University of Virginia Library

4. FOURTH PERIOD

FORMATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL STAGE, 1825–1842

I. How the University was Reached

Jefferson, it will be recalled, had not only confidently
expected, but had publicly announced that the University
would be in a condition to receive students on the first of
February, 1825. This day was chosen because it was anticipated
that the English professors would have arrived
by then and be ready to begin their lectures. Had all
the teachers been on the ground, the institution was, by
December 1, 1824, really prepared to start upon its active
career, for, with the exception of the Rotunda in part,
and the Anatomical Hall, in whole, the important buildings
needed for the commencement of work were finished,
whether pavilion, dormitory, hotel, or lecture-room; the
courses of instruction had been laid off; the administrative
officers, elected; and the ordinances for the government
of the students, adopted. It was due to the detention
of Key, Dunglison, and Bonnycastle by the delaying
mishaps of their voyage, that the University failed before
March 7, 1825, to enter upon its first stage of operation,
for which it had been equipping itself so assiduously,
in so many ways, during the previous six years.
This day of consummation must have been looked upon
by Jefferson as one of the happiest in his long and illustrious
life, and his deeply quaffed delight at that hour
must have compensated him most acutely for all the vexing
and distracting obstacles that had, so persistently,

arisen in his path,—only to be overcome in the end, however,
by extraordinary energy and tenacity on his part,
and on the part of his loyal and unselfish supporters.

Hitherto, we have been describing the physical, institutional,
and legislative history of the University in process
of construction. We have now to start upon its
history as a completed seat of learning. The student,
who, up to this hour, has always been behind the wings,
now comes forward, and taking his stand at the centre
of the stage, never leaves the mild glare of the scholastic
footlights during the remainder of the story. It was for
his benefit that those beautiful edifices had been erected;
for him, that those accomplished professors had been
brought from overseas; for him, that those varied and
extensive courses of instruction had been provided; for
him, that those disciplinary laws had been adopted. We
must now begin to look at the entire setting, whether
physical, or moral, or intellectual, from the point of view
of its relation to his welfare. Without his presence,
without his interests, it would all become a costly but
unmeaning show,—a house of splendor without an occupant,
a comely body without a spirit.

The Board of Visitors, in order to obtain students
for the first term, were not content simply to let the public
know that the doors of the University were now open,—
notices stating in detail the advantages which it had to
offer were inserted in the principal newspapers of the
South as far as Milledgeville, in Georgia. Jefferson
himself posted a shower of circulars with his own hands.
Before the session of 1825 had come to an end, the
session of 1826 was announced in the journals of every
Southern State lying east of the Mississippi River, and
also of the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, in the State
of Ohio. "It is better to diffuse advertisements through

many States and parts of States," Chairman Tucker
shrewdly wrote, when instructing the proctor, "than to
advertise longer in a smaller number."

How were the students who entered the University
during the first years able to reach it? We have seen
how slow and cumbrous were the means of transporting
to that place so much of the material that was used in its
construction. It was, of course, less arduous in those
times to convey a person from one part of the country to
another than to carry a barrel or a hogshead; but the only
difference in the degree of difficulty was the difference in
movement between a bulky stage and a lumbering wagon,
each pulled by a team of four sweating and hard-breathing
horses. Both creaked through the mud and over the
stones, with almost equal sluggishness. The barrel and
the hogshead had over the passenger at least the advantage
of being insensible and unconscious throughout the
long journey. Writing in 1824, Isaac Coles, Jefferson's
private secretary, incidentally mentions that public
coaches were then plying at intervals on the road between
Richmond and the West. When Cabell went up
to the University in 1819, he was conveyed as far as that
place by one of these jolting vehicles; and thence, through
the wooded countryside, jogged on horseback to his own
house at Warminster. Stages, at this time, also creaked
and rumbled on the highway that wound from Fredericksburg,
through the bushy wilderness of Spottsylvania, to
Gordonsville and Charlottesville.

In 1820, a lighter carriage was regularly provided for
travellers passing from Piedmont to Tidewater or the
reverse. During that year, Solomon Ballou[1] solicited
the public patronage for a "hack," which, as he announced

in the columns of the Jeffersonian Republican,
would set out from Charlottesville for Richmond on
Wednesdays; and every Sunday would leave the capital
on its return to Albemarle. The hack was the most
ubiquitous vehicle on the streets of the little town so
soon as the students began to pour in; and it was extravagantly
patronized by them at all hours of the day
and night, until, in 1826, it was shut out of the precincts
between twelve o'clock noon and seven o'clock in the
morning; and several years afterwards, there was a debate
in the Faculty whether it should be suffered to enter
the bounds at all. The only superiority which such a
vehicle could assert over the ordinary stage coach, in a
prolonged journey, was the greater speed with which it
could be drawn over the public roads. It must have cut
down the time consumed in such a journey; but like the
coach, offered no comforts of any kind to the sleepy traveller,
however luxurious it may have seemed to be to the
tipsy and uproarious student returning to his dormitory
not long before dawn.

In traversing the region between Richmond and Charlottesville,
the passenger had to spend at least one night
on the lonely road, either in the dark corners of the stagecoach
itself, or in one of the taverns by the way that had
been built for the baiting of man and beast. By 1838,
the Central Railway had been finished as far as Louisa
county. The journey could then be brought to a close in
a single day. The student who lived in Richmond left
that city by train at five in the morning, and descending
from the cars at the raw terminus in the woods, entered
the patient coach that was standing by for him and his
fellow-travellers to transport them towards the Rivanna.
He accomplished the remainder of his journey at a speed
of six miles an hour, without counting the tiresome delays

that resulted from the numerous stoppages. By the new
means of locomotion, he was able to save not less than
nine hours of time, and to escape the rough discomforts
of the primitive country inn at night. The heavy coaches
in which the passengers were slowly sent on to their common
destination were owned by the railway company.

The student whose home was in Baltimore, Washington,
or Fredericksburg, on the north, or in Norfolk, on
the south, came, in the one instance, by rail, and in the
other, by steamboat, to Richmond; and there, like the
resident of that city, took a seat in the steam-cars for
the Louisa terminus, travelling thence by coach to the
University. It was in this roundabout way that the
young men from the northeastern, eastern, and southeastern
regions of Virginia,—from the valleys of the
Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James,—could most
conveniently reach Charlottesville. It was not until
1849 that the railway was built as far as Keswick, which
left only a short interval to be still traversed.[2] In 1838,
the fare from Richmond, by consecutive rail and coach

conveyance, was five dollars and a half, and from Fredericksburg,
six dollars. During the times when the stage
was the only passenger vehicle plying on the same road,
the fare from Richmond was but three dollars,—which
shows that the greater convenience following from
the railway had led to a heavy addition to the original
charge.

The students whose homes were situated in the Valley,
or beyond the crest of the Alleghanies, travelled to the
University by way of Rockfish Gap in stage coaches.
These also, after 1838, were owned by the Central Railway
Company. The same corporation was in possession
of two important lines that ran from Staunton to Lexington
and Buchanan respectively, and a third line that
crossed the mountains by turnpike to Guyandotte. Direct
and reliable means of transportation from points
south and north of the Ohio River, and as far as Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi, was thus furnished
through all the revolutions of the seasons. The
students from Southwest Virginia, and the South Atlantic
States, came up by stage from Lynchburg. In 1829,
Alexander Garrett was appointed a commissioner to lay
off a new bed for the Lynchburg highway; but his work
was probably confined to the vicinity of the University.
It seems that, in 1832, the road passed so near to the
arcades of one of the Ranges that the idle young men who
occupied the dormitories in that quarter amused themselves,
when the coach slowly rolled in sight, with flouting
and jeering at the passengers. This vociferous greeting
they called the "family smile." In 1838, the Central
Railway set up a line of public stages on the Lynchburg
highway; but it was only on alternate days that a coach
started from Charlottesville for that city or the reverse.
The hour of departure was midnight.

II. Beginning and Length of the Session

The first of February, 1825, as we have seen, was
chosen as the day for the first session to begin. Would
that date have been preferred had all the English professors
been expected to arrive four months earlier?
To start upon the work of each session in the midst of
the most rigorous section of winter, when travel was very
frequently halted by frost and snow, and to protract it
through that part of the summer when the heat was most
ardent and debilitating, seemed, on its face, to be an
arbitrary and irrational arrangement. But the cause of
its adoption lay in the impression that Eastern Virginia,
and the States farther south, were the regions most likely
to patronize the University; and that the mountain climate
in the dog-days would be certain to increase the number
of students from those points of the compass. There
were friends of the institution, however, who refused to
accept this practical reason as a justification. "Think
of two hundred boys," exclaimed Gilmer, "festering each
in one of those little rooms in August or July! The very
idea is suffocating."

July, with its scorching sun, had not yet arrived when
the students pleaded with the executive committee,
through the Faculty, for a holiday of ten days or more,
on the perfectly sensible ground of the unusual length of
the session and the stifling and wilting temperature that
was then prevailing. Jefferson, from the cool heights
and airy apartments of Monticello, drily replied that
"there was but one vacation in the year, and this extended
from December 15 to January 31." In the privacy of
his own mind, he was probably astonished that these
youthful students, with such novel and extraordinary opportunities
for learning, should not have asked for the

abolition of even the interval of rest which he mentioned.
Ten and one half months to be given up to work and one
month and a half to play seemed to him a rational proportion;
but the boys, exasperated by the heats of August,
responded to his veiled rebuke by breaking out in a rebellion
that greatly angered and perplexed the authorities
at first; but their obduracy softened; and on October
7 (1825), the Board of Visitors decided that, thereafter,
the annual vacation should begin on August 1, and terminate
on September 11, with a recess at Christmas, which
was to continue for a period of at least two weeks. The
second session opened on February 1, 1826. The Board,
on October 4, of that year, resolved that the third session
should begin on February 1, and end on July 4, and that
afterwards the session should begin on the 20th of August,
and end on the 4th of July. A recess of two weeks
was to intervene at Christmas. On December 16 (1826)
the Board made a second change: the session was to begin
on September 1, and end on July 20. In July, 1828,
September 10 was designated as the day of opening; in
1834, September 1, and the session was to terminate on
the 4th of July. There was little alteration thereafter
during this period.

In 1838, the Faculty objected so strongly to the Christmas
recess that they asked the Board to abolish it. Although
no holiday besides the twenty-fifth was allowed
in December, 1830, at least forty of the students left the
precincts; and the professors made no attempt to lecture,
since the young men who remained at the University refused
to attend. In 1834, it was formally announced
that, should the students pointedly stay away from the
classroom during the Christmas period, the lectures should
be considered to have been delivered, and when the examinations
were held in each school, the most searching

questions were to be put on that part of the course which
had been so flagrantly neglected by them. It was the
adoption of rules like this,—which seemed to have their
springs in a vindictive mood,—that partly explains the
insubordination that came so violently to the surface so
often during these early years. Taken with the refusal
to continue the immemorial Christmas holiday, or to acknowledge,
from the start, that the blistering hours of
July and August were not the time for study, this regulation
of 1834 demonstrated that the Faculty and the Visitors
were at least partly deserving of the unpopularity
which they aroused in those youthful minds.

There was at least one professor, however, who disapproved
of these exasperating restrictions and punishments.
This was Tucker, the oldest and the most experienced of
them all. In 1835, he advised that a recess at Christmas
should be formally granted, as the new rule, requiring the
prolongation of the lectures through the holidays, had
only left the classrooms as empty as in the foregoing
years. He summarized the reasons for again conceding
the recess, and it will be pertinent to restate them, as
they bring out certain conditions that prevailed in the
University during this period of its history. The grounds
in favor were: (1) parents were willing for their sons to
visit their homes at that time; (2) all public and private
business was then suspended; (3) the season was given
up to merry-making and relaxation; (4) it was impossible
to force the students into disloyalty to customs which
were cherished under every Virginian roof, and were
shared in even by the humblest of the slaves; (5) the
regular session was so protracted that a short vacation
would turn out to be a relief; and it was at Christmas
that it could be most conveniently allowed. In opposition
to these reasons, it was said, (1) that the intermediate

examinations were held in January, and a holiday in
December was a poor preparation for them; (2) that
the roads were so unfathomable in winter that there could
be no regularity in the return of the absentees, and a
recess of ten days at that season really signified the loss
of a month; (3) that it increased the expense of college
life; and (4) that the students from remote States, having
no inducement to leave the precincts, would be tempted
by idleness to fall into dissipation, which would be damaging
to the good name of the institution.

The chairman's recommendation in favor of granting
a recess failed to receive the Visitors' approval; but so
numerous were the vacant seats in the lecture-rooms in
December, 1836, that the Faculty were constrained to
connive at the violation of the regulation. A student who
was curtly summoned before that body to explain his refusal
to be present at his classes, obtained an acquittal
by proving that two of his professors had left the University
for the holidays, and that the third had voluntarily
discontinued his course for the time being.

III. Origin and Number of Students

What was the social origin of the young men who
matriculated during these early sessions? We can only
infer it from the names embraced in the catalogues. Let
us consider those recorded for the year 1825, which, for
some reasons, will always remain the most interesting in
the University's annals. Among the students then present,
we discover the youthful scions of such conspicuous
Virginian families as Ambler, Bolling, Brockenbrough,
Carter, Cary, Cocke, Eyre, Mason, Fairfax, Harrison,
Hubard, Lee, Magruder, Marshall, Meriwether, Nelson,
Page, Peyton, Preston, Randolph, Saunders, Selden, Scott,

Slaughter, Spotswood, Stuart, Tayloe, Tazewell, Wallace,
Watkins, Wellford, Wickham and Yates. If we
run our eye over the voluminous columns of names that
follow 1825, in annual succession, down to the end of
the period which we are now covering,—an interval of
seventeen sessions,—it will be discerned that not a single
mansion of distinction in the social life of Virginia, during
those years, failed, at one time or another, to be represented
in the person of a student within those stately
precincts. To call the roll of their names is to call the
roll of families who have deeply stamped their virtues
and their talents upon every aspect of the State's history
during the long interval,—now serene, now stormy,—
that followed the Revolution and preceded the War of
Secession. This is not so true of the young men who
matriculated from the sister commonwealths of the South;
but in proportion to their number, we discover among
them also names of high social and political prominence
in the broad region that lay between the Yadkin and the
Mississippi River.

Indeed, these early rolls fully explain the prejudice
which then existed against the University as the institution
of the rich. "There are persons," said Thomas W.
Gilmer, at that time a member of the General Assembly,
and destined to become the Governor of Virginia and
Secretary of the Navy, "who ask, why should the State
bear so heavy an expense to afford means of education to
those who can themselves procure it? It is not enough
to answer that it had diffused science more generally
through the State, and elevated the standard of literary
attainment amongst us." However, it was not due to
any haughty selfishness of class in Jefferson that the young
men, in the beginning, belonged, as a body, to the social
rank of the well-to-do citizens of the community, for it

can never be forgotten that, in his plan for the district
colleges, those sons of indigent parentage who should
distinguish themselves there for their scholarship, were
to be admitted to all the higher schools of instruction in
the University at the public expense.

Thomas W. Gilmer, foreseeing that popular favor
would be diverted from the institution to its damage,
if not to its destruction, should it remain so indisputably
the seminary of the wealthy, strove to conjure up the
means by which it might be linked with the cause of primary
education, and thus more directly contribute to the
spread of knowledge through all the social grades of the
State. He begged Cabell to submit some matured
scheme that would assist him in his purpose. Above all,
he put the same question to the proctor, Brockenbrough,
—a man, as we have seen, fully competent to give wise
advice based upon long and discerning observation on
the ground. "Many counties of the State," the latter
wrote in November, 1830, in reply to Gilmer, "have not
sent a single student since the opening of the institution.
Why is this? Is it because the expenses are too great for
the resources of the people, or for want of taste for literature?
... How would it do to propose, by way of remuneration
to the several counties for the large annuity
contributed towards it, that the University should receive
and educate a student, or students, from each county
or counties, equal to the representation in the House of
Delegates, free of expense as to fees and rents,—the
students thus educated to be employed as teachers, who
would diffuse a fondness for literature throughout the
State?" Such was the earliest recorded suggestion of the
system of State students, which was to be adopted within
a few years, and which was to silence the unreasonable
reproaches leveled at the University, by adjusting it to a

more democratical footing than it occupied at the start.

How many students were in attendance during the
first period of growth, extending from 1825 to 1842 inclusive?
"The letters I have received from almost every
State south of the Potomac, the Ohio, and Missouri,"
Jefferson wrote to Cabell, as early as 1822, "prove that
all these are looking anxiously to the opening of our University
as an epoch which is to relieve them from sending
to the Northern universities. And when we see that
the colleges of those States considered as preparatory only
for ours, have 1, 2, and 300 students each, we cannot
doubt that we will receive the double and treble of their
number. I have no doubt that our accommodations for
218 will be filled within six months after opening; and
for every fifty coming afterwards, we shall have to build
a boarding-house and twenty-five dormitories."

Jefferson was so keenly elated by the enrolment in
1825,[3] that he sanguinely predicted that, in 1826, so many
students would offer for matriculation that the capacity
of the dormitories would be strained to lodge them;
and "there would probably be," he said, "as many additional
to that as Charlottesville can accommodate, which
is expected to be about one hundred. ... As far as we
can judge not one will go to Charlottesville as long as a
dormitory is to be had." During the second session
there were only fifty-four students beyond the number
present in 1825. Jefferson had looked forward to at
least three hundred. The list dwindled to one hundred
and twenty-eight in the third session; and in 1829, it
sank further to one hundred and twenty. During the
seventeen sessions closing with the year 1842, approximately
three thousand, two hundred and forty-seven

young men were enrolled by the proctor, an average of
one hundred and ninety-one only for the separate session.
About nine hundred and forty-two remained two years;
three hundred and ten, three years; ninety-two, four
years; twenty-four, five years; nine, six years; and two,
seven years. The students who tarried longest were sons
of the professors, who, as we shall see, were admitted to
the lectures at a very unripe age. It is a fact of some
significance that the largest number of students who had
been present during two sessions was in 1826, the second
year in the scholastic career of the institution.

In the history of the attendance during these first seventeen
sessions, we discover the existence of a condition
which has always prevailed; namely, the failure of a
large proportion of the young men to return after the
close of their first year. This arose from the peculiarities
of the elective system as compared with those of the curriculum.
Under the curriculum, it was necessary for the
student to pass through the four divisions of the freshman,
sophomore, junior, and senior years before he could
carry off his baccalaureate degree. The difficulties of
the ascent were so nicely proportioned to each year that
he rose by easy gradations, session following session, until
he finally arrived in triumph at the top. As the young
men in each division were engaged in exactly the same task
at precisely the same hour, they were always able to
assist and encourage a lagging brother on the road; and
as all had the same goal in view, they felt that the discredit
of not reaching it would be the more mortifying
from the very number certain to succeed. But there was
no justifiable reason for losing the degree; the previous
preparation was apt to have been sufficient for the freshman
class; and if there was failure in any grade higher
up, the disappointed collegian had only to resume its

course a second time, with renewed hope of receiving the
prize at the end of his senior year.

