The State of Maryland has been almost extravagantly liberal in bestowing
charters on colleges and professional schools. Over forty such charters
have been given by the legislature and, in many cases, the result has
proved that the gift of a charter was not warranted by the stability of
the institution, to which was thus granted the power of conferring
degrees. In many other cases, however, the institutions have grown and
flourished, and have had an honorable history.

Collegiate education in Maryland did not begin until after the
Revolution. In the colonial period there was no demand for it sufficient
to warrant the establishment of a seat of higher learning. For this
state of things there were several causes. The majority of the early
settlers were planters and frontiersmen, having little need for an
extended education and desiring it still less. Of the wealthier classes,
some were like the fox-hunting English gentry, caring for little else
than sport; and others, who did desire the advantages of a culture
higher than that obtainable from a village schoolmaster or a private
tutor, found it elsewhere. They went over to William and Mary's College
in Virginia, across the ocean to England, or, in case of some Catholics
like Charles Carroll, to the institutions on the continent of Europe.

But, though no college was established in colonial times, there was no
lack of plans and attempts for one. In 1671, while as yet Harvard was
the only American college, there was read and passed in the Upper House
of the Assembly "An Act for the founding and Erecting of a School or
College within this Province for the Education of Youth in Learning and
Virtue." The Lower House amended and passed the bill; but the plan seems
never to have progressed further. According to the bill the Lord
Proprietor was "to Set out his Declaration of what Privileges and