An educator and pioneer in the American university movement, Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1908) today remains recognized for his accomplishments as the first president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. From 1875 until his retirement in 1901 he helped make Johns Hopkins one of America's first major graduate schools.

Daniel Coit Gilman was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on July 6, 1831, of old New England ancestry. He spent his early youth in Norwich but later lived and attended school in New York, where his parents moved when he was of high school age. He entered Yale as a member of the class of 1852, and while there began a life-long friendship with fellow student Andrew D. White, who was later to become the first president of Cornell University.

In 1853 Gilman and White sailed for Europe as attachés of the American legation in St. Petersburg. While in Europe Gilman travelled in England, France...