On the other hand, in the elective system as adopted at
the University, there was no preordained course for the
student to pursue. He followed his own taste,—too
often immature when he had any preference at all,—in
the choice of his studies; and equally as often he was not
really equipped to attend the lectures he selected. The
standard of graduation was high; and in the largest number
of instances, the student ended his first year in dejection.
No influence beyond parental constraint existed to
spur him to return,—no bachelor's degree, open to the
majority, which it would have been an academic disgrace
to him to lose; no spirit of comradeship to cause him to
feel that his absence would be a disloyalty to his class.
The loss, the second year, of two students of every three
of those who had been present the previous session,—
which was the proportion observable during the first seventeen
sessions,—was primarily due to this acute impression
of failure. It was also, to some extent, due, contradictory
as it may sound, to success in traversing some special
field which the elective system made practicable in one
year, in spite of the requirement, from the beginning, that
every academic pupil should, each session, pursue a course
embracing three subjects. The languages or the sciences
could be studied during a single year, and the alumnus
might leave, after the close of one term, as much entitled
to be called a "graduate of the University of Virginia"
as if he had won diplomas under all the six academic
professors.

In what proportion were the several States represented
in the mass of young men present during the first seven
teen sessions? Of the three thousand, two hundred and
forty-seven who approximately comprised the whole number,

two thousand, three hundred and forty-two were
matriculated as Virginians. There were one hundred
and seventy-nine South Carolinians, one hundred and
seven Alabamians, eighty-two Georgians, eighty Louisianians,
seventy-four Mississippians, sixty-five North Carolinians,
forty-nine Marylanders, forty-seven from the
District of Columbia, forty-one Tennesseeans, thirty-six
Kentuckians, and eighteen Floridians,—a total of six hundred
and sixty-four from these commonwealths. The
students belonging to the States lying beyond the borders
of the South embraced six from Ohio and New York respectively,
fifteen from Pennsylvania, and five from Missouri.
Apparently, Jefferson's sanguine expectation that
the University would, at an early date, allure additional
young men from the West and North failed to become a
reality except to an insignificant and negligible degree.
It is quite probable that the few who were admitted from
the four Commonwealths named were the sons of Virginians
residing either permanently or temporarily in
those communities. The animosities that had always
been smouldering between the Northern people and the
Southern were fiercely rekindled by the political conflicts
of 1820, when the questions leading up to the Missouri
Compromise were under intemperate debate; and this mutual
hostility continued to flare up throughout that period
of the University's history which we are describing.
This unquestionably tended to discourage the education
of the sons of the North in its lecture halls.

Indeed, it was not until the session of 1834–5 that even
the States of the South beyond the borders of Virginia
began to send an expanding number of students to the
institution. In 1825, of the one hundred and twenty-three
young men on the ground, as many as one hundred
and eight were from the Old Dominion; on the other

hand, in 1841–2, fifty-eight of the one hundred and
seventy present were from other Southern commonwealths,
—a very perceptible rise in the proportion of
the matriculates belonging to them. The extent of the
increase is shown in the following table:

                         

	1825–1833	1833–1842
South Carolina	36	143
Florida	3	15
Maryland	25	24
Alabama	16	141
Louisiana	17	63
Kentucky	13	23
Tennessee	13	28
North Carolina	26	43
Mississippi	13	61
Georgia	16	69
	___	___
Total	178	610

The most remarkable expansion occurred in the attendance
from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi. In Maryland alone was there a falling off.
Considered as a whole, the increase amounted approximately
to three hundred and fifty per cent. The explanation
of the change for the States of lower Carolina and
the Gulf lay in the augmented world-demand for their
principal staple, cotton, and the consequent advance in
its price. There was no increase of importance in the
attendance of students from Pennsylvania, New York,
Ohio, the District of Columbia, and Missouri. Thirty-two
for the first period, it was only forty-six for the second.

IV. Matriculation

So soon as the student reached the University by one
of those stage-coaches, which, as we have seen, plied

through that region of country, he was expected to go
promptly to the proctor's office, and submit to all the
conditions of matriculation. The first was to give a
statement in writing as to his age. If under sixteen, he
was refused admission, unless accompanied by an older
brother, or was himself the son of a professor on the
ground. Sometimes, the Faculty acted on their own discretion,
if there was a good reason in a particular case
why this rule should be partially relaxed,—thus in 1830,
Carter W. Wormeley, who was under sixteen, was, in
October, permitted to remain as a quasi-matriculate because
he would reach the accepted limit in February, and
was so well-grown already as to pass for nineteen. The
second requirement was that the student, if an alumnus
of some other incorporated seminary of learning, should
hand in a certificate of good conduct from its authorities.
The third requirement was that he should deposit with
the proctor or the patron,—if such an officer had been
appointed,—all the money, drafts, checks, and orders in
his possession, which he had brought from home to defray
his different expenses. The total sum thus surrendered
was to be subject to the following deductions: (1) the
two per cent. commission payable to the proctor or patron;
(2) the rent of his dormitory; (3) the charge for
the use of the public rooms; (4) the tuition fees; (5) the
amount which he would owe his hotelkeeper for the first
period of three months; (6) the sum estimated to cover
the cost of text-books and stationery; (7) a contingent
fee, to compensate for any damage which he might do to
the property of the University. What probably made
the deepest impression on his sensibilities was the requirement
that he should give up all the loose contents of his
pocket-book, which he had hoped to reserve for amusement
or for petty expenses of every sort from day to
day.

This was another of the pricking regulations for which
apparently there was no sound reason; indeed, it was
very nicely calculated to arouse that feeling of sharp hostility
to authority so rampant during this period. The
explanation offered by the Board of Visitors for imposing
it was that the forcible limitation of the amount to
be spent by the students would enable them to devote
their time and energies more positively and conscientiously
to their studies; and would assure a slower and
more thoughtful enjoyment of the money through the
measured disbursements of the patron, for he, by scanning
the bills sent in to him, could soon detect the smallest
indulgence "in parade and pleasure," and by curbing
it, would leave the young men a larger opportunity "to
acquire literature and science, useful habits, and honorable
distinction." One can easily see in the mind's eye the wry
faces with which this lofty explanation, with its slight
smack of irony, was received by the students, already
writhing under their pecuniary dependence upon an academic
officer. Each one was required to take an oath
that he had deposited the entire amount in his possession;
and should it be afterwards proved that he had
not done so, he was compelled to pay a commission of
four per cent. instead of two. It was not simply the
money brought by him to the University at the beginning
of the session which had to be given up: all funds that
subsequently came into his hands had also to be surrendered.
The accounts for 1836 reveal that the average
amount which the young men had in the patron's custody
was seventy-four dollars, and in 1837, seventy-five;
and this was a counterpart of the entire period. The

largest sum that was withdrawn for pocket money at
one time was ten dollars. It was rarely so much; indeed,
five dollars was the modest amount which the patron
thought sufficient to dole out in response to most of the
applications.

The student could not evade this restriction by making
purchases on credit except under a narrow limitation, for,
in 1828, he was forbidden by the Faculty to run up debts
in excess of five dollars, unless he could show the written
consent of parent or chairman. Ten years afterwards,
an Act of the General Assembly specifically curtailed the
merchant's right to give credit to students; and under the
authority of this law, the chairman declined to acknowledge
the validity of any obligations of the young men
unless contracted for necessaries. He used his own discretion
even in the cases of those who offered their
parents' written permission in justification. So soon as
the abuse of credit by student and merchant was put
under the ban of a statute,—which rendered it liable
to be passed upon by the grand jury,—there was less
difficulty in enforcing the Faculty's ordinance in restraint
of that evil.

There were certain fixed charges, as we have seen, to
be covered by the amount deposited by the student at the
beginning of the session. These varied slightly from
year to year, but throughout the first seventeen sessions
remained substantially unaltered. If the matriculate announced
his intention, with the proper permission, to attend
the lectures of one professor alone, the fee was fifty
dollars; of two, thirty dollars each; and of three, twenty-five
dollars, respectively. After 1837, ministers of the
Gospel, or future candidates of divinity, were relieved of
this expense. A new charge of twenty dollars was, subsequent
to 1834–5, imposed upon the student of law, in

addition to the usual one for a single chair. The young
man who entered late, or departed early, unless prevented
from stopping longer by sickness, was required to pay the
tuition fee for the entire session. It was only in 1825,
—when the beginning and length of the session were
rendered uncertain by the abnormal circumstances of the
hour,—that the amount of the tuition fees was proportioned
to the time of actual attendance.

During the first four years, one hundred and fifty dollars
was always paid in by the student to defray the charge
of his hotelkeeper for board; but, in 1829–30, the amount
was lowered to one hundred dollars. This sum entitled
him to the use of the very plain furniture in his
dormitory, and also to servants' attendance, and to laundry.
The deposit for rent, when one room was to be
occupied by two tenants, was eight dollars apiece for the
session; the general cost of fuel and candles was fifteen
dollars apiece; and of books and common stationery,
about forty dollars. The contingent fee was fixed at
ten dollars. The amount intrusted to the patron for
clothing and pocket-money was in the neighborhood of
one hundred and fourteen dollars; and for the use of the
library and public rooms, fifteen dollars. In 1829–30,
it was estimated that, with clothing, pocket-money, and
the contingent fee omitted, the student's annual expenses
should not run beyond two hundred and eighteen dollars;
and in 1834, with these two items counted in, beyond
three hundred and seventy-five. But, in 1838, when the
proctor calculated that the outlay ought not to exceed
three hundred and fifty dollars, he acknowledged that
the great majority of the young men spent at least five
hundred in the course of a single session.

Having made the deposits with the patron as the
enactments prescribed, taken an oath that he retained

no funds in his possession, and that he would obey the
ordinances,—a copy of which was given him,—the student
then announced the courses of study which he wished
to pursue. It was now the patron's duty to pay the appointed
fees to the professors designated, in return for
which each delivered to that officer for transmission to
the student a ticket[4] admitting him to his school. The
matriculate, without parental authority to the contrary,
was required, as we have already mentioned, to choose
three schools if he belonged to the academic department;
and in 1827, he was granted the right to add still others,
provided that he should state his desire to do so within
one month after entrance.

What was the patronage enjoyed by each of the
schools during the first seventeen sessions? In 1825,
when the professorship of law was as yet vacant, the attendance
was as follows: in the School of Medicine, there
were twenty students; of Ancient Languages, fifty-seven;
of Modern, seventy-three; of Natural Philosophy, thirty-five;
of Mathematics, seventy-three; of Chemistry and
Materia Medica, thirty-five; and of Moral Philosophy,
fifteen. Of the approximately three thousand, two hundred
and forty-seven young men enrolled from 1825 to
1842 inclusive, the several schools were entitled to the
following proportions: Mathematics, 1541; Natural
Philosophy, 1122; Ancient Languages, 1112; Modern
Languages, 976; Moral Philosophy, 804; Law, 705;
Chemistry, 680; and Medicine, 630. We are able, at a
glance, to gauge the relative popularity of the different
schools. The School of Mathematics led the procession;
the School of Medicine closed it,—the average annual attendance
in the one was eighty-five students; in the other,

thirty-five. During the period of seventeen years under
review, the School of Medicine was at flood-tide in
1835–6, when fifty-five students were enrolled in it. The
attendance in the School of Law dwindled from seventy-two
in 1839–40, to fifty-four in 1841–2; in the School of
Ancient Languages, from one hundred and seven in 1825,
when Professor Long occupied that chair, to thirty-nine,
seventeen years later. This decline was reflected in the
School of Modern Languages, which fell from one
hundred and thirty-six in 1838–9 to forty-eight in 1841–2.
The figures for the School of Mathematics in 1836–7
and 1841–2 were, respectively, one hundred and thirty-five
and forty-seven; for the School of Natural Philosophy
in 1837–8 and 1841–2, one hundred and ten and
forty-one; for the School of Chemistry in 1836–7 and
1841–2, seventy-five and thirty-six; and for that of Moral
Philosophy in 1839–40 and 1841–2, seventy-eight and
forty-six. We shall be able to comprehend clearly the
reasons for this temporary decay when we come to examine
the other sides of the history of this period.

V. School of Ancient Languages

In the beginning, the rule was adopted that no student
should be admitted to the School of Ancient Languages
unless, in its professor's judgment, he was qualified to
read the Latin and Greek classics of the advanced grades.
It will be recalled that Jefferson was opposed to any portion
of that professor's time being taken up in drilling a
primary class, and it was partly the hope of devising a
substitute which led him to advocate so earnestly the
establishment of the intermediate district colleges. So
exacting was his standard for this preliminary training,
that Chapman Johnson, his colleague on the Board of

Visitors, protested that he demanded that "the student
should be a better scholar than most of our teachers before
he shall enjoy the benefit of classical instruction in
the University." "Whilst it is certainly proper," he
added, "that the professor of ancient languages should
not teach the elements, and should confine his attention to
the higher aspects,—to critical dissertation on their beauties
and defects, and to illustrations of their history, structure,
genius, and philosophy,—yet care should be taken
not to deprive too many of the benefits of his professorship
by excluding those who lack attainments in the languages."

The only grades of instruction in Latin and Greek
which Jefferson approved, disclose that he had really an
advanced seat of learning in mind, whilst Johnson was
satisfied that the new institution should occupy, in some
of its important courses, the platform of an ordinary college.
The superficiality in preparatory classical training,
during these early years, was so great in the case of many
of the students that the University was compelled to exercise
some of the functions of a mere academy. A rigid
test of admission to the School of Ancient Languages
would have reduced the number of pupils to a very sensible
degree, and its influence would, in consequence, have
been very much contracted. It was to get around this
that an elastic significance was given to the requirement
that those entering should be familiar with the "higher
works" of the Latin and Greek authors,—which was interpreted
as meaning that the pupil had been carried
through the Metamorphosis of Ovid, and the Commentaries
of Cæsar, in the limited curriculum of a secondary
private school, and was, therefore, qualified to be promoted
to the next grade.

There were two influences that prevented the introduction

of such unripe scholars from sinking the reputation of
the chair. The first was general, and also operative
through a protracted series of years: it was the supreme
attention that was paid to the senior classes at the very
time that the junior were not neglected. It was the senior
classes in which the most fertilizing work was done; and
it was this work, and not that of the junior classes, which
gave the school its very high standing. The other influence
was the character for genuineness and thoroughness
which the fruitful and contagious scholarship of
Long stamped upon that school from the hour when its
lecture-room was first thrown open; he was associated
with it during three years only; but he established for it
a vivid tradition of exacting standards, which set a pace
for its conduct that has never slackened throughout its history.
It was not his habit to deliver a formal expository
lecture. Generally at the meeting of his higher classes, he
required one hundred lines from Virgil and Thucydides
to be read, followed by translations from Horace or some
other author, Greek or Latin; or he varied this programme
by examinations in Greek or Latin grammar,—
all answers being submitted in writing. The grammatical
constructions were illustrated by copious references
to different authors. The students were directed
to follow up each reference; and in doing so, they became
familiar, not only with the special constructions which
they verified, but with the general text of the authors
thus used. It was a course of study that called for close
attention and indefatigable labor, "but," says Gessner
Harrison, Long's most distinguished pupil, "it was most
interesting."

Long commanded the respect but not the affection of
all his pupils. He was inclined to show his detestation
of ignorance or shallowness in his classes, not by openly

quarreling with the delinquents, but by quiet sarcasms that
cut deep into the gristle of their conceit. No one, however,
who was honestly concerned about his work, and
endeavored to prepare for it with zeal and intelligence,
was ever the victim of a severe reprimand, or even mild
rebuke from him. Long was fully in harmony with Jefferson's
thoughtful view, that the history and geography
of a people should be studied simultaneously with its
language. History, geography, language,—each formed
a vital link in his comprehensive exposition of the two
great courses embraced in his professorship. His capacity
as a teacher was not confined to the instruction of
University classes,—he drew up, at General Cocke's
request, a plan for the education of Cocke's youngest son
in the ancient languages, which brings out in the clearest
light his practical insight into his calling down to the
rudiments, as well as the thoughtful philosophy of his
scholarship. The course which he was anxious for this
boy to study was the one which he urged as necessary to
the right preparation of every Virginian pupil who expected
to enter the University after leaving the private
school. How small was the knowledge of the Grecian
tongue possessed by some of those who were admitted
to his lowest class, was revealed in his statement that a
youth who had read two books of Xenophon, with a
teacher's assistance, in the manner which he had recommended
for General Cocke's son, and had afterwards
mastered the remaining books of that author, without
such assistance, "would know more Greek than nine-tenths
of the students who came to the University."

Gessner Harrison, Long's successor, caught his first
inspiration from Long's example. In 1830, he divided
the students in the Greek course into two classes. The
first comprised those who were able to show a thorough

familiarity with Xenophon's Anabasis when they entered
the University. The members of this class were, towards
the end of the session, advanced to a play of Euripides,
and, at the same time, grounded in metre and
prosody. In the meanwhile, they had been required to
study the formation and composition of words. The text
of each was illustrated by a running commentary on the
literature, arts, manners, customs, politics, and commerce
of that period; and also by the geographical divisions
which then existed. The second class was composed of
the students who had passed the examinations of the first
year, or had entered the University equipped to pursue
the highest course in the language. They began with
Herodotus, went on to a play of Euripides or Aeschylus,
and ended with the epic of the Iliad, and the dramas of
Sophocles and Aristophanes. The fundamental qualities
of these great writers; the differences in style which
distinguished each from the rest; and the light thrown
upon their text by contemporary history, literature, and
geography,—all were presented with care and thoroughness.

But Harrison was not satisfied with the work that was
done in his lecture-room. Not many authors could be
adequately treated within so limited a time. He aimed
to inspire his pupils with such a thirsty taste for the language
that they would ardently continue its study in their
dormitories by following out parallel courses of reading
in Thucydides, Plato, and the Athenian Orators, which
he had recommended, and which he himself undertook for
his own recreation. One who knew him in life[5] relates
that, among his vivid recollections of this venerated
teacher, was that of seeing him stretched at length on a
sofa as deeply absorbed in a Greek classic as some young

lady might be in the last sensational novel from the circulating
library.

His scheme of instruction in Latin followed exactly
the same line in general as it did in Greek. The division
here was in two classes also. The initial study of the first
class was confined to the satires of Horace and Juvenal, a
play of Terence, and certain Epistles of Cicero. In the
meanwhile, tuition was given in prosody and metre, and
also a full description of the history, literature, religion,
civic and domestic institutions of the Roman people. The
course of the second class embraced the Epistles of Horace
and the De Arta Poetica, the Georgics of Virgil, the plays
of Terence or Plautus, the Annals of Tacitus and the
Orations of Cicero. The students of this class were made
familiar with the resources of the Roman Empire, its
colonial system, its military and civic establishments, its
arts, antiquities, commerce, and geographical divisions.
There was also, for their improvement, an exhaustive exposition
of the principles of the language. In the School
of Latin, as in that of Greek, they were urged and inspired
to push their investigations beyond the normal tasks
of the classroom; and with that in view, specific courses
of reading were recommended to them in such authors as
Cicero, Livy, Lucretius, and Plautus, and in the Epigrams
of Martial. A written translation of the text assigned
from day to day was expected of all; and, occasionally,
this translation had to be turned back into the original
tongue. Harrison correctly looked upon this to be as
useful an exercise in teaching the English language as in
teaching the Latin or Greek; and the benefit which he
thus conferred on his students was one of the most fruitful
that sprang from his memorable career as an instructor.

