Denmark, and both his sons, John George and Frederick Augustus, became electors of Saxony, the latter also becoming king of Poland as Augustus II.
John George IV. (1668–1694), elector of Saxony, was born on the 18th of October 1668. At the beginning of his reign his chief adviser was Hans Adam von Schöning (1641–1696), who counselled a union between Saxony and Brandenburg and a more independent attitude towards the emperor. In accordance with this advice certain proposals were put before Leopold I. to which he refused to agree; and consequently the Saxon troops withdrew from the imperial army, a proceeding which led the chagrined emperor to seize and imprison Schöning in July 1692. Although John George was unable to procure his minister’s release, Leopold managed to allay the elector’s anger, and early in 1693 the Saxon soldiers rejoined the imperialists. This elector is chiefly celebrated for his passion for Magdalene Sibylle von Neidschütz (d. 1694), created in 1693 countess of Rochlitz, whom on his accession he publicly established as his mistress. John George left no legitimate issue when he died on the 27th of April 1694.
JOHN[1] MAURICE OF NASSAU (1604–1679), surnamed the
Brazilian, was the son of John the Younger, count of Nassau-Siegen-Dillenburg,
and the grandson of John, the elder brother
of William the Silent and the chief author of the Union of
Utrecht. He distinguished himself in the campaigns of his
cousin, the stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange, and was by
him recommended to the directors of the Dutch West India
company in 1636 to be governor-general of the new dominion in
Brazil recently conquered by the company. He landed at the
Recife, the port of Pernambuco, and the chief stronghold of the
Dutch, in January 1637. By a series of successful expeditions
he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from Sergipe on
the south to S. Luis de Maranham in the north. He likewise
conquered the Portuguese possessions of St George del Mina and
St Thomas on the west coast of Africa. With the assistance of
the famous architect, Pieter Post of Haarlem, he transformed the
Recife by building a new town adorned with splendid public
edifices and gardens, which was called after his name Mauritstad.
By his statesmanlike policy he brought the colony into a most
flourishing condition and succeeded even in reconciling the
Portuguese settlers to submit quietly to Dutch rule. His large
schemes and lavish expenditure alarmed however the parsimonious
directors of the West India company, but John Maurice
refused to retain his post unless he was given a free hand, and he
returned to Europe in July 1644. He was shortly afterwards
appointed by Frederick Henry to the command of the cavalry
in the States army, and he took part in the campaigns of 1645 and
1646. When the war was ended by the peace of Münster in
January 1648, he accepted from the elector of Brandenburg the
post of governor of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg, and later also
of Minden. His success in the Rhineland was as great as it had
been in Brazil, and he proved himself a most able and wise ruler.
At the end of 1652 he was appointed head of the order of St John
and made a prince of the Empire. In 1664 he came back to
Holland; when the war broke out with England supported by
an invasion from the bishop of Münster, he was appointed commander-in-chief
of the Dutch forces on land. Though hampered
in his command by the restrictions of the states-general, he
repelled the invasion, and the bishop, Christoph von Galen, was
forced to conclude peace. His campaigning was not yet at an
end, for in 1673 he was appointed by the stadtholder William III.
to command the forces in Friesland and Groningen, and to defend
the eastern frontier of the Provinces. In 1675 his health compelled
him to give up active military service, and he spent his
last years in his beloved Cleves, where he died on the 20th
of December 1679. The house which he built at the Hague,
named after him the Maurits-huis, now contains the splendid
collections of pictures so well known to all admirers of Dutch art.
Bibliography.—Caspar Barlaeus, Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum historia, sub praefectura illustrissimi comitis J. Mauritii Nassoviae (Amsterdam, 1647); L. Driessen, Leben des Fürsten Johann Moritz von Nassau (Berlin, 1849); D. Veegens, Leven van Joan Maurits, Graaf van Nassau-Siegen (Haarlem, 1840).
JOHN O’ GROAT’S HOUSE, a spot on the north coast of Caithness,
Scotland, 14 m. N. of Wick and 134 m. W. of Duncansby
Head. It is the mythical site of an octagonal house said to have
been erected early in the 16th century by one John Groot, a
Dutchman who had migrated to the north of Scotland by permission
of James IV. According to the legend, other members
of the Groot family followed John, and acquired lands around
Duncansby. When there were eight Groot families, disputes
began to arise as to precedence at annual feasts. These squabbles
John Groot is said to have settled by building an octagonal house
which had eight entrances and eight tables, so that the head of
each family could enter by his own door and sit at the head of his
own table. Being but a few miles south of Dunnet Head, John
o’ Groat’s is a colloquial term for the most northerly point of
Scotland. The site of the traditional building is marked by an
outline traced in turf. Descendants of the Groot family, now
Groat, still live in the neighbourhood. The cowry-shell, Cypraea
europaea, is locally known as “John o’ Groat’s bucky.”
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, an American educational
institution at Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. Its trustees, chosen
by Johns Hopkins (1794–1873), a successful Baltimore merchant,
were incorporated on the 24th of August 1867 under a general
act “for the promotion of education in the state of Maryland.”
But nothing was actually done until after the death of
Johns Hopkins (Dec. 24, 1873), when his fortune of $7,000,000
was equally divided between the projected university and a
hospital, also to bear his name, and intended to be an auxiliary
to the medical school of the university. The trustees of the
university consulted with many prominent educationists,
notably Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, Andrew D. White of
Cornell, and James B. Angell of the university of Michigan; on
the 30th of December 1874 they elected Daniel Coit Gilman (q.v.)
president. The university was formally opened on the 3rd of
October 1876, when an address was delivered by T. H. Huxley.
The first year was largely given up to consultation among the
newly chosen professors, among whom were—in Greek, B. L.
Gildersleeve; in mathematics, J. J. Sylvester; in chemistry, Ira
Remsen; in biology, Henry Newell Martin (1848–1896); in
zoology, William Keith Brooks (1848–1908); and in physics,
Henry Augustus Rowland (1848–1901). Prominent among later
teachers were Arthur Cayley in mathematics, the Semitic scholar
Paul Haupt (b. 1858), Granville Stanley Hall in psychology,
Maurice Bloomfield in Sanskrit and comparative philology, James
Rendel Harris in Biblical philology, James Wilson Bright in
English philology, Herbert B. Adams in history, and Richard
T. Ely (b. 1854) in economics. The university at once became
a pioneer in the United States in teaching by means of seminary
courses and laboratories, and it has been eminently successful
in encouraging research, in scientific production, and in preparing
its students to become instructors in other colleges and universities.
It includes a college in which each of five parallel courses
leads to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, but its reputation has been
established chiefly by its other two departments, the graduate
school and the medical school. The graduate school offers
courses in philosophy and psychology, physics, chemistry and
biology, historical and economic science, language and literature,
and confers the degree of Doctor of Philosophy after at least three
years’ residence. From its foundation the university had novel
features and a liberal administration. Twenty annual fellowships
of $500 each were opened to the graduates of any college.
Petrography and laboratory psychology were among the new
sciences fostered by the new university. Such eminent outsiders
were secured for brief residence and lecture courses as
J. R. Lowell, F. J. Child, Simon Newcomb, H. E. von Holst,
F. A. Walker, William James, Sidney Lanier, James Bryce,
E. A. Freeman, W. W. Goodwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace.
President Gilman gave up his presidential duties on the 1st of
- ↑ This name is usually written Joan, the form used by the man himself in his signature—see the facsimile in Netscher’s Les Hollandais en Brésil.
