Info - Educational Institutes (Worldwide)

HellO all If-ians...

This tOpic is related tO the InfOrmatiOn abOut tOp educatiOnal institutes frOm all Over the wOrld.... here yOu can pOst address(eg, cOuntry name Or city Or state name, area and etc..), past result, impOrtance, HistOry and achivements Of any institute either its yOur Or frOm anywhere in the wOrld....

Note : plz dont chat, spam Or cOmment here...

Oxford is an historic and unique institution. As the oldest university in the English-speaking world, it can lay claim to nine centuries of continuous existence. There is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.

In 1188, the historian, Gerald of Wales, gave a public reading to the assembled Oxford dons and in 1190 the arrival of Emo of Friesland, the first known overseas student, set in train the University's tradition of international scholarly links. By 1201, the University was headed by a magister scolarum Oxonie, on whom the title of Chancellor was conferred in 1214, and in 1231 the masters were recognized as a universitas or corporation.

In the 13th century, rioting between town and gown (townspeople and students) hastened the establishment of primitive halls of residence. These were succeeded by the first of Oxford's colleges, which began as medieval 'halls of residence' or endowed houses under the supervision of a Master. University, Balliol and Merton Colleges, established between 1249 and 1264, are the oldest.

Less than a century later, Oxford had achieved eminence above every other seat of learning, and won the praises of popes, kings and sages by virtue of its antiquity, curriculum, doctrine and privileges. In 1355, Edward III paid tribute to the University for its invaluable contribution to learning; he also commented on the services rendered to the state by distinguished Oxford graduates.

Early on Oxford became a centre for lively controversy, with scholars involved in religious and political disputes. John Wyclif, a 14th-century Master of Balliol, campaigned for a bible in the vernacular, against the wishes of the papacy. In 1530, Henry VIII forced the University to accept his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. During the Reformation in the 16th century, the Anglican churchmen Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were tried for heresy and burnt at the stake in Oxford. The University was Royalist in the Civil War, and Charles I held a counter-Parliament in Convocation House.

In the late 17th century, the Oxford philosopher John Locke, suspected of treason, was forced to flee the country. The 18th century, when Oxford was said to have forsaken port for politics, was also an era of scientific discovery and religious revival. Edmund Halley, Professor of Geometry, predicted the return of the comet that bears his name; John and Charles Wesley's prayer meetings laid the foundations of the Methodist Society.
The Divinity School
The Divinity School

The University assumed a leading role in the Victorian era, especially in religious controversy. From 1833 onwards The Oxford Movement sought to revitalise the Catholic aspects of the Anglican Church. One of its leaders, John Henry Newman, became a Roman Catholic in 1845 and was later made a Cardinal. In 1860 the new University Museum was the scene of a famous debate between Thomas Huxley, champion of evolution, and Bishop Wilberforce.

From 1878, academic halls were established for women, who became members of the University in 1920. Since 1974, all but one of Oxford's 39 colleges have changed their statutes to admit both men and women. St Hilda's remains the only women's college.

During the 20th century, Oxford added to its humanistic core a major new research capacity in the natural and applied sciences, including medicine. In so doing, it has enhanced and strengthened its traditional role as an international focus for learning and a forum for intellectual debate.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
MASS- USA


Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts Legislature,[2] Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, as well as the first and oldest corporation in the Americas.[4]

Initially referred to simply as "the new college", the institution was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in England, John Harvard bequeathed about four hundred books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with half his personal wealth worth several hundred pounds. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

In his 1869-1909 tenure as Harvard president, Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliot's reforms included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. Eliot saw to it that Harvard would attract the best minds from around the world, thus securing its place among the great world universities. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels. Eliot, it should be noted, was responsible for the now famous "Harvard Classics" originally known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf." During his presidency at Harvard, Dr. Eliot was more well-known than then many of Presidents of the United States at the time.

In 1999, Radcliffe College, founded in 1894 as an outgrowth of the "Harvard Annex" for women,[5] merged formally with Harvard University, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.[6]

Harvard's library collection contains more than 15 million volumes,[7] making it the largest academic library in the world, and the fourth among the five "mega-libraries" of the world (after the British Library, the Library of Congress, and the French Bibliothque Nationale, but ahead of the New York Public Library[8][9]). Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any non-profit organization, standing at $34.9 billion as of 2007.

address : 459 Lagunita Drive, Suite 9
Stanford, CA 94305-3010
U.S.A.

