“The best investigators are usually those who have also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement of colleagues, the encouragement of pupils and the observation of the public. ”

— Daniel Coit Gilman
First President
of Johns Hopkins University

The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences is the direct descendant of the original Johns Hopkins University. Today, offering comprehensive undergraduate education and graduate training, it is the core institution of the Johns Hopkins complex of schools, centers and institutes. More than 125 years after the University’s founding, the Krieger School still follows the guiding principles of Hopkins's visionary first president, Daniel Coit Gilman. The school’s adherence to those ideals does not reflect cautiousness or entrenchment, however. Rather, Gilman's educational precepts, by definition, keep the Krieger School not just up to date but actually at the forefront of knowledge.

The plan that Gilman devised and began to carry out in 1876 established Johns Hopkins as the nation's first research university--that is, an institution in which every faculty member was actively engaged in original investigations. Gilman dismissed the notion that teaching and research are separate endeavors; he believed that success in one depended on success in the other. "The best teachers are usually those who are free, competent and willing to make original researches in the library and the laboratory," Gilman said. "The best investigators are usually those who have also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement of colleagues, the encouragement of pupils, the observation of the public." The realization of Gilman's philosophy at Hopkins, and at other institutions that later attracted Hopkins-trained scholars, revolutionized higher education in America, leading to the modern research university system.

Today, each of the School's faculty members is expected to spend as much time on research as on teaching. As a result, inquiry and the creation of new knowledge are the engine and fuel that drive both instruction and learning in the school.