Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of Johns Hopkins University, aspired to build an ideal university focused on the competent faculty and their research. His plan was carried out through opening the first American graduate program, hiring professors with the highest-level research performances, assigning them less teaching burdens, and encouraging them to actively publish professional journals. He introduced Department of Mathematics as an initial model to put his plan into practice, and James Joseph Sylvester, a British mathematician invited as the first mathematics professor to Johns Hopkins University, made it possible in a short time. Their concerted efforts led to building the Department of Mathematics as a professional research institute for research, higher education, and expert training as well as to publishing American Journal of Mathematics.