In 1836, the two classes of the Latin and Greek languages

respectively came to be designated as senior and
junior as more representative of their real character.
Hebrew formed a part of this important school; but the
demand for tuition in it seems never to have been sufficient
to call together even a small number of pupils.
Although Harrison had been so recently trained by one
of the most competent of English classical scholars, he
soon fell under the influence of the German method expounded
in the first part of Bopp's epochal grammar, issued
in 1833, a copy of which he received from Long.
Bopp compared the Sanscrit language with the languages,
not only of Ancient Europe, but of Modern. He was the
pioneer in that illuminating field of research. Harrison
was young enough to be susceptible to the spirit of innovation;
and he seems to have seized upon Bopp's ideas
with the most intelligent eagerness. He introduced comparative
etymology into his courses at a time when it
was held in small esteem in the other institutions of
England and America, and when it was neglected even
in Germany itself. In spite of the fact that the burden
of his professorial tasks left him but slim leisure for
gathering original data, he was able, by his own gleanings,
to collect enough to form the basis of his excellent
Latin Grammar. This book was given by an American
student to Curtius, the most celebrated master of comparative
etymology then alive. Curtius read it. "This
is a good book," he said, when returning it, "an excellent
book for the time it appeared."

Harrison's manner of studying classical syntax has
been pronounced by capable scholars to be, for its day,
of very striking originality. He rejected the deductive
method of the German school and adopted the inductive.
Having garnered and analyzed a mass of facts, he drew
from them definite principles which appeared to comprehend

them all; and using these principles like a chemical
test, sought, through them, to offer a satisfactory explanation
of such facts as subsequently fell under his
notice. His enthusiasm in this work of exposition is
illustrated by an anecdote that was told of him. A
friend, who was as keenly interested as himself in philology,
dropped in to dinner. When Harrison entered
the room, he was so bursting with his last discovery,
that he could scarcely stop long enough to thank the
Lord for the meal. "I think I have found it, sir," he
exclaimed, "I am about sure I have got the true explanation
of meta in the sense of after."

We are indebted to Dr. John A. Broadus, one of his
pupils, for a graphic description of his style as a lecturer:
"He had not a ready command of expression, and his
first statements of an idea were often partial, involved,
and obscure. But he perfectly knew,—a thing not very
common,—when he had, and when he had not, made
himself clear. He would, by variety of expression
searching for the right word or phrase, approach the
thought from different directions, gradually closing in till
he seized it; and when he reached his final expression, it
was vigorous, clear, and complete. Then he would watch
his audience with lively interest, and if he saw many
clouded faces, would repeat his process with all manner
of illustrations and iterations, till at last the greater part
of them could see clearly."[6] It was not very often that
he,—who never joked with his class, though pleasantly
familiar with them,—indulged in that form of pedagogical
oratory which the collegians somewhat irreverently,
but quite picturesquely, spoke of as "curling." But on

one occasion, he allowed himself to be so warmed up
by his interest in his subject as to rise to a remarkable
height of moving utterance. A student among those
present who was listening, slowly turned his head and
sarcastically winked at his neighbor. The Doctor observed
the act, and abruptly stopped in the full career of
his discourse. In the midst of an appalling silence, he
then said, "Gentlemen, while I was trying in my poor
way to set forth a historical fact, my effort provoked derision
from one gentleman. I am sorry that I failed to
awaken his interest, and secure his respect." The delinquent,
so soon as the class was dismissed, offered a full
apology.

But Harrison, as we have stated, was not often disposed
to imitate his colleague, William B. Rogers, distinguished
far and wide for vivid eloquence in the classroom.
So unceasing was the labor imposed upon him
by the duties of his double professorship, piled up on
those of the chairmanship, which he so long occupied,
that he was occasionally rather somnolent in giving his
customary instruction. On a certain day, he was lecturing
to his Latin class, and there was a sudden halt in
the current of his exposition,—the professor had
dropped asleep,—but opening his eyes with a start, he
excused himself to his pupils for his drowsiness, and, refreshed,
resumed his subject with his normal vigor.

VI. School of Modern Languages

The course in modern languages was placed by Jefferson
on a footing of equal dignity with the course in
ancient. This was an innovation that demonstrated,
like so many of his educational convictions, his penetration
into the future and his uncommon modernity of

spirit. James Russell Lowell has recorded that, as late
as his own youth, the French and German tongues were
taught in so great an institution as Harvard by the professor
who gave contemporaneous lessons in dancing and
fiddling! Jefferson had a thorough relish for the beauty
of the Grecian classics, but it was in the literature of
Rome that he seems to have found the most unfailing
pleasure, if the constant presence of Latin books at his
elbow can be taken as a proof. And yet he early perceived
that a modern language might have a value lying
outside of its mere literary flavour. Being at bottom a
statesman, a political philosopher, a civic prophet, he
was clearly aware that all the powerful nations would,
in time, be drawn into more intimate relations with each
other than then existed; and that a knowledge of alien
tongues would thus come to have a practical importance
in its bearing upon the welfare of the American people.
As education in general was expected by him to promote
all the qualifications of true citizenship, so expertness in
the principal languages of Continental Europe was, in
his opinion, calculated to equip the American mind with
a more correct understanding of international dangers
and responsibilities. In other words, he was thinking,
not only of the cultural and literary advantages to the
individual of mastering those tongues, but also of the
broader gain of turning that knowledge to the international
profit of his countrymen.

Whatever may have been the personal defects of Professor
Blaettermann, his acquirements as a linguist were
indisputable. The School of Modern Languages, of
which he was the first head, embraced courses in French,
German, Spanish, Italian, and Anglo-Saxon; but he also
announced that he was prepared to give lessons in the
vernacular of Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Portugal.

Like his colleague, Long, he was hampered by the necessity
of teaching numerous pupils who had to be instructed
in the lower grades, but his impatience, unlike Long's,
vented itself, not in veiled sarcasm, but in naked brusqueness.
On one occasion, he ridiculed so roughly the exercise
of a student who had just begun to learn the French
language, that the outraged young man rose angrily from
his seat and told him flatly to his face that he would refuse
to write another. The class in Spanish numbered as
many as forty members, and yet he attempted to teach
them all with three copies of a single grammar. It was
in protest against this sort of eccentricity, or else his
chronic rudeness, that many of his own pupils patronized
a private French school that was opened, in 1827, in the
vicinity of Charlottesville. Three years afterwards, at
the instance of Madison and Chapman Johnson, the addition
of a tutorship to his chair was debated by the
Board, either because the courses of instruction were too
extensive for one lecturer, or because the dissatisfaction
with him had grown too acute to be overlooked. The
latter explanation seems to be the most plausible, for the
proposal aroused his vigorous opposition,—it was said
that he was thrown into a "fidget," for, on the one
hand, he was threatened with degradation if he consented,
and on the other, with collisions with the tutor, should
the two have any difficulty in adjusting their respective
functions. The tutorship was established in the teeth of
his repugnance to the change; but he appears to have
been conciliated by the assignment of the junior to such
duties only as the senior should specify.

In 1832, it was concluded that the subjects of the
School of Modern Languages were too numerous to require
that graduation in all should be necessary for the
acquisition of a diploma. The course was, during this

year, divided into two classes; the Romance and the Teutonic.
There were, in the instance of each, a junior and
a senior year. The literatures of all the four nations
embraced were the topics of tri-weekly lectures, while
modern history, and the political relations of the principal
countries, were also fully discussed in a separate
course. The members of each class were furthermore
permitted to receive private instruction in any one, or
in all of the tongues taught in the school, on condition
that it should be given by a native Frenchman or Italian,
Spaniard, or German, who was willing to be governed by
the rules laid down for him by the Faculty.

Jefferson, when he provided for an English section in
the School of Modern Languages, seems to have had only
the Anglo-Saxon branch in view; and he acknowledged
that one of the main benefits which he expected to accrue
from its study was the information about the principles of
free government that was thus to be obtained. While,
it is true, that belles-lettres and rhetoric formed, after
1830, a part of the School of Moral Philosophy,—which
was in charge of Tucker, the most accomplished English
scholar among the professors,—nevertheless the English
language was the one great language which was
neglected in the University's round of instruction. Jefferson,
as we have already remarked, was well versed
in the classics, and his letters and state papers prove him
to have been an excellent writer in his native tongue;
but he seems to have given slim attention to English literature,
—a fact that has left a lasting impression upon
the University of Virginia, so far as it has had any influence
on the literary productiveness of the South.
The early professors,—such as Dunglison, Key, Long,
and Bonnycastle from England, and Emmet, Tucker, and
Lomax from the United States,—were men who put a

high value upon the study of the English language; and
they were disposed to criticize the deficiencies in that
study which lowered the institution in their day. "If
the means of the University were more independent than
they seem to be," Lomax wrote to Cocke, in 1828, "a
professorship might be established, which there is many
a clergyman well qualified to fill, if not in this country,
in England. I mean a professorship of English literature,
comprehending in it the study of the English language
in its origin, its history, its character, a critical
knowledge of its best writers, composition, and elocution.
Such a professorship would be of incalculable utility; and
would save the University from the disgrace which is reflected
upon it by the ignorance of English literature
which is to be discovered among some of our best
students."

Lomax voiced the conviction of his own, and of a later
time, too, in thus criticizing the absence of facilities for
the study of the English tongue in a seat of learning,
which had a right, in all other particulars, to claim the
broad self-designation of university. In July, 1839, the
Board of Visitors became aware,—apparently for the
first time,—that this neglect was seriously damaging the
reputation of the institution; and the Faculty were instructed
to appoint a committee to find out the means of
correcting it. The plan reported, in the following
November, recommended that all the students should be
divided into sections, and that each section should be
placed under the supervision of a professor. Every student
should be required to send in to the head of his
section a monthly composition at least two pages in
length. The compositions of each section, thus periodically
accumulated, were to be carefully examined by its
presiding professor, and those laid on one side as the

best were to be handed in to the Faculty. The students
who had failed to write, or had written with culpable
slovenliness, were to be reported at the same time to
the same body. As might have been predicted, this laborious
scheme of stimulating skill in English composition
was promptly tabled by the Faculty and was not
afterwards heard of. The members of that body, as a
whole, no doubt, thought that they were already sufficiently
burdened by the demands of their regular classes.

In 1840, the new University periodical, The Collegian,
—which was founded nominally to create for the
students a field in which to learn how to write their native
tongue with correctness and elegance,—complained that,
in consequence of the fact that no provision was made in
the courses of instruction for either composition or elocution,
the graduates left the precincts with the wide
province of English literature unexplored, and as ignorant
of its history as when they were admitted. "There
is a dearth of literary taste among them," it asserted,
"and they are lamentably deficient in some of the very
important parts of a liberal education." That this flaw
went as far as grammar and orthography, was annually
brought out in the failure of so many of the members of
the senior classes to pass the English examination, to
which they had to submit before they were permitted to
offer for graduation in any of the regular schools. During
many years, apart from lectures in Anglo-Saxon,
rhetoric, and belles-lettres,—which were, of necessity,
contracted in their scope, because they were simply the
by-play of already overburdened chairs,—the only training
in English composition which the major number of
the students enjoyed was obtained from translations in
the Schools of Ancient and Modern Languages; but they
had no means whatever in these schools of acquiring information

of English literature, although every facility
was offered for perfecting their knowledge of the literatures
of Spain and Italy, Germany and France, as well
as of Greece and Rome.

VII. Schools of Mathematics and Philosophy

By the terms of the original enactments, no student
was to be admitted to the School of Mathematics who
was not "an adept in all the branches of numerical
arithmetic." The whole round of instruction was divided
into four classes. The first junior was occupied
with the theory of designating numbers, the scales of notation,
the derivation of the several arithmetical rules,
and the first problems of algebra, analyzed with and without
the use of letters to show the advantages of employing
letters. The second junior continued the study of
algebra, and began the study of geometry, and also of
general trigonometry in its broadest applications.
Spherical trigonometry was treated at length in its relations
to practical and nautical astronomy and the projection
and construction of maps. Then followed analytical
geometry and the first part of differential calculus.
The senior classes were engaged with the study of differential
and integral calculus. There was also an extensive
course in mixed mathematics.

In counting up the general subjects in which he gave
instruction, Bonnycastle, Key's successor, particularized
them as "(1) those simple elementary rules which do
not aim to cultivate the powers of reasoning independently
of numbers, but seek only to determine such numbers
as occur in domestic economy, and the various departments
of business; (2) those very general, extensive,
and exact rules, of the nature of logic, which have sufficed

to reduce three-fourths of the propositions of which
the human reason is conversant, to propositions either
of pure number, or that can be solved by means of pure
number; (3) those rules of mere calculation which are
required in such branches of practical mathematics as
surveying, navigation, and astronomy." It was the second
of these sections that was studied with the most
care in the University, because it bore so directly on general
education by the enlargement of view which it fostered,
and the more active exercise of intellect, and the
greater disposition to reason, which it encouraged.

It was altogether in harmony with Jefferson's practical
and liberal mind that scientific studies should, apart
from other good reasons, have been held in esteem by
him because of the special qualities which they called for
in their prosecution. Experimental investigation has
been correctly described as a course in applied logic. It
signifies accuracy in sense, perception, and calculation;
reveals the rigid relation of cause and effect; and reflects
an intellectual attitude that is free from the distracting
bias of prejudice, false pretension, and superstition.[7]
Jefferson's early environment in the remote country had
made him from youth a student of nature in all its
aspects; and this disposition, natural and acquired, had
been invigorated by his sojourn in France at a time when
experimental science was deeply interesting the inquiring
minds of that aroused nation. There were chairs dedicated
to the science in the Universities of Paris, Toulouse
and Montpelier. The establishment of the Republic
only served to stimulate the more its pursuit in every
department. The study of it on its mathematical and
physical sides had received an impetus in the English universities

from the marvellous researches of Newton; but
there was no course there in biology, and no employment
of the modern scientific methods, until after the middle of
the nineteenth century,—indeed, what is known in our
own day as scientific education sprang up in England outside
of the pale of her two greatest seats of learning, Oxford
and Cambridge.

From an early period, scientific studies had been popular
in all the influential American colleges. Astronomy
was taught at Harvard in 1642, and natural philosophy,
in 1690; and instruction was also given there in chemistry,
in 1760, and in botany about the same time. King's
College and the University of Pennsylvania, being purely
secular in their organization, were disposed to encourage
such studies with uncommon ardour. By 1756, the latter
had established courses in applied mechanics, astronomy,
natural history, chemistry, and agriculture. Chemistry
formed a valuable part of the system at the College of
William and Mary, in 1779; and there was a separate professorship
for it at Princeton in 1795; at Yale, in 1802;
at the College of South Carolina, in 1811; and at Williams
College, in 1821. We thus see that, by the day
lectures began in the University of Virginia, the study of
the sciences had made respectable progress in all the
American institutions of the highest grade, chiefly because
there was a special need for such studies in a new
country in the first stages of rapid development from the
original state of nature.

The elective system, which has always prevailed at
the University of Virginia, was more vigorously promotive
of scientific courses than the curriculum of the older
colleges. The popularity of such courses has arisen, in
no small measure, from their direct bearing on vocational
life. It is not their disciplinary influence upon the mind

which gives them their principal value, but rather the
practical information which they impart; and it is this
sort of information which has always seemed the most
desirable in the opinion of the average American. The
ascendency of the scientific studies dates, in the United
States at least, from the spread of the elective system,—
which the University of Virginia was the first to adopt
as a system appropriate to every subject in the round of
its instruction.

The School of Natural Philosophy was only open to
those students who had passed a successful examination
in numerical arithmetic. During Key's occupancy of the
chair of mathematics, Bonnycastle delivered lectures on
the relations of mathematical science to natural philosophy,
but after Key's resignation, Patterson, the new professor,
—Bonnycastle having been transferred to Key's
vacant place,—was restricted to pure physics. Upon
him also devolved the duty of showing the application of
physical science to the arts, which was justly considered
of the first importance in a country endowed with so
many natural sources of wealth, requiring a scientific
education for their utilization. In 1828, the small oval
room situated on the first floor of the Rotunda was reserved
for the reception of the philosophical apparatus.
The proper manner of safeguarding these invaluable articles
was a perplexing one from the start,—when they
fell into bad shape, they had either to be sent to Philadelphia
or New York for restoration, or skilful workmen
from those cities had to be brought on for that purpose
to the University, both of which courses of action inevitably
caused delay and expense. It was proposed, in
1826, that "two intelligent and willing lads" should be
trained to handle these instruments and repair the damage
sure to result from wear and tear. These lads too

were to be employed, instead of the janitor, to assist the
professor with his experiments in the lecture-room. Apparently,
this suggestion was not carried into practice,
since no further reference to the plan is recorded. The
course of instruction in this school was divided into two
sections: the first embraced statics, dynamics, hydrostatics,
hydro-dynamics, pneumatics, crystallization,
molecular and capillary attraction, strength and stress
of materials, and acoustics; the second, heat, electricity,
galvanism, magnetism, electric magnetism, optics, and
astronomy. The lectures in both sections were illustrated
and enforced by experiments. During the session
of 1839–40, the sciences of geology and mineralogy
were transferred to this school. It was the relation of
geology to our own country which received the foremost
consideration; and only those branches of mineralogy
were taught which had an economical value, or which
merged in geology.

The interest in natural history felt by all the American
colleges had grown so keen by 1817, that it swelled to
the volume of an academic craze. The collections of
plants and minerals in their possession were already remarkable
for size and value. As early as 1825, the
University of Virginia had become the recipient of some
of the fruits of this mania as exhibited by private individuals:
Dr. Boswell, of Gloucester county, during that
year, donated to it two large boxes of minerals which he
had obtained in Germany; and Jefferson, by his last will,
followed up this gift with his own museum of curiosities.
In the beginning, the professor of natural history was
charged with the tuition in chemistry, botany, zoology,
mineralogy, geology, and rural economy. To him was
also assigned the creation of the botanical garden to
which Jefferson gave so much inquiring thought during

the last months of his life; he had gone so far, indeed,
as to instruct Emmet to lay off its various lines; and the
proctor had been directed to supply the hired laborers
who were to prepare the beds for the numerous plants.
Every plant was to be of a useful, and not an ornamental,
character. The area selected for the garden was irregular
in surface and strewn with the débris of the brickkilns.
A hill had to be terraced, and the grounds along
a branch underdrained.

