Returning Home

Abstract Sylvester left Baltimore and The Johns Hopkins on 21 December, 1883 following a day of fanfare and farewells. The entire university had turned out for a reception in his honor on the twentieth, and, not surprisingly, the mathematician had taken a turn at the podium. His remarks were classically Sylvesterian—long-winded, exuberant, humorous, heart-felt. He praised the University for the high standards it had set for higher education in the United States; he lauded individual faculty members for their contributions to their respective fields; and he extolled the University’s guiding light, its President Daniel Coit Gilman, for his vision. He was not, however, uncritical.