, another by his genius; but every member of a faculty should be
distinguished by some uncommon attainments and by some special
aptitudes, while the faculty as a whole should be united and
cooperative. Each professor, according to his subject and his talents,
should have his own best mode of working, adjusted to and controlled by
the exigencies of the institution with which he is associated.

The original professors, who were present when instructions began in
October, 1876, were these: as the head and guide of the mathematical
studies, Professor Sylvester, of Cambridge, Woolwich