Emmet seems to have looked upon the project with impatience,
although, it will be recalled, he was so soon to
experiment at Morea, his home, with so much ardour, in
the same province. In October, 1826,—Jefferson having
passed away,—he asserted that the requirements of
his chair were so laborious and so exclusive that he would
be unable to give the garden the protracted and discriminating
attention which was imperative; and moreover, he
acknowledged that botany and rural economy were
sciences with which he was only "superficially acquainted";
that they demanded a "thorough practical
knowledge"; and that this could only be gathered up at
the expense of his other duties. At his request, the
Board of Visitors relieved him of the task of establishing
the garden. They were either convinced that the
School of Natural History contained too many subjects
for instruction by one man, or they perceived that some of
these subjects, being unpopular with the students, could
be safely dropped from the course, for, at their meeting
in July, 1827, they confined Emmet, for the present at
least, to chemistry, materia medica, and pharmacy, and
directed that the school thereafter should be known as
the School of Chemistry and Materia Medica. If any
instruction in any branch of natural history was given
by him before 1836, it was suspended, after that date,

as inconsistent with the proper discharge of his obligation
to his leading topics. The same obstruction discouraged
the transfer of the main divisions of this science to
any other of the chairs; but, as we have seen, geology and
mineralogy became, in 1839–40, a part of the course in
natural philosophy. The Board of Visitors, however,
were fully aware of the need of the original school to
complete the required round of the academical department;
"but its introduction," they declared, "cannot be
advantageously effected without the establishment of a
separate professorship, accompanied by its appropriate
attributes,—a botanical garden and a museum of mineral
and geological collections. ... The Visitors are prevented
from carrying out these views by the want of sufficient
funds and by the existence of debts acquired for
more useful purposes."

In the beginning, the School of Moral Philosophy embraced
the subjects of ethics and metaphysics; but, in
1826, political economy was added to the chair; and in
1830, rhetoric and belles-lettres, which had previously
been taught in the School of Ancient Languages. During
the first half of the session, the junior class received
instruction in rhetoric, belles-lettres, and logic, and the
senior in mental philosophy; during the last half, the
junior class was occupied with belles-lettres and ethics,
and the senior with political economy. There were also
lessons in English composition; but they reached too
small a number to be of benefit to the entire body of the
students.

VIII. School of Law

It would seem that, at first, the School of Law, like the
School of Medicine, in the University of Virginia, was

designed to open up to its students the means of obtaining
the broadest education rather than mere professional
knowledge for practical use in earning a livelihood. We
have seen how keenly interested, if not fanatical, Jefferson
was in prescribing the text-books to be taught on the
political side of that school. In 1829, a conviction
sprang up that the chair of law should be reorganized
in order to meet more fully the needs of such young men
as intended to become active members of the bar. The
imputation had been cast upon it, that, whilst other prominent
colleges embraced all the subjects of professional
jurisprudence in the studies of one session, the courses
of the school at the University of Virginia were so extensive
that properly two sessions should be consumed in
mastering them. This was a stumbling block to the student
who was compelled, by a narrow income, to confine
his preparation to one session. In order to remove
it, the course of the first session was made an epitome
of all the important branches of municipal law. This put
the student of the University school who wished to hasten,
or whose income was small, on the footing of the
students of the schools in other States. Should he decide
to remain during a second session, he would have the principles
learnt by him during the first more profoundly
analyzed and more voluminously diversified in their application.

Lomax was not, by his previous training, in sympathy
with the spirit which made this alteration unavoidable;
but he candidly acknowledged to Cabell that he had hardly
entered upon his duties when he perceived that it was
beyond the Visitors' power to force down the throats of
his pupils a system of legal instruction that was distasteful
to them. "The day has gone by," he wrote in 1830,
"when any person was ashamed to appear at the bar

under a period of less than three years' study. The
necessities of some, and the impatience of others, urge
most modern students into their profession after one
year's study, or at most, two years'. They are eager that
the period shall be devoted to such instruction as may
practically fit them for their profession. Their demand
for the law is as for a trade,—the means, the most expeditious
and convenient, for their future livelihood. I
found myself irresistibly compelled to labor for the satisfaction
of this demand, or that the University would
have no students of law. ... I have selected what, after
much deliberation, I deemed the most approved and
suitable English text-books."

This list consisted of (1) Blackstone's Commentaries;
(2) Cruise's Law of Real Property; (3) Selwyn's Abstract
of the Law of Nisi Primus, and (4) Muddock's
Chancery.

In the lectures which Lomax delivered on the principles
set forth in these volumes, he cited, as supplementary to
the text, numerous dicta found in the appellate reports,
not only of Virginia, but also of all the other States of
the Union. As a complement to this professional course,
which formed the normal work of the school, he recommended
to the Faculty the adoption of what he designated
as an "academic course of law." This should
treat of American jurisprudence in its broadest scope.
With this new branch added, he was convinced that the
facilities for legal education at the University would be
unsurpassed. The Faculty, in their turn, recommended
it to the Board of Visitors.

There were, at this time, several causes for discouragement
which tended to reduce the number of pupils in the
School of Law. First, the regulation that subjected the
students of every school indiscriminately to public examinations,

and then, as a supposed reward for tested efficiency,
required that the names of the successful should
be published in the newspapers. Lomax declared that
the young men under him had, as a rule, arrived at that
period of life when they disdained the prizes which
these examinations held out to boyish emulation; but
above all, they deprecated the effect upon their own standing
at the bar,—which they would so soon join,—of a
failure to obtain these prizes, however much they might,
in reality, contemn them. Secondly, the uniform was
offensive to older students such as made up the membership
of his classes. Many of them had entered the University
only for a single year, and their expenses were
sensibly increased by the necessity of purchasing new
suits of clothing for use only during a few months.
Thirdly, it was revolting to his pupils' self-respect that
they should be expected to submit to the patron's financial
guidance at an age when, in the eyes of the law, they
were mature enough to manage their own affairs, and
dispose of their own money. "Invested with this competence
by law and sustained by the consciousness of his
own powers," he asserted, "the student at that period
of life when unnecessary restraint is particularly irksome,
was required to live within the precincts, and living there,
was denied all discretion in his minutest pecuniary concerns;
was compelled to put his purse in the hands of the
proctor, and to pay him for keeping it out of its unfortunate
owner's reach." Lomax counseled that every pupil
in the School of Law above a specified age should be permitted
to reside in an approved boarding-house situated
beyond the precincts; and that he should also be relieved
from all pertinency to himself of the regulation so justly
excepted to. This wise recommendation was adopted by
the Board, with the result that the worst grounds of
complaint were done away with for all those students of
law who were willing to vacate their dormitories.

Whilst Lomax was as inflexible as his successor, Davis,
in advocating a strict interpretation of the Constitution,
—a conviction held by him as a disciple of Jefferson and
Madison,—nevertheless he did not give as much time as
Davis did to the exposition of that part of his course
which embraced those principles of government that were
of such keen and fundamental interest to his great exemplars.
In the junior course as taught by Davis, after
Lomax's resignation, there were comprised numerous subjects
which were, not only necessary to be studied for
practice at the bar, but, owing to their universal significance,
were also of the highest value as the solid ingredients
of a liberal education,—such subjects were the
law of nature and nations, the science of government,
constitutional law, the history of the common law, and
the elementary principles of criminal and municipal law.
The text-books of this class were Vattel, the Federalist,
Resolutions of 1798–99, Blackstone's Commentaries, and
a treatise by Davis himself. The attention of the senior
class was concentrated upon the theory and practice of
law as a profession, as illustrated in different works on
common and statute law, equity, maritime, and commercial
law. In 1833, there was organized a law society,
the members of which, at first, assembled, at regular intervals,
in the basement of pavilion VII, but afterwards
in one of the lecture-rooms of the Rotunda.

IX. School of Medicine and Anatomy

When the medical school at the University of Virginia
opened its doors, there were already to be found in other
parts of the United States the like schools, which during

many years, had been in the enjoyment of a large and
lucrative patronage. The most popular of these were
situated in Boston, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore,—cities standing north of the Potomac,
and, therefore, for Southern young men so far away as to
entail both expense and discomfort in reaching them.
Many Southerners of fortune, desirous of a medical education,
turned their footsteps towards London and Edinburgh;
but the greater number sought the offices of local
surgeons of repute, who gave their lessons in the intervals
when they were not riding about the country or town
in order to visit their patients,—a provincial system that
had its exact counterpart in the training which so many
callow lawyers of the South were receiving during the
same period.

Jefferson, in forecasting a medical school for his projected
institution, certainly took into account the loss and
the inconvenience which the Southern communities had
so long suffered from the absence of such a school. The
need of it, indeed, was too patent to be blinked. But
when the chair at the University was established, no
measure was adopted by him to convert it at once into
a practical one; its chief aim, at first, was not to give
a professional education, but simply instruction in a
branch of liberal culture which every accomplished gentleman
was presumed to have studied. He held this view
solely because he was under the impression that, in the
absence of all clinical facilities, the lessons of the new
school must be confined to mere theory. Charlottesville
was a small village; the contiguous region was rather
sparsely inhabited; and the jolting conveyances of that
day shut off invalids who might have come from a distance.
There was no material to justify the erection of
a hospital, and without a hospital, how was it possible to

qualify students for active practice after leaving the University?
At one time, Jefferson seems to have thought
that this obstacle could be got over by transferring the
school, not to Richmond, but to Norfolk, where he expected
that the promiscuous and vagabond population
of a seaport would furnish a plenitude of anatomical
subjects for dissection, an extraordinary number and
variety of diseases for observation, and many accidents
for surgical operations. He was compelled to acknowledge
that, until such clinical facilities could be created,
those of his medical students who wished to practice must
seek the finishing touch in institutions situated in other
parts of the country. It was his recognition of this grave
handicap which prompted him to block the perfectly
legitimate plan of the College of William and Mary to
re-establish itself in Richmond, and to associate there with
its existing departments an additional department in practical
medicine. Jefferson anticipated that this combination
would be the ruin of his own school, or at least
would so throw that school into the shade as to bring
it into public discredit; which, in its turn, would lower
the prestige of the entire University. It is disputable
whether this would have followed; but Jefferson was
honestly apprehensive of it.

In the beginning, the course of study embraced the subjects
of anatomy, surgery, the history of the progress and
theories of medicine, physiology, pathology, materia
medica, and pharmacy. Ostensibly, there was but one
teacher in charge of the school, but in reality, there were
two, for Emmet, as the professor of natural history, gave
instruction in the medical subjects of chemistry, botany,
and comparative anatomy, while Dunglison lectured to
the classes in anatomy and medicine.

After Jefferson's death, there was a natural disposition

on the part of those in charge of the medical school
to advertise its unique course of theoretical tuition as offering
certain advantages that counterbalanced its practical
deficiencies. It was pointed out, for instance, that,
in all other colleges, the medical instruction did not extend
beyond a term of six months at most, while, in the
University of Virginia, it was spread out over nine at
least. Furthermore, in the sister colleges, the medical
professors were permitted to go on with their practice;
in the University, on the other hand, this distracting privilege
was denied them beyond its precincts, unless they
were simply called into consultation. The only object of
this exception seems to have been to give the instructors
of the school a wider opportunity to become familiar
with the characteristic diseases of the climate and
country.[8]

The Board of Visitors had soon perceived the benefit
that would follow from the establishment of a separate
chair of anatomy and surgery; and they were only prevented
from making this addition at once by the necessity
of paying the University's debt, now that the General
Assembly had positively refused to assume it. As
the most practical step, they determined to shift some
of the studies of Dunglison's school to the shoulders of
Emmet, who, with that purpose in view, was relieved of
a large part of the course in natural history, as we have
already stated; but this was not done until July 19,
1827, when materia medica and pharmacy were taken
from Dunglison and assigned to him. One motive for
this important change comes to light in a conversation
which took place between Cabell and Dr. Chapman, of

Philadelphia, early in the spring of that year. It seems
that Dr. Chapman had, on this occasion, intimated that,
if the University of Virginia would appoint a second professor
in its medical school, the University of Pennsylvania
might be willing to accept a course of medical lectures
there as equivalent, for graduation, to one course in her
own lecture-halls. Cabell, on his return to Virginia,
found that both Emmet and Dunglison warmly approved
of this tentative proposal, and he, therefore, wrote to
Dr. Chapman to obtain the formal sanction of the University
of Pennsylvania. "I would willingly call home
and educate here all our medical students," he said in this
letter. "In a long time to come, however, every such
effort would be abortive, and the wiser course seems to
be to cooperate with institutions already organized in
other States, and possessing the peculiar advantages of
large cities and extensive hospitals. The practical result
of the change now contemplated in our medical
school will be to draw to it, in the first instance, some
of the more wealthy medical students of Virginia, and
to send them on much better prepared than they are generally
at present. As our society advances and our population
augments, we may gradually become more and
more independent of foreign assistance."

It would seem that the University of Pennsylvania did
not sanction Dr. Chapman's proposition until June, 1829;
but that institution had no reason afterwards to regret
this liberal policy. "I was told some time ago by a
medical student of Philadelphia," R. Y. Conrad wrote to
Dr. Magill, "that the medical school of your University
(University of Virginia) stands there in high estimation,
and that the students of one year from your University
school almost invariably graduate in Philadelphia

the second year at the head of their classes, being much
better prepared in the science than if they had attended
the first year at Philadelphia."

In July, 1827, a demonstrator of anatomy and surgery
was appointed with the understanding that his duties
were to be defined by the professor of medicine. The
new instructor was required to teach what was technically
entitled particular anatomy, in contradistinction to
general anatomy, and also operative surgery as distinguished
from surgical pathology. Upon him also fell the
task of forming an anatomical museum in illustration of
the courses in physiological and pathological anatomy.
The departments of the medical school stood now as
follows: (1) professorship of medicine, which comprised
all the courses in the history of the progress and theories
of medicine, physiology, pathology, obstetrics, and medical
jurisprudence; (2) professorship of chemistry, materia
medica, and pharmacy; and (3) the recently erected
demonstratorship of anatomy and surgery. The only
two branches of study that had been added to those previously
taught were obstetrics and medical jurisprudence.

In 1830, Dr. Johnson, the demonstrator, was asked by
some of his own students, backed by citizens of Charlottesville,
to deliver a series of lectures on the subject
of dentistry, a department of surgery which was then ordinarily
abandoned to ignorant itinerants. There were
several of his pupils who had made up their minds to follow
the practice of this science as a vocation in life; but
Johnson refused to bring it into his existing round of
studies unless a class of at least ten could be formed,
and apparently that number failed to offer.

At first, the demonstrator did not enjoy the privilege
of a seat at the Faculty table; but within a few years after
his original appointment, he was admitted to its deliberations,

with the right to cast a vote on a footing of
equality with his associates. One of the difficulties confronting
him, in these early times, was the procurement
of cadavers for expository dissection. Those picked up
were generally the corpses of negro slaves, and in many
instances had been snatched away by students under the
blanket of darkness; but some of the subjects were white,
and had been brought from a distance; in November,
1831, permission was granted to six medical students to
go as far as Prince George county on what was described
as an "anatomical expedition." An excursion of this
kind to the cemeteries around the University always
bristled with serious risks. A student taking part in
one, in 1831, was shot while in the act of raising a body
from the grave. The members of the demonstrator's
class very frequently joined in contracting for shares in
a cadaver, which, in 1833, at least, does not appear to
have been expensive, for we find, in that year, five students
subscribing only three dollars and a half a-piece
for an equal proportion in such a subject. At this time,
there was a small brick building standing in the little
ravine situated just below the anatomical theatre, which
was used as a boiling house for the dissipation of the remnants
of the dissecting table. In 1832, the demonstratorship
was merged in the chair of anatomy and surgery,
a new department. Physiology was transferred to
this professorship two years later.

As the number of students in the medical school did not
increase, the popular impression spread that this lack
of success was due to the provincial remoteness of the
University. In 1834, Dr. Magill, in a letter to Cabell,
after voicing this conviction in incisive language, boldly
asked whether the Board of Visitors would consent to
the school's removal to Richmond, where it would be in

possession of every clinical facility enjoyed by its Northern
rivals. It was nearly impossible, he said, to impart
at Charlottesville knowledge of practical anatomy, in
spite of the fact that the class was still so small that each
member could be personally reached,—(1) the procurement
of cadavers at all was so costly at best that the
expense thrown upon the medical student, in consequence,
was fast mounting; and the supply came to an end altogether
when a long spell of wet or harsh weather set in;
(2) the absence of a hospital shut the medical students
off from the illustrations of different maladies, and prevented
the acquisition of practical skill in the use of the
surgeon's knife. "No amount of closet study, no book
learning," exclaimed Dr. Magill, "can qualify a man to
contend with disease." The room for practice at the
University, he added, was too narrow to afford either
profit or improvement to its medical professors. Without
opportunities of treating cases belonging to their respective
branches, neither the surgeon nor the physician
could become an entirely satisfactory expositor. Richmond
possessed a large hospital and also a poor-house,
and as a medical school would soon be founded there, the
corresponding department in the University was certain
to be damaged, even if it should not be totally destroyed.

Dr. Warner, a colleague of Dr. Magill, fully concurred
in these views; but apparently, Dr. Emmet was
averse to the proposed change of location.

About three years afterwards, Dr. Warner again advised
that the medical school should be uprooted and
transplanted to Richmond. He condemned its present
working for two reasons: first, each professor was expected
to lecture upon more courses that he could teach
with thoroughness; and secondly, the demonstrator was
too much pressed for time to be able to improve the

means of dissection. He urged that the school should
be divided into four courses: (1) anatomy and surgery;
(2) medicine, embracing the theories and classifications
of diseases; (3) physiology, pathological anatomy, and
medical jurisprudence; (4) chemistry, materia medica,
therapeutics, and pharmacy. Dr. Griffith emphasized
the need of anatomical and clinical facilities on the
ground. The first could be secured by the appointment
of an agent in Richmond who could forward weekly by
wagon four or five cadavers. But he thought that it was
not practical to erect a hospital. In 1825, a dispensary
had been established as an adjunct to the Anatomical
Hall. The single professor of the school, at that time,
lingered half an hour after lecture, on alternate days, to
give medical and surgical assistance to the indigent
without charge, and at the rate of fifty cents a person
for all patients who were able to pay it. The medical
students were required to attend and assist in diagnosis
and ministration. The money accumulated from fees
was expended in the purchase of the necessary supply of
drugs. This dispensary was of such small dimensions,
and was so devoid of clinical advantages, that the professors
of the medical school refused to look upon it as
even a moderate substitute for a hospital.

