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St. John's College is one of the oldest educational institutions in the United States, and its history is one of the most unusual. In various incarnations St. John's has served as a secondary school, a POW camp, a military academy, and a leading power on the athletic field. Now it is known for one of the most rigorous liberal arts programs in the country. For decades it has been rated among the America's top schools for a classical education.

The Early Years
Founded in 1646, St. John's was originally named King William's School, after the British king who had succeeded to the throne as a result of England's Glorious Revolution. Colonial Governor Francis Nicholson and the Maryland General Assembly established the institution in Annapolis, where they had moved Maryland's capital only two years earlier. In keeping with the religious spirit of the times, the school was to make "learning a handmaid to devotion." It gave its students a solid grounding in the basic subjects of the day, and a number of its pupils went on to divinity schools.

Like many colonial attempts toward education, King William's School was a shaky venture. Housed in the same building with the General Assembly and a free library, the school had official support but an irregular schedule. Classes went into session only if enough students appeared. Sometimes a normal school season would pass with no classes at all. This continued through the American Revolution.

Through these early decades the General Assembly often discussed the idea of making a stronger commitment by chartering a college. In 1782 George Washington helped establish Washington College in Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore, at a moment when King William's School was closed. The school's trustees met in 1784, and decided to try to consolidate the school's resources and reopen it as a college for the areas west of the Chesapeake. In 1785 they won a charter from the General Assembly. General Washington gave his blessings, writing that "my wishes for its progress to perfection are preferred with sincere regard."

The school's new identity required a new name: St. John's College. The reasoning behind the choice of the name remains obscure. The General Assembly gave it several acres, and the unfinished hulk of Bladen's Folly, an incredibly expensive structure originally commissioned as the Governor's Mansion by colonial governor Thomas Bladen in 1742. Work had proceeded as far as walls and a partial roof when the Assembly cut all funding. For forty years the half-finished building had stood, falling into ruin. The college finally completed it, and in 1789 it was renamed for St. John's first president, Dr. John McDowell. It is still McDowell Hall today.

The Early Years
The educational program at St. John's went through several phases between its founding and 1937. In the early years the curriculum included Latin and Greek for classical scholars, as well as history and government for those students aiming at law. This period was marked by financial difficulties. In 1805 all support from the state ended, and the college barely survived. St. John's didn't climb back onto solid ground until Hector Humphreys became president in 1831. During the Civil War the federal military authorities used the campus as a camp for Confederate prisoners of war, yet the school managed to continue some classes.

Finally recovered from the traumas of finance and war, St. John's began a new phase in 1884. The school's new president, the Reverend John McDowell Leavett, tilted the curriculum from classics to engineering and other more mechanical arts. His successors made other changes, introducing military instruction, including drills and artillery tactics.

In the early twentieth century the college returned to its more civilian strengths, but the transition was rocky. At first the academics declined. In the two decades following World War I, St. John's produced national lacrosse championships but little else. The school was fit for another rescue, one that would prove more lasting.

The New Program
In 1937 Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan took charge of the nearly moribund school. They introduced a program based on the study of the Great Books in the Western canon of literature. Professors became "tutors." Seminars and tutorials replaced lecture-style classes. Tutors and students began the first year with Homer and Plato. These were accompanied by the study of Ancient Greek and Euclid's Elements. In science lab students read Aristotle. The program followed these with Ptolemy, Aquinas, Descartes and so on through Marx, Twain and Einstein.

This was St. John's Great Books Program, and it has thrived ever since, becoming the most enduring and successful of the college's incarnations. Barr and Buchanan's successors have held to the demanding course content, making only minimal changes. Alumni from the New Program's founding can still recognize most of the current course material.

In 1964 the program spread westward when St. John's opened a second campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On the Annapolis campus McDowell Hall still serves as the centerpiece, along with buildings from the various eras of earlier programs. These are complimented by more recent architecture nearer the school's shore line on College Creek, next door to the U.S. Naval Academy.

—Peter Heyrman