University Offical web-site : url=http://www.stanford.edu/

Prologue

In November 1769, Captain Gaspar de Portola's expedition to find and fortify the port of Monterey for Spain found instead San Francisco Bay. The party worked its way down the peninsula and camped on the bank of San Francisquito Creek near the giant California Coast Redwood that later travelers came to call El Palo Alto, or "the high tree" in Spanish. The tall redwood was a familiar landmark to the native Ohlone Indians.

From this campsite, on which one corner of the Stanford campus is now situated, Portola's reconnoitering parties explored the area. Later, from this same campsite, Francisco de Ortega explored the eastern shore of the Bay. The old redwood, twin-trunked and well over 100 feet high, was visible for miles.

In 1876, former California Governor Leland Stanford purchased 650 acres of Rancho San Francisquito for a country home and began the development of his famous Palo Alto Stock Farm for trotting horses. He later bought adjoining properties to bring his farm to more than 8,000 acres, land that eventually became the Stanford campus. The little town that started to grow across El Camino Real (the old Spanish "King's Road") from the university also took the name Palo Alto.

Today El Palo Alto is rooted precariously on the east bank of San Francisquito Creek, close to the old Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. In 1887, a winter flood rushing down the creek tore off one of the redwood's twin trunks, but half of the venerable tree lives on, a gaunt and time-scarred monument. From Stanford's beginning, El Palo Alto has been the university's symbol and the centerpiece of its official seal.
The Birth of the University

On October 1, 1891, Stanford University opened its doors after six years of planning and building. In the early morning hours, construction workers were still preparing the Inner Quadrangle for the opening ceremonies. The great arch at the western end had been backed with panels of red and white cloth to form an alcove where the dignitaries would sit. Behind the stage was a life-size portrait of Leland Stanford, Jr., in whose memory the university was founded.

About 2,000 seats, many of them sturdy classroom chairs, were set up in the 3-acre Quad, and they soon proved insufficient for the growing crowd. By midmorning, people were streaming across the brown fields on foot. Riding horses, carriages and farm wagons were hitched to every fence and at half past ten the special train from San Francisco came puffing almost to the university buildings on the temporary spur that had been used during construction.

Just before 11 a.m., Leland and Jane Stanford mounted to the stage. As Mr. Stanford unfolded his manuscript and laid it on the large Bible that was open on the stand, Mrs. Stanford linked her left arm in his right and held her parasol to shelter him from the rays of the midday sun. He began in measured phrases:

"In the few remarks I am about to make, I speak for Mrs. Stanford, as well as myself, for she has been my active and sympathetic coadjutor and is co-grantor with me in the endowment and establishment of this University..."

What manner of people were this man and this woman, who had the intelligence, the means, the faith and the daring to plan a major university in Pacific soil, far from the nation's center of culture – a university that broke from the classical tradition of higher learning?
Leland Stanford

A story of Stanford, the university, is not complete without a history of Stanford, the man. The fifth of eight children, Leland Stanford was born in 1824 at the family home on a farm near Albany, New York. Hard work and schooling filled his early years and in 1848, after three years in an Albany law firm, he was admitted to practice. In search of greater opportunity, he went to Port Washington, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan, to hang out his shingle. Two years later he married Jane Eliza Lathrop, daughter of a well-to-do Albany merchant. His practice in Port Washington was successful but in 1852, after a fire wiped out his office and $3,000 library, his pioneer spirit sprung into high gear and he joined his five brothers in their mercantile business in the gold fields of California. Leaving his wife in Albany, he went to California by way of the Isthmus. He spent two years in the Stanford Brothers' store in Michigan, 30 miles northeast of Auburn. Life was hard. Stanford slept on the counter under buffalo robes with his boots for a pillow except when flood waters forced him to hoist sugar barrels and other articles to the counter for safekeeping. Nevertheless, Stanford prospered. In three years he bought out the Stanford Brothers' store in Sacramento and he returned to Albany for his wife.

Stanford became the most active member of a small group organizing the Republican Party in California and was the party candidate for state treasurer in 1857, and for governor in 1859. There had been no chance for election, but the party was gaining a foothold. In 1860, he stumped the state for Abraham Lincoln and then met with the new president in Washington. In 1861, the California Republican convention nominated Stanford for governor, and he won decisively after stumping the state with Jane Stanford at his side. Stanford succeeded not only in holding California in the Union, but also saw to it that the state contributed substantially to Union victory. Stanford later would be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1885. He was reelected in 1891, but died in 1893.