So acute was the alarm caused about 1837 by the rumor
of an independent school of medicine to be set up in
Richmond that the Board of Visitors were impelled to
take steps to allay it by improving the medical course at
the University. As the institution was not in possession
of sufficient means to build a hospital, even if it could be
supported by the limited patronage which it would receive
at so distant a point, it occurred to them that something
in its stead could be effected by adding another professorship.
And this, perhaps, would have been done, had

not Dr. Dunglison, who was now living in Philadelphia,
when consulted, expressed hostility to the proposition
on the ground that a fourth chair would not increase the
facilities for dissection and hospital service,—the only
deficiencies against which there was a just cause for complaint.
He was inclined to deprecate any alteration in
the system as adopted in the beginning. "One of the
great advantages of the University of Virginia as a medical
school for a first year," he said, "is that the student
is not overburdened with lectures, and has plenty of time
to study the various subjects. This recommendation of
the school I frequently hear." He, therefore, very emphatically
advised that supplementary subjects should be
taught without calling in the assistance of a fourth professor;
and this counsel seems to have impressed the Board
of Visitors favorably, for, during the ensuing session, the
requirements for the existing school became more extensive
and more elaborate. Dr. Emmet lectured to two
classes on chemistry and materia medica, and twice a
week he demonstrated the practical application of chemistry
to pharmacy and medicine. Dr. Griffith gave instruction
on the subject of medicine. His courses also
were divided into two classes: (1) theory and practice of
medicine and obstetrics, and (2) medical jurisprudence.
Dr. Cabell filled the chair of anatomy, physiology, and
surgery. His instruction was made more lucid by the
use of splendid colored plates which had been procured
from Paris.

The depression prevailing in 1836 and 1837 over the
prospects of the medical school, in competition with the
projected school at Richmond, had, by the session of
1839–40 passed away; the cheerful attitude of an earlier
date had returned; and there was now a spirit rather of
boastfulness than of dejection. The following were the

points of special merit which were now claimed for its departments:
first, the session was the same in length as
that of the academic schools; namely, ten months instead
of six at the most, which made up the session of the
Northern medical colleges. This prolongation, it was
said, put the student in possession of "unusual facilities
for gradually acquiring, and thereby digesting the information
conveyed to him by oral instruction, without that
confusion of thought and fatigue of mind which are inevitable,
when, as always happens in city schools, he
has to encounter daily six or seven lectures delivered in
rapid succession." Secondly, before each lecture, the
medical student at the University was required to answer
questions bearing on the subject of the previous lecture,
or portions of text-books that had been given out to be
mastered. The professor's explanatory comment supplied
each of his hearers "with the most valuable means
of fixing in his mind correct information, while it had the
incidental advantage of familiarizing him with the mode
of trial to which he would be subjected in his first examination
for graduation." Thirdly, the length of the session
gave the student ample time within which to cover
the elementary branches of medical science before he
was called upon to listen to discourses on the advanced
branches. Fourthly, any student of approved character
was permitted to offer himself as a candidate for graduation,
and to receive the doctor's degree, without refererence
to the period which he had devoted to the study of
medicine, provided that he had passed his examinations
satisfactorily. Fifthly, there were open to him the anatomical
and pathological museum, the infirmary,—which
was expected very soon to create opportunities for clinical
instruction—and the library. Sixthly, he had to
pay only a small fee in the class of practical anatomy;
and seventhly, the expense of living at the University
was moderate, its site, healthy, and its climate, salubrious,
whilst its remoteness from cities, and even large towns,
removed all temptation from the student to grow indolent,
or to fall into a bog of dissipation and self-indulgence.

X. Military Exercises

Jefferson, as President, was not disposed to increase
the strength of the military arm of the Government,—
indeed, his natural bent was to whittle it down to a point
which would leave only the narrowest margin of national
safety. Suspicion of military encroachment was, in those
times, as constantly flaming up in Republican minds as
suspicion of centralizing intrigue,—perhaps because they
were presumed to be in sympathetic collusion. Jefferson,
as we know, had no toleration for anything that
winked at either the form or the spirit of royalty; but
he so far curbed his aversion for swords and muskets
as to think that a military training of some sort could be
made serviceable to the individual and the State alike.
He was not so sure of the supremacy of the civil power
in all emergencies that he could blind himself to the possibility
that the day might come when the only protection
for that power would be the skill which every ablebodied
citizen had acquired in the use of military weapons.
He gave, in the Rockfish Gap Report, the fullest expression
of his matured convictions on the subject of education
in all its various departments; and in the light of
his naturally pacific tendencies, it is worthy of particular
notice that, in this epochal document, he recommended
that the students in the projected university should, in
their hours of recreation, be required to spend some of
their time in obtaining a practical knowledge of manual

exercises, military manoeuvres, and tactics in general. It
was his opinion that such training should be imparted at
an early period of life,—for this was the period of aptness,
docility, and emulation, when lessons of that nature
were, not only the most quickly learned, but also the
longest remembered.

In October, 1824, the Board gave the Faculty the
authority to appoint a military instructor, who, from half
past one to half past three, on every Saturday, should be
required to drill the entire corps of students. The course
which he was to cover was to embrace field evolutions,
manoeuvres and encampments. He was to follow the
strictest military rules in his command,—the roll was to
be regularly called, and every absentee, and every other
delinquent besides, was to be reported to the Faculty, who
were to inflict such punishment as their judgment approved.
The guns to be used were to be numbered by
him; and he was also to distribute them, receive them back,
and carefully preserve them from damage. They were
really to be wooden dummies, with iron locks, half barrels
of tin, and wooden ramrods. As the students, during
the first year, did not exceed one hundred and twenty-three,
only one company was organized at the start, under
the provision of this ordinance. William Matthews, a
resident of Everettsville, in Albemarle county, but formerly
a cadet in the Military Academy at West Point,
was chosen to fill the position of military instructor.

In April, 1826, the original rule that every student
should take part in the drill was modified,—only those
who were willing to volunteer should be enrolled. In
order to ensure a sheltered spot for the company while
training, one of the gymnasia joined as wings to the Rotunda
was reserved for that purpose. This space would
seem to have been too contracted for actual manoeuvres,

except by very small single squads; and it was probably
used chiefly as a lecture-room. Matthews was to be
liable for any damage to it which might occur during the
hours of drill. The instruction was continued throughout
the summer of 1826, for the limits of the session had
not yet been altered. There were serious difficulties
to be overcome in giving it. Fifty-five to sixty students
participated in the exercises, but in Matthews's opinion,
it was impossible to train them properly without real
guns. That these had not been procured was not to be
imputed to him; he had written to Jefferson a few weeks
before the latter's death calling his attention to the pressing
need of muskets to replace the dummy weapons; but
Jefferson had replied that the funds were too low to permit
of a purchase, and that he disapproved of an application
to the State armory for a supply. Matthews, not
to be discouraged, begged Cocke to solicit of the Governor
the number of muskets wanted. "I wish to have
the arms as soon as possible," he said, "as my engagement
with the University will expire shortly, and it is
my wish to instruct the attending classes in manual exercises."
He suggested that the guns should be spiked
before they were withdrawn from their present place of
deposit, as this would prevent their being afterwards
turned to dangerous uses.

Matthews's term came to an end on September I,
and he petitioned the Faculty for reappointment. In a
letter which he wrote to the Board of Visitors in the
course of the same month, he advised that the system of
tactics then employed in the American Army should be
adopted; and that every student in the University,
whether he volunteered or not, should be compelled to
enter his name in the roll. In addition, he recommended
that, when this enlistment had been completed, the whole

number should be divided into four squads, and that
each squad should be required to attend sixty minutes, at
least, every week, to learn the theory of the military
art; and he also suggested that the reveille should be
sounded at sunrise,—a very politic proposal, as such a
rule would foster a disposition to rise early, which the
Faculty was already endeavoring to enforce. Matthews
seemed to think that the call of the roll, at this unwholesome
hour, would be a "preventive to habits of idleness,
dissipation, and improper conduct." There was no intention,
however, of discontinuing the drill on Saturday
afternoon. It was his ambition to obtain the Board's
permission to found a School of Military Art comparable
with the other schools already established in the University,
—a plan which the Faculty seems to have received
at first with favor; but they declined to convert his
existing course of instruction into a permanent school until
the Board should have determined the amount of his
emolument. In the meanwhile, he had procured the endorsement
of the Superintendent of the West Point Military
Academy.

Towards the end of December (1826), Matthews
wrote to Madison, the new rector, to express regret that
the Board should be so dilatory in coming to a decision
upon the proposition of establishing a permanent military
school, although, in anticipation of it, the Faculty,
he said, had permitted him to continue his previous course
of training. He solicited Madison's approval of his
plans; and he again dwelt upon the necessity of procuring
one hundred and fifty muskets and carbines from the
State. These, when not in actual use, might remain in
the proctor's custody. He announced his willingness to
assume the responsibility of cleansing and repairing the
guns. It was his opinion that a School of Military Art

would be influential in protracting the stay at the University
of many students, who would not, with the present
schools only, tarry longer than one year, or a couple of
years at most.

Madison was of a more pacific cast than Jefferson, and
no project to teach military science on an imposing scale
commended itself to his approval. Writing to Cocke
several weeks after the receipt of Matthews's practical
letter, when he had had ample time to consider the proposed
school in all its bearings, he calmly questioned the
utility of military training in general. "Certainly for
physical purposes," he said, "the gymnasium is incomparably
superior. It would be well if the two branches
of instruction could be united in a competent individual."
But as Cocke had served with distinction in the last war,
and was, he knew, in sympathy with a reasonable plan for
military training, Madison did not venture to condemn the
proposal further; on the contrary, he closed his letter by
recommending its adoption, and suggested that a pavilion
should be reserved for the instructor's use, apparently
both as a home and a lecture-room.

Madison and Cocke, in their public capacity as the executive
committee, seem to have been willing to consent
to the erection of the School of Military Art, should the
Faculty's approval be first obtained. A formal school
on a footing with the others was, however, never established;
nor did the future course of instruction take a
broader scope, or assume a status of greater dignity.
This is explained by the fact that the Faculty, on receiving
the committee's communication, although formerly
more favorable, were now satisfied with simply renewing
the limited privileges which Matthews had enjoyed during
the preceding session. The suggestion that all the
students should be required to drill was again rejected;

only those who volunteered were to be enrolled for the
military exercises; and these exercises were not to begin
until the first of April, and were to go on then for only
one hour in the early morning of every Tuesday, Thursday,
and Saturday. Arms were to be obtained from the
State. All these different prescriptions were carried out.
Matthews continued to reside within the precincts, and
was allowed the use of the library on the footing, not,
it is to be noted, of a professor, but of a student. He
was still an instructor during the session of 1827–28.
The company, at this time, was commanded by Captain
John Preston, and among the officers were Philip St.
George Cocke, a son of General Cocke, and afterwards
a graduate of West Point and a General in the Confederate
Army, William Daniel, a famous judge of a later
period, and Patrick Henry Aylett, a descendant of the
orator. No weapons were given out to the squads until
they were on the point of entering the drill; but the officers
were permitted to carry their muskets to their dormitories
for practice.

Matthews had much ground for dejection. "On account
of the uncertainty of my success here," he wrote
Cocke, in July, 1828, "I have thought it would be advisable
for me to abandon the military school unless the
Visitors could assure me a school of one hundred students
at five dollars each. ... The number of students diminishing
yearly is but a poor encouragement for any one. I
am disposed to continue here two or three sessions if I
can do it on better terms than heretofore. I wish to study
natural philosophy, engineering, and the higher branches
of mathematics. If I do not remain here, it is my intention
to make an effort to get attached to the Topographical
Corps of Engineers."

Matthews withdrew from the University before October,

1830, for, during that month, the students assembled
in one of the rooms of the Rotunda, and decided to form
a company, to be instructed by Mr. Ferron, the French
fencing-master, who had probably received a military
training in his native country. The Faculty gave their
consent; but when the students returned at the beginning
of the following session, and reorganized the corps, Captain
John Carr, the proctor, was appointed by the Faculty
to the position of military instructor, and arms were asked
of the State. Carr's relation to the corps appears to have
been altogether nominal,—he was simply its honorary
colonel. He admitted that he had little power to control
its movements, and whatever power he did possess, he
never attempted to exercise. After Matthews's departure,
the military instructions seem to have been confined
to a weekly drill carried out by youthful officers, who, in
some instances, had only the impoverished military knowledge
of self-taught amateurs. The company had now
really sunk to the position of a body that had been organized
chiefly for the amusement of its members; there
was no room open to them for acquiring information
about military science in its larger aspects; but there were
numerous opportunities for showing a lively partizanship
in the election of the officers. The occasion of such an
election was always accompanied by tumult and dissipation.

On November 12, 1831, one hundred muskets were
received, in correspondence with the number of men enrolled.
The company, from the time it was furnished
with firearms, was a noisy participant in the various
patriotic celebrations which enlivened each year, the foremost
of which occurred on July 4, February 22, and April
13. On February 22, 1832, the captain obtained permission
for his corps to parade on the Lawn and deliver

several rounds of feu de joie, and afterwards, to march
to Charlottesville to serve as an escort for Alexander
Rives, who was to deliver an oration in the Episcopal
Church. A salvo was fired at the conclusion of the
speech, and the company then returned in the same formal
order to the University. Criticism of the organization
increased in emphasis, as its more or less frivolous conduct,
in the absence of a trained instructor, became more
manifest. First, the expensiveness of the membership
was censured,—the epaulets of the officers, it was said,
cost eight dollars; and their smallest outlay, during a
single year, amounted to sixteen dollars. But a second
objection rested upon a more reasonable ground than
this,—not only were the fusillades on the Lawn disturbing
to the peace of the precincts, but a bullet or two had
been known to be fired; and the natural alarm which this
had caused, was further aggravated by the rebellious
spirit, which, in those times, so frequently burst out like
a flame among the students. The rollicking entertainments
periodically given by the company encouraged the
taste for drinking already prevailing in the University,
while the ambitious blare of the young soldiers' wind instruments
was so crude and inexpert as to irritate the sensitive
nerves of the professors, and seriously distract the
attention of the young men engaged with their studies in
dormitory or lecture-room. The captain claimed no
power to control his men except during the drill,—so soon
as the corps stopped to rest his authority ceased, and the
youthful volunteers were free to indulge in any form of
pleasantry, however annoying to others, which their impish
wits might suggest.

The ordinance requiring a military teacher for the
University still remained unrepealed, and in December,
1832, the company asked permission to appoint their own

captain, Thomas L. Preston, to this responsible post.
The Faculty admitted their inability to secure, at this time,
an instructor of a higher competence than an intelligent
student, and as Preston was a young man of uncommon
force and distinction of character, and some experience
of military discipline, they finally assented to his selection.
The arms which had been loaned by the State
were delivered to him on condition, (1) that they were
to be surrendered whenever the Faculty demanded it;
(2) that they were only to be used in the military exercises;
(3) that no ordinances were to be violated during
the drill; and (4) that no firing was to take place
within the precincts. As the company had been assigned
a parade ground of its own, the fusillades were to be
restricted to that area.

By July, 1833, the corps had become so disorderly in its
general conduct that an irritated public feeling demanded
its disbandment. When an application for its reorganization
was made the ensuing October, Dr. Emmet urged
that a positive refusal should be returned; but it was
again permitted to form,—with definite restrictions, however,
upon its independence of action. A sentiment was
now springing up in favor of putting in practice again
the original enactment that authorized expert military
instruction in the University. Captain Partridge, of Vermont,
a thoroughly competent officer, was, in response to
this sentiment, employed to give such instruction; but,
unfortunately, on the same limited and hampered footing
as the one which Matthews had occupied,—that is to
say, his pupils must be volunteers, and he must look to
them alone for his remuneration, a slim reliance which
foreshadowed the early ending of the course of lectures
on military subjects which he agreed to deliver. His
connection with the University apparently continued only

through a single term, for at the beginning of the following
session (1835), Penci, the fencing master, asked
permission to organize a military company, which he
offered to drill; and the Faculty consented on condition
that he should give his services gratuitously, and conform
strictly to the ordinances. This arrangement was perhaps
unsatisfactory, for his instruction was discontinued
at the end of the session. In October, 1836, the corps
was reorganized, and it was this body that was guilty of
the most indefensible outrage against order which was
recorded even in those years of riot and rebellion. To
this lawless outbreak, we shall refer at a later stage in our
narrative. Its conduct on that occasion very naturally
brought the students' military company into a discredit
which lasted for many years.

XI. Minor Courses of Instruction

Jefferson was one of the first Americans to discern the
value of manual training as a minor feature of a liberal
education. Before the University was opened, he had
provided in the ordinances for the erection of workshops
within the precincts, or on sites sufficiently near to be
convenient to the students. Here all who so desired
were to be free to acquire skill in the use of those mechanical
contrivances which generally are only employed
in the pursuit of a trade. In order to reduce the expense
of the shops, they were to be offered to respectable
workingmen, who were to be relieved of the payment of
rent on condition of their consenting to the students handling
their tools; and they were also to have the right
to sit under any professor without paying a fee, if his
lectures bore upon the mechanical and philosophical principles
of their art. There exists no proof that this

scheme, which has become so common in our own times,
was put in practice.

In 1833, the Board of Visitors determined to introduce
a course in civil engineering as an adjunct to the one
in mathematics. Bonnycastle endeavored to carry out
their purpose by delivering a series of lectures on the subject;
but the plan did not, apparently, at this time pass
beyond this rather barren initial act. He continued, however,
to urge that this professorship should be created.
Again, in 1836, he informed the Board that he considered
its establishment as entirely practicable, and Professor
Rogers, of the School of Natural Philosophy, now offered
his assistance to bring it about. This combination assured
the chair; the new school was designated the School
of Civil Engineering; and one lecture was delivered
weekly by each professor belonging to it. Seventeen
students attended during the session of 1836–7; and in
1839, four graduates received diplomas.

It will be recalled that a room was reserved in the
Rotunda by Jefferson for instruction in those arts which
are employed to embellish life. One of these was music,
and in April, 1825, the Faculty required the proctor to
advertise in the journals of New York, Philadelphia, and
Richmond, for a teacher, who was to be "a good practical
performer on more than one instrument, and well
versed in orchestral performance and the science of composition."
At least, one candidate for the position was
turned down. In fact, there was much difficulty in filling
it properly. The Board of Visitors asked the Faculty
to give the reason of this, and that body replied, that,
unless some additional inducements were offered, no competent
person could be engaged; this, they advised, should
take the form of a moderate salary for at least one year,
—which would indicate that fees had previously been

relied upon to support the incumbent. Mr. Bigelow applied
for the situation; but it was not until November,
1828, that he is found giving lessons in music, and at the
same time, occupying a room within the precincts. His
only reward was the fees which he received from his
pupils. He remained at the University as late as the year
1833, and quite possibly longer.

In 1828, Dr. Barber obtained the Faculty's permission
to deliver a course of lectures on the subject of elocution.
His place, in 1832, was taken by Donald McLeod,
who also occupied a dormitory; and he was succeeded
by at least two others. Lessons were also given
in penmanship and stenography.[9]

As far back as 1803, Jefferson expressed an interest in
agricultural education, and when he came to draft the
Rockfish Gap Report, he recommended that a course in
the science of agriculture should be comprised among
the general courses to be adopted. But the suggestion
failed to secure the countenance of the Legislature. It
was the popular opinion in Virginia in those times that
the young farmer could be trained for his calling by
learning from his own slaves all the methods used in the
past; and that these were sufficient for the undiversified
crops which were grown in the soil of the State. Jefferson
philosophically consoled himself with the hope that
the professor of natural history,—whose principal course
was chemistry,—would be able to give agricultural instruction
along definite general lines at least. But Cocke,
—who, it will be recalled, was not inclined to balk at the
most radical innovations unless they took the form of
bringing in foreign teachers or building Roman temples
on American hilltops,—was determined to establish at

the University, if practicable, a professorship in this
science. He is said to have advocated the incorporation
of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle principally because
it would be the most feasible means of raising an
endowment for this agricultural professorship; and other
bodies in the State of a like character were urged to join
in swelling the fund. A letter was drawn up by the President
of the Society and circulated far and wide through
the rural parts of Virginia, with the result that a large
sum was collected; but, unhappily, the person to whom it
was loaned fell into bankruptcy, and the investment was
irrevocably lost.

