<p>Phead, I have no doubt that Johns Hopkins is the largest contributor to the spread of the adoption of the German system by leading US universities in the late 19th century. And you know where I stand on Johns Hopkins as a university. I will always group it with the likes of Cal, Chicago, Columbia, Michigan, NU, Penn etc… As far as I am concerned, JHU’s peer assessment score of 4.5/5.0 (tied with Columbia, Cornell and Penn at #9) does all the talking. </p>
<p>However, from an historic context, chronologically speaking, Michigan was the first university to employ the German system. At that time, all other leading US universities followed the lecture-style, classics and literature-heavy British system and johns Hopkins University was not yet in existance. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that other universities started to modify their system to a more German style and that, I agree and fully admit, was primarily influenced by the Johns Hopkins University.</p>