III. The Presidency—Suggested After 1865
When the war ended, and the prospects of the University
at the start appeared to be so overclouded, the
proposition of establishing the Presidency was again
broached. Now, for the first time, the need of the
office as a means of building up the purely material fortunes
of the institution was earnestly discussed; but it
would seem that it was not the members of the Faculty
or the Board of Visitors, but the alumni, who suggested
its creation. This project came to nothing, as the attendence
in the beginning proved to be unexpectedly
large. By 1872, the students had, for one reason or
another, shrunk in number. Soon the agitation of the
question of electing a President was renewed among the
alumni, but, as before, not among the instructors or the
Visitors. In a letter to N. F. Cabell, a nephew of
Joseph C. Cabell, and editor of the Jefferson-Cabell
Correspondence, Professor Minor, in the course
of that year, reaffirmed his own loyalty, and, apparently,
the loyalty of all his colleagues, to the prevailing system
of the chairmanship. Mr. Cabell earnestly deprecated
such an expression. "I think," he said, "that the objection
to the Presidency may be obviated, whilst the
institution itself might have all the advantages of such
an office. Had such an office been created immediately
after the war, and General Lee invited thereto, how
different might have been its status!"
This is the first indication, in an authoritative form,
which we have been able to discover that the name of
the Confederate Commander was ever thought of in
connection with that office at the University of Virginia.
A report has long been in existence that it was definitely
and formally offered to him; but, so far as we are aware,
there is no entry in the records of the institution, and
no reference in the Lee Correspondence, to justify the
acceptance of such a statement as correct. The words
used by Mr. Cabell would seem to demonstrate that
a popular impression prevailed that General Lee had
not been invited to fill the Presidency; and that there
had never been any intention of creating the post for
his incumbency. Mr. Cabell shows a very natural impatience
with a policy which obtusely failed to seize an
opportunity so full of promise for the immediate prosperity
and lasting distinction of the institution; and this
feeling has been shared by persons of the generations
which have followed those times. The plaster-cast and
straight-jacket of ultra conservatism have, on more than
one occasion, constricted the growth of the University
of Virginia; but the influence of this attitude of mind,
pushed beyond the bounds of moderation, has never, for
that institution, worked more unfortunately than when
it stood in the way of the selection of one of the greatest
and noblest men of the ages for the office of its first
President. Identified as the University had always been
with the Southern States as a whole, his appointment
would have consecrated that relation with the halo that
will forever linger around his memory as the most splendid
of Southern champions and with the exception of
Washington, the loftiest representative of Southern
genius and virtue. It does not seem improbable that,
had the invitation been held out to him previous to the
overture of another seat of learning, it would have been
accepted by him, unless he would have shrunk from the
greater publicity pertaining to a residence situated less
remotely from the world at large than Lexington, and
to the headship of an institution of a National, instead
of mere State, reputation.
[1]
The earliest sign of a change of opinion touching
the practical sufficiency of the chairmanship which we
detect in the Faculty's attitude was discernible about
1885, when a standing committee of three professors
was appointed to take charge of the external relations
of the University,—that province in which a President
was expected to prove most useful; but their colleagues'
jealousy even of such a limited power as this was shown
in their requirement that every important step actually
taken by that committee should have received the approval
of the Faculty as a whole beforehand. The
students, however, being entirely free from the burden
of collegiate responsibilities, displayed an almost scornful
impatience with the timidity of their professorial
superiors. The editors of the magazine boldly proposed
that the office of President should be at once created.
"The spirit of the age," they asserted emphatically,
"calls for the innovation. Every prominent seat of
learning in the United States, except our own, has
adopted it. Who but a President could be expected to
be on the qui vive always to advance the interest of his
college, or to give blow for blow in one of those controversial
storms which are always raging in the educational
firmament."
College Topics, in 1891, with the rashness of youth,
or that wisdom, which we are told, sometimes proceeds
from the mouths even of babes, had the audacity to
dispute the good sense of the Jeffersonion system of
administration. Was not the chairman of the Faculty
primarily a professor in a particular school, and only
secondarily the chief executive of the University? This
being so, how was it possible for him to discharge
properly the intricate business details so continuously
intrusted to his judgment? Had not Jefferson's plan
of organization been simply tentative and theoretical?
After all, was he not a mere idealist, nurtured in the
school of the French Revolution? Did anyone really
think that his business principles,—if he had any at
all,—or his financial methods, were entitled to modern
consideration? In the opinion of the editors of this
periodical, no answer but a negative one could be returned
to these iconoclastic interrogatories. Two years
afterwards, the same periodical renewed its assault upon
the existing system of administration. "Why should
the Board of Visitors," it asked, "be confined in their
selection of a chairman to one of twenty-two men, some
of whom refuse to serve, and some are not qualified to
do so? What were the characteristics demanded in a
President? Good executive ability, honesty, truthfulness,
straightforwardness, a fixed standard and firmness
in maintaining it. He should be impartial, just, tactful,
and discreet; and should be respected and trusted by the
student body."
At the hour when the Faculty were turning to the cumbrous
device of a committee to furnish a substitute for
a President, and the students, with youthful boldness and
unyouthful sagacity, were demanding the unhesitating
creation of that office, the Board of Visitors, with whom
the final authority rested, seemed to shrink from the
consideration of the suggested change. Apparently,
this body, at that time, was unalterably hostile to the
adoption of a new executive system.