William C. Rives was solicitous, in 1835, that the
Board of Visitors should at once petition the General Assembly
to establish a new professorship at the University
to take "charge of the principles of agriculture," along
with the kindred sciences of botany, geology, and mineralogy.
A model farm, he said, should be laid off as a
department of the school, and the whole subject taught at
once practically and scientifically. The hour, however,
was not yet ripe for the project.

XII. Methods of Instruction and Examination

There were three methods of teaching employed at the
University from the start: (1) the lecture; (2) the daily
examinations in class; (3) the written exercise. The professor
was theoretically at liberty to give preponderance
to whichever one of these he considered to be best
adapted to the character of his own course, but the lecture,
in practically every instance, was the chief means of
instruction. The system, as a whole, had been introduced
by Jefferson, and had been derived by him from the example
of William Small, under whom he had sat when a

student at the College of William and Mary. Previous
to Small's professorship, the method of instruction at
that college had been confined to recitation from the textbooks.
Jefferson was convinced that teaching by lecture
rather than by text-book would stimulate independent
thought in the student, create a desire for original
investigation, and discourage mere memorizing. Whatever
danger of incoherence and desultoriness might accompany
this manner of tuition, would, in his opinion,
be corrected by the careful oral examinations, which were
required to follow the next day. So unusual a system,
however, was not approved by all, in spite of his endorsement
of its principle as correct. First, it was asserted
that the notes of the student were necessarily imperfect
and disconnected, and that no daily oral examination
could remove the unfortunate effect of these deficiencies.
This examination, indeed, would be largely a repetition
of the original lecture in order to fill in the vacant gaps in
the student's memoranda. Secondly, however brilliant
that student might be, an undue proportion of his time
would be consumed in the mechanical effort to get these
memoranda into shape; and finally, only a few professors,
with all their learning and experience, possessed a marked
power of exposition.

In reality, the lecture method imposed as extraordinary
a burden on the professor's capacity as on the student's.
It demanded a more thorough knowledge of his subject,
and a greater talent for communicating that knowledge.
It was not enough that he should be able to explain
lucidly single points in the text: he was also expected to
grasp the principles and the details of his theme,—the
abstruse and the simple elements of it alike,—so clearly
and so surely that he could present it as a whole with perfect
perspicacity to his pupils. Nor was it sufficient that

he should voice the thoughts and theories of others; he
must be capable of reaching his own independent conclusions
and enforcing them with his own reasoning,
logically and firmly expressed. Such a method did not
shut out text-books, but it presupposed that the professor
was so discerning that he could discover what was improper
in these books and reject it. It was correctly said
at the time of the adoption of the system of lectures at
the University of Virginia that it could not be carried
out with inferior instruments; and that its benefits were
in proportion to the efficiency of the teachers in imparting
knowledge.

It seems to have been foreseen as early as 1826 that
some mechanical means must be devised to lighten the
labor of both professor and student by incorporating in
print a brief syllabus of each lecture. A lithographic
press was purchased during that year, and each member
of the Faculty was permitted to have the use of it for a
period of two days in succession. The press must have
proved, on the whole, unsatisfactory, for we find that
frequent applications were made to the proctor to increase
its working usefulness. In 1828, the professors
complained that they had been long deprived of its aid,
although it had been put in place in a room, a man employed
to manipulate it, and the proper quantity of paper
bought to supply it. In the following year, two dormitories
were assigned for its accommodation. For sometime,
it had been housed in an outbuilding. As late at
1835, a Mr. Tompkins was directed to remove it to
Charlottesville in order that he might have a chance of
acquiring there the art of handling it, and it was hoped
that, in this way, "it might render some service to the
University." It would be inferred from this protracted
discontent that the press had, throughout this period, afforded

the student little assistance in securing an accurate
copy of his professor's lectures.

The rule appears to have been for the instructor to
deliver his lecture first, and to follow this up with an
oral examination on the last lecture but one. With the
lecture of the day, and the recapitulation of the preceding
lecture, the student received the benefit of the substance
of two lectures at every meeting of his class. By the enactments
of 1825, each class was to continue in session
during at least two hours on at least three days of the
week. The first class to assemble in 1826 did so at
seven o'clock in the morning; it broke up at eight, and
spent half an hour at breakfast; and at the close of that
interval, re-assembled, and remained in session during an
hour. In July, 1827, the Board of Visitors required
lectures to begin at half past seven in the morning until
the end of the following April; and after that date, the
hour for coming together was to be half past five o'clock.
The adoption of this inconvenient time was perhaps one
cause of the discontent that so irritated the spirits of the
early students. This rising by dawn in the humid air
of early spring, and attending lectures at that hour in
damp and chill recitation rooms before breakfast, was
thought by some members of the Faculty to have had a
distinct influence in bringing on the epidemic of 1829.
The young men had a right to dispute the wisdom of a
Board that imposed on them an ordinance as senseless
from a practical point of view as it was dangerous from
a hygienic. In 1832, one of the students, Mr. Winfree,
who was charged with rising late, excused his conduct on
the ground that he was called upon to be present at
lectures five times each week at half past five in the morning.
The hour of assembling for the first class was,
in 1838, set at six o'clock; but by 1841, the original hour

of half past seven was again in force. The last class of
the day broke up, at one time, at half past three; at another,
at half past four.

The professors were under as close supervision in the
work of the class-room as the students themselves. The
chairman of the Faculty was expected to report: (1)
how often each instructor had failed to lecture as required;
(2) how frequently he had neglected to question
the members of his class; (3) how much time had been
consumed by him in delivering lectures and making his
examinations; and (4) how often he had omitted sending
in his class report to show the number of his pupils'
absences, and the degree of their attention and progress.

There were, from the start, two general examinations:
the intermediate and the final. During the first three
years, the intermediate began on the first Monday in
December. The Board of Visitors were expected to
attend in person, but no strangers were permitted to do
so. This examination took place in the "elliptical
room" of the Rotunda in 1826; but it seems that the
intention had been, except for "the unfortunate state of
the books," to hold it in the library. The final examination
came off in the presence of the students and professors
during the week that preceded the "commencement"
of the vacation; and this also took place in the
"elliptical room" of the Rotunda. In 1828, the date
of the intermediate examinations was transferred from
the month of December to any month near the middle of
the session which the Faculty might select. The final
examinations this year lasted from July 10 to July 16.
The time consumed in one day in the examination of a
single school was two hours in the morning and two in the
afternoon. The examination in ancient languages was
finished in three days; in mathematics, in four; and in

modern languages, in five. The briefest, anatomy, was
completed in one day. The remainder did not, in any
instance, spread over three days; and several fell short of
that length of time.

A change in the manner of holding the general examinations
was proposed at a meeting of the Faculty held in
April, 1829. A committee of this body recommended,
on that date, (1) that the chairman, at the close of the
session, should appoint for the examination in each
school, a committee comprising the professor of that
school and two of his colleagues; (2) that the former
should draw up in writing a series of questions to be propounded,
and that to each question there should be appended
a valuation in numbers, the highest of which
was to be one hundred; (3) that the chairman should
choose the date of examination; (4) that the class should
assemble with pen and paper, and that, for the first
time, the questions should then be given out; (5) that
the majority of the committee should be required to be
present at the examination in order to supervise it; (6)
that the professor of the school should value the answers
numerically; (7) that a report embracing all these details
should be handed in to the Faculty; and finally, (8) that
the students should be arranged in three divisions according
to their merit as demonstrated by the examination.
The one who obtained a marking of three-fourths of the
valuation of his replies was to be listed in the first class;
if less than three-fourths but more than one quarter, in
the second class; and if less than one-fourth, in the third.

The manner of proceeding on the part of the several
committees is illustrated in their action in 1832. The
entire Faculty assembled that year in the lecture-room of
natural philosophy. Harrison announced the result of
the examination in the School of Ancient Languages. He

was the spokesman of that committee, and his report was
adopted by the Faculty; and he was followed by
Blaettermann as the representative of the committee
appointed for the School of Modern Languages; by
Bonnycastle, of the one for the School of Mathematics;
and so on in turn by Patterson, Emmet, Johnson, and
Davis, as the heads of the committees of their respective
schools. No report of the numerical valuations for the
different divisions of the intermediate examinations was
made by these bodies until the valuations for the final examinations
had been submitted.

The preliminary English examination, which, in 1833,
went before the intermediate, was held by a committee
of three professors, appointed by the chairman. Unless
a student, before this examination, gave notice of his intention
to become a candidate for graduation, he was
not permitted to stand it afterwards without the Faculty's
consent. The proportion of those who, from year
to year, succeeded, or did not succeed, in it, demonstrated
the necessity for holding it,—in 1838, fifty-one
passed and twenty failed; and in 1841, the corresponding
numbers were forty-one and twenty-nine. This English
examination seems to have consisted of a rigid test of the
candidate's qualifications in his mother-tongue,—he was
required to write at least twenty-five lines in that language
touching some phase of the course in which he
was seeking a diploma; and when this had been read, he
was questoned in English syntax and orthography. Originally,
the candidate for graduation was required, not
only to pass an English examination, but also to prove his
ability to read the works of the principal Greek and
Latin authors; but this last provision was subsequently
discarded as tending to cut down the number of pupils in
the law and medical schools.

XIII. Degrees

It was announced in 1831, that no diploma was to be
given for less proficiency than a student of fair talents
could acquire after a course of two years' study. In the
beginning, this award was restricted to those who had
reached the first grade; the medals to those who had risen
to the second; and books to those who advanced to the
third. The diploma was the token of two degrees,—
the one, the doctorate, academic or professional; the
other, the plain graduate. In a very limited sense, the
doctorate was the degree of a curriculum, as a fixed
though short series of studies had to be mastered before
it could be won. This was especially true of it when
vocational. The term "graduate" was also considered
to have the character of a degree.[10] A student who had
successfully passed the examination in ancient languages,
or any other separate school, was as much entitled to the
designation "Graduate of the University of Virginia"
as if he had carried off diplomas in all the schools. It
was Jefferson's intention to confine the academic award
to the graduate diploma,—the academic doctorate
diploma was simply an advanced graduate diploma,—as
the one most in harmony with the conception which he
had of the University's purpose; namely, that it was to
be restricted to graduate work. No academic degrees in
the usual sense, and no honorary degrees, were to be
bestowed. In no particular, in our opinion, did his
judgment touching the affairs of the institution show
greater weightiness than in his determination to shut out
all the old degrees except the doctrinate, academical or
vocational. The academic degrees subsequently introduced,

—especially the mastership of arts,—were incongruous
with the spirit of the elective system, for they,
like the professional degrees, required a fixed curriculum,
and the industry of several years for their acquisition.
But beyond this, their practical influence on the mass of
students was unfortunate, for they tended to raise a small
number of them to a position of superiority over their
fellows, and thus accentuated the comparative failure of
the great majority. This influence was not without responsibility
for the extraordinary disparity in numbers
already pointed out between the students who had attended
one year and those who had attended two,—a disparity
which had its springs mainly in discouragement
and depression.

There was a perfect simplicity in Jefferson's arrangement
of awards for the vocational schools and the academical
schools. It is true that, in the beginning, the only
vocational degree given was the doctrinate of medicine,
but this inevitably set the precedent for the introduction
of the entire list of professional degrees, from that of
bachelor of law to that of civil engineer. It did not,
however, necessarily foreshadow the degrees of master
and bachelor of arts, and the numerous other academic
degrees that, from time to time, have been established
at the University. Had the academic award been permanently
limited to the diploma of graduation, whether
ordinary or advanced, it would have conferred on that
award a dignity which would have waxed with the constantly
increasing reputation of the institution; nor would
this dignity have been curtailed by the fact that it rested
as much upon the student who had acquired one diploma
as upon the student who had acquired ten, for both would
have stood upon the same high platform, inasmuch as
both would have been equally entitled to be called a

"Graduate of the University of Virginia." The academic
doctor would have been simply an advanced graduate
of the same institution.

The denial to the Faculty of the right to confer honorary
degrees is not so easily approved. The idea which
Jefferson had in mind was that every degree bestowed by
the institution should be a proof of merit which had been
exhibited in its own class-rooms alone. So long as that
was the rule, there would be no temptation whatever for
it to confer any degree except on the ground of what
had been laboriously acquired, and also of what was
acknowledged by all to be deserving of recognition. On
the other hand, in conferring purely honorary degrees,
there seemed to him to be room for the display of a far
less praiseworthy spirit. Political enthusiasm and sectarian
zeal might govern the Board in their choice rather
than disinterested appreciation of extraordinary talents
and achievements. A military hero and a sectional Congressman
have received the chaplet of the doctrinate in
many American institutions for accomplishments that lay
far outside of the scholar's pale. It is possible that
Jefferson was apprehensive lest the dignity of his new
seat of learning should, in the future, be lowered by an
occasional false step of this nature; but he was probably
more anxious to shut out the doctrinate of divinity than
the doctrinate of letters or laws. His distrustful attitude
towards honorary degrees was characteristic of a
man who had struck fiercely at all artificial distinctions,
and who was suspicious of men's disposition to create
them where they did not already exist. There was possibly
too an aristocratic flavor about honorary degrees
which made them distasteful to him. In reality, there
was no legitimate objection to such degrees if bestowed,
—as doubtless they would have been at the University,—

with the normal discernment and discretion. They are
awarded by all the world's greatest seats of learning in
a spirit which has only occasionally provoked censure.
The influence and prestige of the University of Virginia
would have been very much enhanced, and not at all
lessened, had Jefferson's revolutionary, and, in this particular
instance, eccentric, spirit not led him to reject so
old and so honorable a custom.[11]

Although the enactments of 1825 specifically provided
for a diploma, yet, during several years, the highest
award seems to have been a certificate of proficiency.
General John S. Preston, who was a student at the
University in 1828, tells us that, at this time, there were
no academic diplomas or degrees conferred. He received,
in the autumn of that year, certificates "which,"
he said, "I presented at Harvard, asking the position
of resident graduate. The rule required a diploma, but
with flattering compliments to the younger university, I
was installed as a resident graduate with the privilege
of a master of arts." William Wertenbaker, writing of
Poe, mentions that the poet obtained "distinctions at
the final examinations in Latin and French," and
that, at this time (1827), this was the highest honor
that a student could win. "Under present regulations
(1868)," he adds, "he would have graduated and been
entitled to a diploma."

Jefferson had not been dead more than fifteen months
when the Board of Visitors,—probably in response to a
rising sentiment in the Faculty,—instructed that body to

consider the advisability of altering the rule relating to
degrees, so far as to sanction the introduction of the
"ancient denomination of bachelor, master, and doctor."
Jefferson's plan of academic awards had been in harmony
with the Continental practice, about which he had learned
during his sojourn in Europe. On the other hand, the
tentative plan suggested by the Board was in unison with
the long established rule of Oxford and Cambridge; and
as there were four natives of England, and one former
subject (Tucker), among the members of the Faculty,
it is quite possible that these professors had earnestly advocated
its adoption some time before it was first considered
by the Visitors. Several years of debate and
agitation passed before the alteration was actually made.
Thus, in 1829, we find the Faculty, after prolonged deliberation,
recommending (1) that the graduate should be
one, who, by rigid examination, should demonstrate his
proficiency in any of the University courses; (2) that the
graduate in the School of Medicine should be awarded
the degree of doctor of medicine; (3) that there should
be an academic and a professional degree in the School of
Law,—the academic graduate should be entitled "graduate
of the School of Law," but his diploma should state
that the amount of information required to win it was
not sufficient to authorize the holder to become a member
of the bar; on the other hand, the professional graduate
should be entitled "barrister of law"; (4) that, if the
graduate in one or more schools should afterwards prove
that he had, by later study, become more highly versed
in such school, or schools, as the Faculty should designate,
he should receive a title of a higher quality. What was
to be the name of this new degree? Probably, the Faculty
had in mind a passing suggestion of Lomax's, who
recommended that the graduate in four schools should be
called "bachelor of science." None of these proposed
innovations, however, were adopted, at this time, by the
Board.

On July 9, 1831, Dr. Dunglison submitted a resolution
at a meeting of the Faculty urging the introduction
of the degree of master of arts. The two reasons which
he gave, in advocating this revolutionary addition, were,
that the proposed degree would (1) "afford parents and
guardians a guide in the selection of subjects of study";
and would (2) "keep the student longer at the University."
A few days afterwards, the Board, following the
expressed wish of the Faculty, but with a perceptible feeling
of uncertainty as to the wisdom of their own act,
authorized the use of the new degree,—not permanently,
but "for the present." The system of degrees as established
by the Enactments of 1831 stood as follows:
(1) the graduate,—the student who had proved his
mastery of an entire school, like mathematics, or a branch
of a school, like chemistry; (2) the winner of a certificate
of proficiency in some section of a school; (3) the doctor
of medicine; and (4) the master of arts,—the student
who had been awarded diplomas in ancient languages,
mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, and moral
philosophy. In 1833, modern languages was added to
this list, with the right reserved to the student to make his
choice of any two. The degree of bachelor of law had
not been adopted as late as 1839; indeed, it does not seem
to have been introduced until July, 1840.

XIV. Public Day

The first elaborate commencement apparently took
place in July, 1829. During these early years, it was
spoken of generally as the Public Day, but we discover an

incidental reference to it as the Exhibition. In October,
1828, the Faculty were authorized by the Board to require
the students to read to the audience on the next
Public Day the written answers which they had submitted
in their final examinations; and the occasion was to be
further illuminated by the delivery of orations and the
reading of essays. The programme for that commencement
(1829) was arranged at least two months and a
half before the close of the session, and under its provisions,
the students were to assemble on the last day
of the term "in the Rotunda,"—which, doubtless, meant
the library-room,—and the public were also to be admitted.
Each professor, at the call of the chairman, was
to announce the result in his own school; and he was also
to read aloud the questions which had been propounded
to his pupils, one or more of whom were to be named by
the chairman to read such replies as had been selected
beforehand by the committee of that school. If necessary,
a blackboard was to be used in their exposition.
Speakers and essayists,—also chosen by the chairman,—
were then to enliven the audience; and this was to be followed
by the delivery of certificates and diplomas. If
the winner of a diploma failed to be present to receive it,
the Faculty subsequently decided whether or not they
should confer it at all.

