of which was an easy way for a
State to be benevolent, a plain but convenient building was erected on
Mulberry street.[21]

It is very doubtful if it ever graduated any students, and we learn in
1830 that "the celebrity and, in some cases, the superior existing
advantages of other institutions have prevented the accomplishment of
this object." Still a school had been kept up continuously, and from
time to time, we catch glimpses of its lectures, &c. In January, 1830, a
joint petition of the Trustees of the University of Maryland and of
Baltimore College to the Legislature "proposed the charter of Baltimore
College shall be surrendered to the State, on the condition that the
property belonging to the college shall be invested in the trustees of
the University of Maryland." The petition was granted,[22] and in 1832,
we learn that "the Baltimore College *** has now been merged in the
University of Maryland and constitutes the chair of Ancient
Languages."[23]

On October 1, 1830, the Trustees issued a prospectus, from which we
learn that it was intended "to maintain an institution on the most
enlarged scale of usefulness and responsibility," and that there was a
"necessity for the proposed organization of a department in the
University of Maryland, exclusively collegiate in its system, requiring
an advanced state of classical and scientific attainments for admission
to its lectures, calculated to conduct its pupils through the highest
branches of a liberal education and to afford them advantages similar to
what may be obtained in the distant Universities of this country and
Europe." A course of study equal to that of any college of the country
was announced, and a brilliant Faculty appointed; but the time was not
yet come for a great college in Baltimore and the institution
languished away. In 1843, the Commissioners of Public Schools petitioned
to have it transferred to the city as a High School, and in 1852, it had
only one teacher and 36 scholars, a mere boys' school.

In 1854 it was reorganized as the "School of Letters under the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences," with Rev. E.A. Dalrymple, formerly of the
Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria, as its head. On paper the
course was fairly complete, and the Faculty an able one, and there were
graduates in 1859, '60, '61, and '63. The course was to be a three
years' one; for "the studies of Freshman year will be pursued in the
preparatory department, where experience