Stanford's part in building the first transcontinental railroad was of even greater importance in keeping America united as a republic. San Francisco businessmen, well satisfied with the profits they were making from sea routes, turned their backs on the hazardous undertaking. The steep, snow-covered slopes of the Sierra Nevada could just as easily turn the builders into bankrupt paupers as princes of industry. But a group of Sacramento merchants took the high-stakes gamble and formed the Central Pacific Railroad company to lay track eastward to connect with the westward-building Union Pacific.

Stanford, who had demonstrated business acumen and qualities of leadership, was elected president of the venture. Congress voted generous land grants and bonded loans, but the main sums had to be supplied by the companies. Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker emerged as the "Big Four" who risked their financial hides and pushed their crews to meet the Union Pacific at a point as far east as possible. On May 10, 1869, trains of the two railroads drew together at Promontory, Utah. Leland Stanford wielded a sledge of Nevada silver to tap a spike of California gold into a polished laurel tie. The blows heralding completion of the transcontinental railroad were transmitted over telegraph wire attached to the spike.

Leland Stanford Jr.'s birthplace is now a State Park.

A few days later, on May 14, the Stanfords' only child, Leland, celebrated his first birthday, and before he was two the parents and toddler had made their first trip across the continent by rail. Soon the Stanfords were building a great mansion in San Francisco in a part of town that was to acquire the name of Nob Hill. Later, in 1876, they bought the first parcel of land on the San Francisco Peninsula that would be their celebrated Palo Alto Stock Farm and later the site of Stanford University.

One of Stanford's greatest pleasures was to drive down the mile-long eucalyptus-bordered roadway from the Palo Alto home to his breeding establishment for trotting horses. Using his own theories of blood lines and training, Stanford developed trotters that set 19 world records. One of the old red barns with its picturesque white trim still stands and near it, affixed to the base of a bronze statue of a racing horse, is a plaque listing the achievements of Stanford trotters. One of these was Electioneer, sire of nine Palo Alto world champions. He was an unproved stallion when Stanford bought him against the advice of experts.

Young Leland loved the life on the Palo Alto ranch. He kept dogs and horses, knew all about the farm machinery and built a miniature railroad with 400 feet of track on the grounds of the country home. He was a tall, slender youth – taller at 15 than his father's 5-foot-10 – and studious. He spoke French fluently and, on trips to Europe with his parents, developed his passion for collecting in art and archaeology.

The family was in Italy in 1884 when Leland contracted typhoid fever. He was thought to be recovering, but on March 13 at the Hotel Bristol in Florence, Leland's bright and promising young life came to an end, two months before his 16th birthday.

Stanford, who had remained at Leland's bedside continuously, fell into a troubled sleep the morning the boy died. When he awakened he turned to his wife and said,

"The children of California shall be our children."

These words were the real beginning of Stanford University.
The Founding Grant

The Stanfords returned to America in May and, before proceeding to Palo Alto, visited Cornell, Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They talked with President Eliot of Harvard about three ideas: a university at Palo Alto, a large institution in San Francisco combining a lecture hall and a museum, and a technical school. Asked which of these seemed most desirable, Eliot answered, a university. Mrs. Stanford inquired how much the endowment should be, in addition to land and buildings, and he replied, not less than $5 million. A silence followed. Finally, Mr. Stanford said with a smile, "Well, Jane, we could manage that, couldn't we?" and a grave Mrs. Stanford nodded her assent.

They settled on creating a great university, one that, from the outset, was untraditional: co-educational, in a time when most were all-male; non-denominational, when most were associated with a religious organization; avowedly practical, producing "cultured and useful citizens" when most were concerned only with the former.

Although they consulted with several of the presidents of leading institutions, the founders were not content to model their university after eastern schools. "Of all the young men who come to me with letters of introduction from friends in the East, the most helpless are college young men," Stanford said. As the Stanfords' thoughts matured, their ideas of "practical education" enlarged until they arrived at the concept of producing cultured and useful citizens who were especially prepared for personal success in their chosen professions.

In a statement of the case for a liberal education, Stanford wrote,

"I attach great importance to general literature for the enlargement of the mind and for giving business capacity. I think I have noticed that technically educated boys do not make the most successful businessmen. The imagination needs to be cultivated and developed to assure success in life. A man will never construct anything he cannot conceive."