In June, four young men were appointed to deliver the
orations and one to read an essay. The Faculty very
considerately decided to omit the examination papers
from the programme, because they would either consume
too much of the limited time, or would add too sensibly
to the solemnity of the occasion. The following was the
order of proceedings adopted for what was apparently
the first real commencement in the history of the University,
and for that reason, it is of sufficient interest to

be repeated in detail: (1) oration by George P. Beirne,
of Monroe county, Va.; (2) list of the students who displayed,
in the final examinations, the highest proficiency
in their studies; (3) oration by W. F. Gray; (4) essay by
John H. Gretter; (5) announcement by the chairman of
the names of the graduates, and the delivery to them of
their diplomas; (6) oration by William Daniel, of
Lynchburg; (7) oration by Charles Mosby, of Powhatan
county.

In July, 1832, the proceedings began and ended with
an oration. There were only two delivered instead of
four, as in 1829, but there was an additional essay to take
the place of one of the two orations omitted. The
students had always disputed the Faculty's right to appoint
the orators and essayists, and in March, they had
elected,—apparently, however, with the Faculty's approval,
—the entire number to serve in the following
July. This they again did in 1833; but in 1834, at least
one of the orators, and also one of the essayists, was
chosen by the Faculty. This change aroused a storm of
disapproval among the students, and they openly declared
that none of their number should, with their consent,
accept from the Faculty an appointment as orator or
essayist; that should any one do so, they would decline
to be present to hear him speak or read; and that when
they assembled, it should be, not in the proctor's office,
as ordered, but wherever they should prefer to convene.
It is plain that the result of the students' election was as
little satisfactory to the Board of Visitors as to the Faculty,
and, in 1835, they introduced a different method of
selection. In each November, the entire number of
young men were to be set off in nine divisions. Each
division was to name an elector; and the nine electors thus
chosen were to hold a meeting, at which they were to

nominate six orators and essayists. It was confidently
expected that these nine representatives would, like the
members of the Federal electoral college, exercise a wise
discretion in making their choice. But the students were
determined that they would not allow this shrewd device
to deprive them of what they looked upon as their right:
we find them assembling in April, 1837, and solemnly receiving
the pledge of the electors that they would vote
only for the candidates whom the entire body of the
collegians desired, and whose names were then submitted
for acceptance. The chairman complained that the
young men were so much interested in canvassing the
claims of the prospective orators and essayists that their
attention was diverted from their studies, and their dislike
of disciplinary restraints sensibly heightened. It
was noted too by him, with dissatisfaction, that these
candidates sought to increase their chance of election by
criticizing the Faculty.

The Visitors, in the end, revoked the resolution creating
the board of electors, as that method had failed to
repress the violence of partizanship, or do away with the
confusion that accompanied the canvassing. In 1840,
the two orators selected among the students for the Public
Day were picked out under a new plan: at the beginning
of the session, all the young men were invited to
prepare written discourses to be submitted to the chairman
by the first of May. The two among them which
were determined to be the most meritorious were set
aside to be delivered at commencement.

XV. Successors to the First Professors

We have now described the general courses of study
pursued by the young collegians who attended the different

schools. Who were the professors who taught
them? In a previous chapter we mentioned the most
salient events in the lives of those who made up the first
Faculty. Before the period which we are now examining
had ended in 1842, every member of this original body,
with the exception of Tucker, had either died or retired.
It will be pertinent now to supplement the details already
given with a statement of the circumstances of
these deaths and resignations, and some description of
the men who were chosen to fill up the gaps thus created.

The first of the professors to leave was Key. His resignation
was not sent in until March 10, 1827, but at
least five months earlier, he seems to have announced his
intention of returning to England, for in the preceding
October, the Board had recorded their regret that he
should harbor such a purpose. Both Key and Long had,
on October 6, 1825, indignantly vacated their chairs, in
consequence of the rebellious spirit displayed on the night
of October 1, but had been persuaded to remain. That
the repetition of this commotion on a later day caused
Key to revert to his original decision is indicated in the
minute adopted by the Board on October 10, 1826, in
which they state as an incentive to him to stay on, that
"they are endeavoring to introduce some radical changes
into the government" of the University, which "will
secure more order than has heretofore prevailed." As
an additional inducement, they promised that the professors,
thereafter, should be relieved of some of their
irksome duties. The following winter would prove how
far the projected reforms could be carried out. The
Board declared that Key's request for his release was so
temperately and so feelingly expressed that it would be
improper for them to hold him to his contract; but they
asked him to give his professorship another trial, and if,

on the first of March, 1827, he should be still discontented,
they would leave him at liberty to withdraw at
the close of the session. Key, it will be recalled, had
been filling his chair only nineteen months when he offered
his resignation.[12] Cocke, who seems to have had a provincial
dislike of all foreigners, had always looked at
him askant. His final comment upon him showed some
acidity. "I have just received a letter from Mr. Madison
mentioning Key's resignation," he wrote Cabell, "but
with the modest request that we will permit his salary to
run until the last of August in order to suit the departure
of a London instead of a Liverpool packet, as the latter
would subject him to the expense of a journey across the
island of Great Britain."

The vacancy thus created was filled by the translation
of the professor of natural philosophy. Madison would
have preferred a different incumbent, for he was afraid,
as he expressed it, lest Bonnycastle should become
"seized with the same malady" as the one that had
caused the severance of Key's official connection with the
University; but Bonnycastle remained in the chair until
his death, and gave it a reputation which it has never
lost.[13] He seems to have been of a quiet and taciturn
temper,—the impressions of which, however, were conflicting.
"Amid his grave occupations," we are told in
the Faculty's resolution in his memory, "he had a keen
relish for the pleasures of social intercourse, and few
men were equal to him in combining innocent mirth with

useful and solid instruction." In spite of these social
qualities he is known to have been morbidly shy,—in
fact, he had been seen to climb a fence and walk in the
mud in order to avoid passing students on the pathway.
Like Long, he married a Virginian lady. An arbor
which he built for his children behind his pavilion was
locally famous for the masses of roses and honeysuckle
which he had trained to grow over it. He was remarkable
alike for his capacity for abstract speculation and for
imaginative production. All his English colleagues having
withdrawn, it was not unnatural that he too should
have nursed the hope of passing his last years in the
land of his birth. "Some of my English friends," he
wrote Cabell, in 1837, "are employed in procuring the
means of my returning to them. The post they desire is
not yet established, and, perhaps, never will be."

The earliest intimation that we have of Long's desire
to return to England is found in a letter written to
Cabell by Cocke in September, 1827. It appears that he
had just been appointed to the Greek professorship in
the projected University of London, but he did not ask
to be released from the obligations of his contract with
the University of Virginia—this having still three years
to run,—because he anticipated that this length of time
would be consumed in erecting the buildings of the new
institution. Before a week had passed, however, he discovered
that he was wrong in this expectation. He again
wrote to Cocke, as the head of the executive committee,
to tell him that he had received that morning a request
from the Council of London University to take up his
new duties on October 1,—it was already the tenth of
September,—and there was barely three weeks left to
him to close up his affairs in Virginia and make the voyage
to England. It seems that he had been urged by Dr.

Briggs, of Liverpool, as far back as December, 1826, to
become a candidate for the chair, but he had refused to
do so for two reasons: (1) he was offered no positive
assurance of success; and (2) the new institution might
be put into operation before he would be at liberty to
leave the University of Virginia. By the ensuing March,
however, he had made up his mind to adopt Dr. Briggs's
advice; but he was still under the impression that, after
all, the London University would not open its doors as
early as July, 1829, after which time he would be entirely
untrammeled. When he informed the Council of his
willingness to become a candidate, he frankly announced
that his services belonged to the University of Virginia
up to that specific date; and subsequently, in accepting the
professorship, he had reiterated this statement. He now
wrote to Cocke to learn whether the Board of Visitors
would consent to cancel his contract at the end of the
term in July, 1828,—an interval of one session only.
"My securing in England the comfortable means of
subsistence," he said, "is an object of the greatest importance
for my future happiness."

Brougham was the chairman of the London University
Council, and through him, Madison, as rector of
the University of Virginia, requested a postponement of
the offer which had been made to Long; but an inattentive
ear was turned to this: and in the following March,
1828, Long received a second summons to London. His
resignation was accepted by the Board of Visitors in
July in a reluctant but generous spirit. "They would
not estimate properly their obligations to the distinguished
professor," they said, "if they insisted on retaining
him against his will, or opposed any obstacle to
the pursuit of a more eligible situation in his native
country; nor would they act with becoming liberality towards

a sister institution if they did not feel some consolation
in the reflection that what is loss to the cause of
science here, will be gained to a seminary which promises
no ordinary usefulness in the great work of instructing
the rising generation, and extending the limits of human
knowledge." In conclusion, they declared that Long had
acted throughout "with candor and propriety," and his
perfect integrity of conduct, added to the fidelity with
which he had discharged his duties, had led them to give
the release he asked for.

Long, a man of many excellent qualities, was sensibly
touched by this liberal treatment. He was clearly aware
of the awkward position in which his retirement would,
for the time being, place the University, and its attitude
of unselfish consideration for his interests rather than for
its own, may well have made a grateful impression on
his mind. The kindly feeling which he had expressed
for the institution when he first thought of withdrawing,
was, doubtless, heightened by this generous conduct of the
Board when he actually resigned. Madison, in a letter
to Cabell, written the following month, asserts that
Long looked forward to his departure with regret; and
this is quite probable, for he had married, as we have
seen, a Virginian lady, a tie that must, in itself, apart
from the duties of his professorship, have done much to
bring him into sympathy with the community. Madison
testifies to his popularity with his pupils; and Long himself,
towards the end of his life, spoke with praise of
their manly qualities. But he does not appear to have
been valued in the practical affairs of the institution beyond
the threshold of his classroom. Madison stated
privately that he was an "embarrassing member of the
administrative body,"—a somewhat vague expression,
but one that perhaps meant that he was pertinacious of

his own opinions. There is no evidence, however, that
he was a man of an aggressive or obstructive disposition;
on the contrary, he seems to have been quiet and amiable;
and it is possible that the embarrassment which he caused
in the Faculty may have sprung from the fidelity of his
friendship for Key, who never seemed at all satisfied after
his translation to Virginia.

On several occasions, following his removal to London,
Long exhibited his continued interest in the University.
In December, 1828, he saw an opportunity for the
library to complete its set of Valpy's edition of Stephenson's
Greek Thesaurus, and he personally called the
American minister, Mr. Barbour's, attention to it. He
wrote frequently to Gessner Harrison, his successor, and
was very often helpful in sending him the latest European
contributions of value to the science of philology. His
correspondence with the other of his two most distinguished
pupils, the scholarly Henry Tutwiler, which
lasted until his own death, contains many evidences of
his kindly impressions of his life, work, and friends at
the University of Virginia. He won a high reputation
after his return to England. Indeed, by his subsequent
writings and teachings, he exercised, during nearly half
a century, a most fruitful influence on the classical scholarship
of his native country; and he edited numerous classical
texts with such acumen that some of them, in spite of
the modern advance in research, remain in use down to
the present day. He was the principal English authority
on Roman law and ancient geography; and through
the Quarterly Journal of Education, was very instrumental
in furthering the success of the Society for the Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge.

There was one member of the Board of Visitors who,
at first, was averse to accepting Long's resignation, unless

a substitute could be found at once to fill the vacancy
that would follow. This was Chapman Johnson. He
was not sanguine of their ability to secure an American
of the proper acquirements for the place; his preference
was for an English incumbent; and who more competent
to lay hands on him than Long? He thought, therefore,
that Long should be required to obtain this new
professor as the condition of his own release from his
contract. Johnson, unlike Jefferson, was a sound churchman,
and now that the "old sachem" was not alive to
protest, he asserted that a scholar from Oxford or Cambridge,
who had been educated for the ministry, would
be acceptable,—some young episcopal clergyman who
could submit such a brilliant credential of his attainments
as a diploma from one of these ancient universities.
"Tell Cabell," he wrote Cocke, "it is time to give up
his old prejudice upon this subject, the offspring of the
French Revolution, long since a bastard by a divorce of
the unnatural alliance between liberty and atheism."

It was the opinion of Alexander Garrett, a man of uncommon
shrewdness, that the most suitable persons to
appoint were "young Virginians, when they could be obtained
unusually well qualified, with fine talents, studious
habits, ambition to excell, and unexceptional moral deportment."
A young man of this cast, if elevated to a
professorship in the University, "was not so likely," he
said, "to be invited to other situations, but would remain
for years, constantly improving, and would become so
closely identified with the institution of his own State
that it would be difficult to induce him to leave it."
When this conviction was uttered, two of the chairs had
been filled in harmony with it,—those of law and ancient
languages,—and time enough had gone by to demonstrate
its soundness. Long also had held the same view.

For some time after his removal to London, he seems,
under the influence of Madison's earnest solicitations, to
have given Brougham and Barbour, the American Minister,
all the assistance in his power to obtain the services
of an English scholar, but he nevertheless continued to
advise that the choice should be limited to America.
Nor did he do this because he thought that it would be
impossible to find a competent man, who, as Barbour
expressed it, was willing "to leave England for a distant
land." When, in September, 1827, he had written
Cocke that he intended to resign, he was under the impression,
as we have seen, that he would remain in Virginia
until the end of his term in 1829; he calculated that
this interval would be sufficient to allow him "to qualify
one of two or three of his students to succeed him more
able than any one the University would be likely to get";
and he said to Madison, in the same month, that he
would "gratuitously and gladly spare no pains in procuring
a proper succession by an extra assistance to one
or two of his pupils, whose capacity and proficiency were
singularly promising, and whose disposition was favorable
to such a career."

The first applicant for the vacant chair was Jesse Burton
Harrison. In December, 1827, he visited Charlottesville,
and talked with Long in person, who told him
that, so far, he had not suggested to any of his pupils
the plan of preparation which he had proposed in his
letter to Cocke. He seems to have given his approval
to Jesse Burton Harrison's candidacy in consequence of
this interview. "He allows me to say," wrote Harrison,
"that he desires my success, and he favored me with
such a letter to the rector as I could have exactly desired."
Long counseled him to pursue a course of philological
study in Germany; and he decided that, should the Board

appoint him, he would leave Virginia for that country
at his own expense, and return in the following September,
unless Long should find himself in a position to
tarry longer at the University, or a temporary instructor
could be employed, who would assume charge of his
classes until the following January. Long had made
Harrison's acquaintance very soon after his arrival in
Virginia, and had come to hold him in high esteem, both
as a man and a scholar. Professor Tucker, who had
probably known him when a resident of Lynchburg, the
home of Harrison's father, the friend of Jefferson, also
recommended him warmly in a letter addressed to Cocke.

But not Jesse Burton Harrison, but a student of his
own was to become Long's successor, which was to fulfil
his earnest wish that his mantle should pass to some one
of his pupils. If his advice should be followed, the
choice was certain to fall on one of the two among them,
whom he had, from the beginning, regarded with the
most affection and respect; namely, Gessner Harrison and
Henry Tutwiler, a couple of youthful scholars united to
each other by the memories of early association, the
same literary tastes and pursuits, and the close and loyal
comradeship that springs up in collegiate life. They
were the most distinguished graduates of the first two
years.

Harrison was the son of a father who was warmly esteemed
in the community in which he resided, the county
of Rockingham, which lies in the most beautiful part of
the Valley of Virginia. The most famous body of men
who ever assembled in the State was the Convention of
1829–30. It can be justly said of it as a whole that it
was the gathering of all the talents that then adorned
the ancient commonwealth. Madison and Marshall,
Monroe and Randolph, were the most celebrated figures

in that brilliant council, but hardly second to them in ripe
experience and long public service, were man after man
who had come up from the different counties, with the
unwritten credentials of their constituencies that they
had been selected because they represented, in the most
eminent degree, the civic virtue and wisdom of their several
communities. No higher badge of personal usefulness
and distinction could be possessed by any one in those
times of thoroughly trained public men than the record
of membership in this great convention. Gessner Harrison's
father took his seat in that body hardly a year
after his son's appointment to fill the vacancy caused by
Long's resignation and return to England. He was a
physician in active practice, whose literary bent was reflected
in the choice library which he had collected, and
whose strong partiality for the life of the country gentleman
was indicated by the well-ordered and teeming
farm on which he resided. His admiration of the liberty-loving
Swiss prompted him to name his son Gessner
after the famous Helvetian hero.

Gessner's precociousness of intellect was so phenomenal
that he was able to begin his education at the age of
four; and at eight, he was learning the rudiments of the
Latin tongue. From his earliest boyhood, he was devoted
to general reading, and a volume was rarely absent
from his pocket. This book, in the intervals of wood-chopping
on the farm, he would pull out and devour;
nor was this habit simply one for passing amusement and
recreation,—Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley, an
authoritative treatise in those times, was mastered in the
like intervals of leisure, and to it, he always attributed
his keen relish for philological studies.

When Gessner entered the University, he was required
to stand an examination. "I was much surprised,"

wrote Long, many years afterwards, "to find that he
knew so much and knew it so well."[14] He was accompanied
by his brother. The two young men had been
taught by their father to observe the Sabbath with Puritan
strictness, and they could not be tempted to run
counter to this parental lesson. Jefferson, it will be recalled,
was in the habit of inviting the students in succession
to dinner at Monticello on that day, as the only
one on which they were released from their class-rooms.
When the turn of the two brothers came, they politely declined,
with the ingenuous statement that they were unable
to make up their minds to neglect their absent
father's wishes and teachings. Jefferson, so far from being
displeased, was delighted with their candor, and
heartily commended them for their filial piety, which, he
said, was "a consolation to meet with in an age when
the young were much inclined to disregard the advice of
their elders." He asked them to dine with him on
another day, and they gladly accepted. No doubt, he
exerted himself to put at ease these youthful guests,
who had won his particular respect and attention by their
sturdiness of character, for they returned to the University
with charming recollections of his courtesy, and
with an impression of his versatile powers which was
never erased from their minds.

On July 24, 1828, after the Board had acted on Long's
resignation, they authorized the rector, Mr. Madison, to
appoint to the vacancy, during one year, any one of the
following persons: Gessner Harrison, M. L. Tracie, and
R. Reynolds. It seems that the Board was not sure that
any one of the three would accept, for Madison was instructed
to report at once should all decline. Harrison

had just graduated in Greek, and had also received the
degree of doctor of medicine. He was apparently the
first spoken to, and he promptly consented. Writing to
Madison in March, when Harrison had been occupying
the professorship on probation for six months, Long said
that he was convinced that his pupil was far better suited
for the place than any one who might be procured in
Europe. Madison himself was doubtful as to whether
the new incumbent would be willing to remain in the
chair. He thought it quite probable that Harrison
would prefer to follow the calling of a physician; but this
apprehension was soon removed, for Harrison intimated
to him confidentially that "he was desirous of having his
appointment made permanent." Possibly, he had been
influenced by his former preceptor in reaching this decision,
for Long had never tired of pressing upon the
Board the wisdom of choosing him. "After a year's
experience of his success as instructor," Long wrote to
Madison, "I do not think the Visitors will have reason to
repent of what they have done, and I hope they will not
find it necessary to apply to England for that which they
already possess. If I may venture an opinion of what
I know of the people of this country (England), I believe
no person will leave it who is so well qualified for the
situation as the diligence and increasing experience of
your present instructor will undoubtedly render him."

