By the act of 1805, the activity of the college was paralyzed and its usefulness much impaired. It had not yet become strong enough to stand alone and, when the helping hand of the State was taken away, it was almost obliged to close its doors to students. Since that time the State has renewed its grants to the college and has greatly aided it in performing its functions; but from the disastrous effects of the act of 1805, the institution has never fully recovered.
Indeed, from 1805 to 1816, nothing but a grammar school seems to have been maintained in the college building. In the latter year, however, the college was re-opened, since the legislature had granted it a lottery of $30,000. A year later Rev. Dr. Francis Waters became "Principal," and under his able leadership the college bid fair to regain its old position; but in 1827 a second great misfortune overtook it. On January 11, 1827, the college building was discovered to be on fire, and, in spite of the most zealous efforts, was entirely consumed. After this misfortune the college proper seems to have been suspended a second time, and only a grammar school maintained with one instructor. The classes were conducted in a building intended originally for a rectory, until that was destroyed by fire in 1839, when the school was again moved.
Richard W. Ringgold, the principal of the school from 1832 to 1854, seems to have been a man of ability, and under him the number of students so much increased that in 1843 it was resolved to rebuild the college on the old site and to revive the college course. As a result, the present main building was erected, the corner-stone laid with imposing ceremonies on May 4, 1844, and the college was reopened in its own edifice on January 1, 1845. In 1849, a class of four was graduated, and in 1854, two additional buildings were erected; one for the Principal's residence and the other for dormitories and recitation rooms.
The college continued prosperous during the second administration of Rev. Dr. Waters from 1854 to 1860; but in the presidency of his successor, Rev. Andrew J. Sutton, came the Civil War, depriving the college of its Southern constituency and distracting men's minds from learning. After the Rebellion, an unfortunate selection of teachers and laxness of discipline caused the college to lose still more ground, and Wm. J. Rivers, Principal from 1873 to 1887, had much to do to build it up again. He was a faithful and diligent teacher, and under him the moral tone of the college was improved and the course of instruction enlarged. The present head, C.W. Reid, Ph.D., is still further advancing the cause of the institution and a new career of prosperity seems opening before Maryland's oldest college and the only one on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
St. John's College, like its sister institution, founded on a non-denominational basis, started out under even fairer auspices.[[9]] It was granted, by the State, Governor Bladen's mansion and four acres of land surrounding it, was made heir to the funds of King William's School, and secured £9,000 from private beneficence in the first two years of its history. The Bladen mansion, now known as McDowell Hall, was repaired and enlarged and, on August 11, 1789, Bishop Carroll was elected president of the Board of Visitors and Governors and Dr. John McDowell accepted the Professorship of Mathematics. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain a principal from England, Dr. McDowell was chosen to that position in the following year and continued in office, until the State withdrew its aid to the college in 1805. He was a man of great learning and was very successful at St. John's and later at the University of Pennsylvania as provost. Under him, St. John's flourished greatly and many men of a national reputation were enrolled among its students, from the time the first class graduated in 1793.
The same disaster fell on St. John's, as on Washington College. The Legislature withdrew the annual grant given by the State. The same doubt as to the constitutionality of this withdrawal existed here, and the State confirmed its position in the same way, by increasing its appropriation in 1832,[[10]] on condition of the college's accepting it in full satisfaction of all claims against the State under the original charter. Of late years Maryland has been quite generous to St. John's, but it has never quite recovered the station and prestige it lost by the taking away of the State's grant in 1805.
In the first despair over the Act of the Legislature, the Visitors and Governors voted to discontinue the college, but their courage soon returned and the Rev. Bethel Judd, elected principal in 1807, was able to graduate a class in 1810. After his withdrawal in 1812, matters were in a disturbed state for some years and no classes were graduated until 1822, when Rev. Henry L. Davis, the father of Maryland's famous orator, Henry Winter Davis, was principal. After that year there were no graduates until 1827, when Rev. William Rafferty was head of the college. The struggle for existence was a hard one and the wonder is that the college succeeded as well as it did.
With 1831, however, began a third and more successful period in the history of St. John's. In that year the Rev. Hector Humphreys, then only thirty-four years of age, was chosen president. He was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale College in 1818, and was called to St. John's from the professorship of Ancient Languages at Washington (Trinity) College in his native State. The effect of his energy and devotion was soon recognized, and, largely through his efforts, was passed the compromise of 1832. The curriculum was enlarged, the instruction made more thorough, and classes were yearly graduated, with but six exceptions, until his death in 1857. His energy was very great, his learning wide and accurate. In 1834, after travelling about the State in the interests of the college, he succeeded in raising about $11,000, which were used in the erection of a second building for the college, which most appropriately has since been called by his name. During his administration, the professors' houses were also built, as was Pinkney Hall, a third building for the use of the college. Dr. Humphreys also secured cabinets and philosophical apparatus for the college and gave instruction in Political Economy, Latin and Greek, Chemistry, Geology, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Composition, Elocution, Evidences of Christianity, Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Logic. Verily, an encyclopaedic man of vast industry! Only four years after Dr. Humphreys' death the War of the Rebellion broke out, and St. John's, unlike the temple of Janus, closed its doors at the rumors of war. The buildings were used as an hospital, and not until 1866 was the college again reopened with the well-known educator, Henry Barnard, at its head. In less than a year he resigned to become the first United States Commissioner of Education, and neither he nor his successor, Dr. James C. Welling, who was principal until 1870, was able to graduate a class. Since the beginning of the administration of the next principal, James M. Garnett, LL. D., the succession of classes has been unbroken and the college has steadily advanced in reputation and usefulness. Dr. Garnett made the English department especially excellent and, after ten years faithful service, resigned in 1880. The Rev. J.D. Leavitt, his successor, made a departure from the old classic curriculum and organized a department of Mechanical Engineering. After he resigned Prof. W.H. Hopkins acted as principal for a time and introduced military discipline, having secured the detail of an officer from the United States Army as instructor in Military Tactics.
St. John's celebrated its centennial in 1889, and has begun its second century with excellent prospects. The four years' administration of its present principal, Thomas Fell, LL. D., has been a most successful one, and St. John's is fulfilling the purpose of its founders "to train up and perpetuate a succession of able and honest men, for discharging the various offices and duties of life, both civil and religious, with usefulness and reputation."
THE SECOND UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.