On November 11, 1885, Stanford called for several stenographers to come from San Francisco to the country house. Seated on the veranda, he dictated the Founding Grant without notes. The document, providing the endowment and defining the scope, responsibilities and organization of the university, was accepted by the 24 members of the first Board of Trustees on Nov. 14 in San Francisco. The Founding Grant stands today as the university's "constitution." It stipulates that the objectives of the university are:

"to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life; and to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Having been elected a U.S. Senator earlier in 1885, Stanford left for Washington shortly after the Founding Grant was made public. However, the following summer he and Mrs. Stanford were back at Palo Alto conferring with Francis A. Walker, president of MIT, and Frederick Law Olmsted, the eminent landscape architect who created Central Park in New York. Olmsted developed the general plan for long, low buildings connected by arcades to form a double quad. The actual drawing of the plans was entrusted to Charles Allerton Coolidge, then 28 years old, the youngest partner of the prominent Boston firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, successors to their mentor H. H. Richardson, widely acclaimed for his revival of Romanesque architecture.

In April 1887, Coolidge met Stanford with preliminary sketches. The Stanfords surprised the architect by insisting that the cornerstone be laid on May 14, the anniversary of Leland Jr.'s birth.

"What I did," Coolidge recalled later,"was to order a spade and a brass band immediately." On May 14, 300 guests attended the laying of the cornerstone. There was no brass band, but a choir. Stanford called his wife to his side for the ceremony and, though tears streamed down her cheeks the entire time, she held her head high. It was both a solemn and a joyous occasion. The sandstone block and bronze plaque was built into a corner of the first Inner Quad building, west of where Memorial Church would eventually stand.

The architect was given a small building on the ranch to house his drafting boards and a month later more than 100 men were at work on the university foundations. But the job moved more slowly than anticipated, partly because of Stanford's senate duties in Washington and a trip to Europe in 1888 for his health. Finally the opening date was set for October 1, 1891, but it was not until March of that year that the Stanfords named the university president.

University Offical web-site : http://www.columbia.edu



Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.

Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates of New York City met with success on the first point, while the Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing the policies of the College.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

In 1897, the university moved from Forty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, where it had stood for fifty years, to its present location on Morningside Heights at 116th Street and Broadway. Seth Low, the president of the University at the time of the move, sought to create an academic village in a more spacious setting. Charles Follen McKim of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White modeled the new campus after the Athenian agora. The Columbia campus comprises the largest single collection of McKim, Mead & White buildings in existence.

The architectural centerpiece of the campus is Low Memorial Library, named in honor of Seth Low's father. Built in the Roman classical style, it appears in the New York City Register of Historic Places. The building today houses the University's central administration offices and the visitors center.

A broad flight of steps descends from Low Library to an expansive plaza, a popular place for students to gather, and from there to College Walk, a promenade that bisects the central campus. Beyond College Walk is the South Campus, where Butler Library, the university's main library, stands. South Campus is also the site of many of Columbia College's facilities, including student residences, Alfred Lerner Hall (the student center), and the College's administrative offices and classroom buildings, along with the Graduate School of Journalism.

To the north of Low Library stands Pupin Hall, which in 1966 was designated a national historic landmark in recognition of the atomic research undertaken there by Columbia's scientists beginning in 1925. To the east is St. Paul's Chapel, which is listed with the New York City Register of Historic Places.

Many newer buildings surround the original campus. Among the most impressive are the Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences and the Morris A. Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research. Two miles to the north of Morningside Heights is the 20-acre campus of the Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan's Washington Heights, overlooking the Hudson River. Among the most prominent buildings on the site are the 20-story Julius and Armand Hammer Health Sciences Center, the William Black Medical Research Building, and the 17-story tower of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1989, The Presbyterian Hospital opened the Milstein Hospital Building, a 745-bed facility that incorporates the very latest advances in medical technology and patient care.

To the west is the New York State Psychiatric Institute; east of Broadway is the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park, which includes the Mary Woodard Lasker Biomedical Research Building, the Audubon Business Technology Center, Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion, and the Irving Cancer Research Center as well as other institutions of cutting-edge scientific and medical research.

In addition to its New York City campuses, Columbia has two facilities outside of Manhattan. Nevis Laboratories, established in 1947, is Columbia's primary center for the study of high-energy experimental particle and nuclear physics. Located in Irvington, New York, Nevis is situated on a 60-acre estate originally owned by the son of Alexander Hamilton.

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory was established in 1949 in Palisades, New York, and is a leading research institution focusing on global climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, nonrenewable resources, and environmental hazards. It examines the planet from its core to its atmosphere, across every continent and every ocean.

hey there is already a topic which contins all these from A to Z posted by me .

Cheers
Andro 😊