Harrison was elected permanent professor of ancient
languages, on July 15, 1829. He was now in his twenty-second
year. He was at this time a great teacher, not
in actu, but in potentia. In his choice a step was taken,
which, as we have seen, was warmly urged by astute Virginians,
like Alexander Garrett and General Cocke, but
which would hardly have won the approbation of Jefferson
himself. Madison, comprehending fully his predecessor's

views, had, at first, endeavored to obtain a distinguished
and experienced scholar from England to fill
the place vacated by Long, but there was now no Gilmer
to rely upon to make the search abroad that would be
necessary. It was useless to expect as much interest
and energy of Barbour, Long, and Key. The obstacles
that so soon discouraged this trio were precisely the same
as those which Gilmer had surmounted with such conspicuous
success. Full of promise as Gessner Harrison
was, it could not be correctly said of him that he, as a
young graduate of twenty-two, conferred any distinction,
in the beginning, on the chair. His appointment carried
a risk with it in spite of his acknowledged talents; but
that appointment set a precedent which, in numerous instances,
—among which may be mentioned specially those
of Harrison himself, William B. Rogers, Basil L. Gildersleeve,
James L. Cabell, Francis H. Smith, and
Charles A. Graves, of our own day, has furnished the
University with some of its most successful instructors,
whose genius for their calling was, perhaps, in a large degree,
attributable to the very fact that they were college
professors from their youth, which gave them that much
more time in the highest academic atmosphere to round
out the more completely their native aptitude for teaching.
Long, no doubt, remembered that he had begun his
fruitful career at the University with as little positive
experience of his profession as Harrison, and this quite
probably made him more lenient in his views of his successor's
rawness, and more sanguine of the ever-increasing
competence which was to follow from that successor's
uncommon abilities and acquirements. He received the
news of Harrison's permanent appointment with keen
satisfaction. "It is a measure," he wrote Cocke,
"which I sincerely hope and believe will promote the interests
of your institution. In whatever way, I and Mr.
Key can cooperate with him, by sending private papers of
our proceedings, or by attending to any commissions with
which we may be intrusted, we will endeavor to do it with
all dispatch and faithfulness. The Universities of London
and Virginia are the same in their general plan.
... We allow, for instance, students to choose their
own classes, but the Council, who correspond to the Visitors,
recommend a certain course to those who enter at
an early period of life. Our experience then, and the
suggestions which we are daily receiving from friends
and enemies, may not be without use to your classical
teacher."

XVI. Successors to the First Professors, continued

Blaettermann, who occupied the chair of modern languages,
was, from the start, unhappy in his relations with
the students and professors alike. In 1829, the privilege
of residing without the precincts was granted him, and
he was relieved of the obligation of attending without interruption
the meetings of the Faculty. The minutes of
that body disclose that he carried no weight with it; he
rarely offered a resolution; and whenever he did, it was
almost invariably voted down by the majority of his
colleagues as worthy of scant consideration. It is possible
that the right which he received to appear with
irregularity was suggested by the unpopularity of his
presence. In 1830, he was called upon by the Board of
Visitors to make his weekly reports promptly and accurately;
to instruct his senior classes in the literatures
of the languages taught by him; and to resume his lectures
on modern history and geography. It is clear that he
had hitherto been slighting the discharge of all these

duties. In 1833, a resolution was actually submitted to
abolish the chair of modern languages until further order,
this being an indirect method of removing him, but
it was finally rejected. He was still in possession of
it in 1835, for, during that year, it occurred to him to
paint the front wall of his pavilion,—which also he
seems to have retained,—in a color not in harmony with
the red brick of the rest of the buildings. The perplexing
question arose: did a professor have the right to paint
his pavilion in whatever tints his taste, or lack of taste,
might prefer? Did he have the right to paint it at all?
The chairman thought not. "I suggested to him," this
official reported, "that if he painted the wall of his
house, the Board of Visitors would probably require him
to restore the uniformity he had destroyed, by painting,
at his own expense, all the pavilions and dormitory walls
on the Lawn." This dry but alarming intimation banished
his brush to the waste basket at once. Several
months later, he was complained of for building a second
smoke-house in a vacant corner of his back-lot. At the
meeting of the Faculty, on the following day, this knotty
question was debated: Should Blaettermann be required
to pull down the obnoxious structure? Or should the
task of demolition be left to the proctor?

Blaettermann was very often at loggerheads with the
students. Those occupying dormitories near his pavilion
averred that, while bending over their books, they were
distracted by the ear-racking squeaks of violins, on which
the boys in his house,—one of them a youthful negro
slave,—were always practising. "When I complained,"
reported Archibald Cary, "they only played more loudly
and frequently." Blaettermann refused to interpose his
authority to stop this noise, and the chairman of the
Faculty was compelled to step in.

But the friction with students under the arcades was of
no consequence in comparison with his tumultuous intercourse
with the members of his own school. It was said
that they, not infrequently, withdrew from his lecture-room
as many as a dozen at one time. On the night of
March 29, 1836, he delivered a lecture which seems
to have been accompanied by extraordinary disorder.
Many of the young men who had come either to listen
or to scoff belonged to the classes of his colleagues.
Handfuls of small shot were thrown at him by some as
he attempted to go on, whilst others shouted and beat
frantically upon the doors. At the request of several of
those present,—who, being more temperate than the
rest, resented this unseemly commotion,—he withdrew
to the drawing-room of his own pavilion, and there took
up his discourse again. A crowd rapidly gathered, and
pelted the walls and windows of the house with showers
of stones, which they had brought with them for that
purpose. In 1838, a formal petition for his dismissal
was sent in by a section of the students. Two years
later, the chairman of the Faculty felt constrained to report
to the rector that, during the week just over, Professor
Blaettermann had twice cowhided his wife,—once in
the public road, directly under the eyes of several witnesses,
—and that it was the "general opinion that Mrs.
Blaettermann had done nothing which could, in the
slightest degree, extenuate the enormity of the act."
"It is generally believed," added the chairman, "that
few, if any, students will enter Dr. Blaettermann's school
in consequence of the notoriety of his misconduct and the
general indignation which it excited." The Board convened
on September 14, and after calmly listening to a
long statement from him, in his own defense, removed
him, by a unanimous vote, from his professorship. He

soon, thereafter, retired to his farm situated in the
county; and here, while passing alone along a road that
led to a neighbor's, suffered a stroke of apoplexy that
killed him on the spot. His wife, a lady of English birth,
and of many accomplishments, opened a young ladies'
seminary in Charlottesville, which enjoyed a fashionable
and remunerative patronage.

That Blaettermann's services to the University had
been of substantial value, in spite of his constant spleen,
and harsh and tactless manners, was indicated in the appreciative
resolution which the Faculty adopted when informed
of his death; and they readily consented to the
interment of his body in the University cemetery. The
churlishness of his humor, in his intercourse with his colleagues,
is illustrated in the following example of it which
has been recorded. He was always very much interested
in the history of old or unusual words. Tucker, in spite
of his personal charm and fine literary taste, was thought
to be slightly prosy as a lecturer. "Professor Blaettermann,"
he said on one occasion, when the two happened to
meet, "what is the meaning of the word rigmarole?"
"I don't know whether I can give you the exact meaning
of the word," was the brusque reply, "but if one will go
to hear one or two of your lectures, he will have a good
idea of its meaning."

Owing to the voluminousness of his course, or to personal
disqualifications, Blaettermann was the only member
of the Faculty who during this period was assisted by
tutors. The first of those associated with his school was
Colonna D'Organo, who remained but one session
(1830–31), and then went back to Europe. He was
succeeded by I. Hervé, a citizen of France, who had been
a successful teacher of his native tongue in Richmond.

When Blaettermann was dismissed, Charles Kraitser,

a Hungarian wanderer, who was master of many
European languages, was elected in his place. Kraitser
had taken part in a Polish uprising against Russia, and
when appointed, had been residing in the United States
during seven years. The income from his chair,—
which was then chiefly dependent on the fees,—fell off so
"enormously," to use his own expression, that, in 1843,
he was brought to the necessity of making some new provision
for his subsistence. Writing to the rector, Chapman
Johnson, to this effect, he asked that his resignation
should be accepted at the close of the session in the following
July. But the purpose which he had in view was
not really withdrawal from the institution, but the acquisition
of a higher salary, which he was convinced could be
forced by this device. He was ready to remain, he
said, if the Board of Visitors would pay him five hundred
dollars additional for the present session, and guarantee
his income against fluctuations in the future. Johnson refused
to assent to this proposal,—doubtless because he
had reason to think that the decline in the fees was due
to Kraitser's unpopularity as a teacher. Kraitser, influenced
by the advice of Tucker, Harrison, Rogers, and
Dr. Cabell, who were friendly to him, finally withdrew
his resignation, but the majority of the Board were inflexible,
in spite of an earnest petition in his behalf submitted
by prominent citizens of Charlottesville. He is
principally remembered, in the history of the University,
for a rueful remark which he is alleged to have made
after his practical dismissal. "The Board of Visitors,"
he said, "were gentlemen whom it was hard to please.
They had kicked Dr. Blaettermann out because he had
whipped his wife, and they have kicked me out because
I have been whipped by my wife. What did they really
want?" Mrs. Kraitser, we are told, was a stalwart and
irascible woman of very humble beginnings, and constantly
turned her husband, a man of diminutive stature,
out of doors in the middle of the night.[15]

Bonnycastle, who followed Key in the chair of mathematics,
was expected to continue lectures in natural philosophy
until a new professor should be chosen. Probably,
the additional task now imposed on him did not allow
of this, for he neglected his old course so flagrantly that
Madison complained that he had brought about an
"awkward and unpleasant state of things" at the University.
Numerous students, who had come on to attend
that course, had left the institution in disgust. Madison
was anxious to fill the vacant chair of natural philosophy
with an English professor, because he knew that
Jefferson would have preferred such an incumbent. Mr.
Gallatin, the minister to the Court of St. James, was

warmly enlisted in securing one, and Key also endeavored
to make the search successful; but nothing resulted; and
the same upshot followed the appeal to Mr. Brown, the
minister to the Court of Versailles.

The names of several Americans were then canvassed.
One year after Bonnycastle's transfer to the chair of
mathematics,—during which time the chair of natural
philosophy must have received slim attention,—Robert
M. Patterson was appointed to it. Patterson's father
was a distinguished professor of mathematics in the University
of Pennsylvania, and had also, at one time, occupied
the position of Director of the Mint. The son had
first made the most of all the advantages which the former
institution had to offer, and had then completed his
education at the feet of Gay Lussac, in France, and
Humphrey Davy, in England. During his stay in Paris,
he was appointed the American consul-general for that
city, but Napoleon, under the impression that he was a
relative of Betsy Patterson, his grossly injured and abhorred
sister-in-law, declined to recognize him in that
office. After his return to the United States, he was
elected to a chair in the medical department of his native
university, and, finally, to the professorship of mathematics
and natural philosophy in its faculty of arts.
Afterwards, he was called to the influential post of vice-provost.
His practical talents were indicated in his being
selected, after the British dash on Washington, to
build the fortifications needed for the defense of Philadelphia.

Patterson was married to a beautiful and charming
woman. She and her husband, after their arrival at
the University, found an unfailing pleasure in throwing
open their drawing-room to students and professors alike;
and their pavilion soon became the scene of a hospitality

as graceful as it was overflowing. Patterson himself was
not only a man of uncommon learning, but also one of
many personal qualities that endeared him as well to his
pupils as to his colleagues. Distinguished for polished
manners, he paid his classes the compliment,—which, no
doubt, was gently laughed at rather than praised,—of
dressing for every lecture delivered by him as if he were
afterwards going on to an elaborate dinner party. He
was the intimate and constant companion of Dunglison;
and when the latter's name was considered for the professorship
of anatomy in the Baltimore Medical College,
he himself became a candidate for the professorship of
chemistry in the same institution, in order not to be separated
from his friend. But both failed of appointment.
Patterson resigned his chair after a few years' tenure,
and on his return to Philadelphia, was nominated to the
directorship of the Mint, in succession to his brother-in-law,
Dr. Samuel Morris. This he held during a period
of sixteen years.

Professor Joseph Henry was selected as the next professor
of natural philosophy, with the proviso, that,
should he decline, the place was to be open to Professor
William B. Rogers of the College of William and Mary.
Henry was already in too comfortable and congenial a
berth to accept the offer, but he earnestly recommended
Rogers. "He is one of those," he said, "who, not content
with retailing the untested opinions and discourses
of European philosophers, endeavor to enlarge the boundaries
of useful knowledge by experiments and observations
of his own." Rogers was only thirty-one years of
age when chosen, in 1835, to succeed Patterson. Then,
as throughout his later life, he possessed an almost tropical
imagination, and a disposition of poetic susceptibility.
His temperament, in fact, was that of a great orator;

but although so highly qualified for a political career, he
chose that of a scientist without hesitation, and remained
constant to it, with a loyalty that only increased in intensity
to the end. As early as his twenty-third year, he
delivered a course of scientific lectures in Baltimore; and
at twenty-four, was filling the combined chairs of mathematics
and natural philosophy in the College of William
and Mary. Like Emmet, he was the son of an Irishman
of genius, who had sought to better his condition by emigrating
to the United States, and who, after lecturing on
scientific subjects in Philadelphia, had accepted a professorship
in the old seat of learning at Williamsburg.

It was fortunate that the science of geology now
formed a part of the natural philosophy course at the
University of Virginia, for it was in his exposition of this
science, then rapidly springing up in importance, that
Rogers, the son, had already won his greatest distinction.
Indeed, our first personal glimpse of him is associated with
his zealous devotion to his work in that department. A
few weeks before his final election, he is found inspecting
the gold mines of Buckingham county and the rocks
of Willis Mountain, with a note-book and rough hammer
in his hands, and a pair of well-worn saddle bags
thrown over his horse's back to hold his scanty clothing
and his mineral specimens. So supremely valuable were
his explorations considered to be, that in, October, 1836,
he was permitted to suspend his lectures in order to complete
the vast Appalachian survey in which he was then
engaged, under his commission as State geologist. This
survey had begun very informally many months earlier.
"I have, for the last three years," he wrote Cabell in
December, 1834, "devoted much of my leisure time to
collecting valuable details relating to the geology of the
State, and during the four months I have recently passed

among the mountains, I have greatly enlarged my store
of information. In case a survey is authorized by the
Legislature, I should feel a strong desire to undertake
its execution." His first report as State geologist was
remarkable for its accuracy at a time when the knowledge
of geology was often ludicrously defective. Thus Dr.
Eaton, the author of one of the early manuals, admitted
that he was unable to decide whether a certain plant of
the coal measures was a vegetable or a rattle-snake!
The two brothers, William and Henry, were the first to
describe with completeness the order of rock strata in the
Atlantic States. Henry had undertaken the exploration
of New Jersey, while William was similarly engaged in
Virginia.

There were two courses on which Rogers lectured that
gave him a very congenial field for the display of his extraordinary
gift of exposition, and also of the breadth
and profundity of his scientific knowledge; namely geology
and astronomy,—the first bearing upon the composition
of the earth, one star; the second, on the composition
of the remaining stars of the universe, as well
as on the stupendous laws that control their vast revolutions.
All the witnesses testify with enthusiasm to
his mesmeric dominion over this audiences. "Who can
forget," says the venerable Francis H. Smith, his eloquent
successor in the same chair, "that stream of
English undefiled, so smooth, so deep, and yet so clear,
that passed from point to point with gentle touch, that
commonly flowed along with the quiet of conscious power,
yet sometimes became tumultuous with feeling, and then
came the music of the cataract and the glory of the rainbow!
Like Turner, with his one dash of carmine, so
Rogers with one happy adjective could illuminate the
whole picture." Nor was this impassioned power of

speech simply the vibration of a single musical key.
During his attendance at a meeting of the British Association,
one member was overheard to say to another,
who belonged to an altogether different section, "You
ought to have been in our room yesterday to hear Rogers,
the American geologist." "Oh," was the reply, "you
ought to have been in our room this morning to hear
the other Rogers, the American physicist." They were
both speaking of the same man!

Edward S. Joynes, describing Rogers's eloquence, as
recalled by him in after-life, said that it was "a spell
and an inspiration," and that "there was nothing like it
in the University." It was only once a week that he
discoursed on geology. The lecture room was situated in
one of the wings of the Rotunda, and the hour of delivery
was three o'clock in the afternoon, the most inconvenient
of all for the majority of the students, and yet
the addition to his own class from the other classes
was so great that the apartment could not hold the surging
crowd that fought to gain admission. "Old Bill,"
says Professor Joynes, "really liked this proof of popularity,
and would find occasion to let himself go. He
would walk backward and forward behind the long table,
speaking without notes, and borne along by the sympathy
of his audience. He had a way of passing his right
finger down the side of his nose, and whenever that happened,
a murmur would run around the room, 'Look out,
boys, Old Bill is going to curl,' and curl he could and did
as no other man could." Rogers, however, was not always
in this inspired humor. Aware that so many of
his hearers, in their eagerness to push and elbow their
way into his lecture-hall, had shirked their recitations, he,
at intervals, made a point of reducing his remarks to the
last residuum of scientific aridness. Some soaring topic,

instead of being treated in its lofty phases with illuminating
rhetoric of the highest order, would be discussed only
on those sides that were entirely devoid of popular interest.
"I was once present," writes Dr. Ruffner,
"when it was thought he would deliver one of his great
astronomical discourses, but he took his seat and announced
that he meant to deal with the cold mathematics
of the solar system; and added that this view would
affect a truly scientific mind more than any verbal presentation
of the grandeur of the system." This aptitude
for dry irony sometimes cuttingly revealed itself in his
intercourse with his own pupils. Once, during a lecture,
he quoted the opinion which a Greek philosopher had
ventured as to the geological origin of the earth. At
the ensuing meeting of his class, he asked one of its
members to restate this view. The latter, having forgotten
it, glanced hastily at a note-book which his comrade
in the next seat held up accommodatingly to give
him the information desired, and then stuttered out in
confusion, "He regarded the earth as a whale." A profound
silence, either of astonishment or apprehension,
followed, which was broken by Rogers saying, in his
coldest manner, "You should use your eyes more carefully,
sir."

By 1842, Dr. Emmet's health, always delicate, had become
so enfeebled that he was forced to leave the University,
—temporarily as he supposed,—in the hope of
restoring it by a residence in a milder climate; but he
died before he was able to resume the duties of his chair.
He was succeeded by Henry Rogers, who was as accomplished
in his department as his brother, William, was in
natural philosophy. Indeed, as a practical chemist and
expounder of chemical laws, he stood in the very front
rank of his profession.

XVII. Successors to the First Professors, continued

In 1830, John Tayloe Lomax, the first professor of
law, was compelled, as he expressed it, "by justice to his
family," to accept a judgeship from the General Assembly,
as that office would afford him a more lucrative income.
"Nothing," he wrote Cabell, "would have induced me to
relinquish the scheme of utility which my labors for
four years has been consummating, had not the expense
of that period, and the future prospects, warned me that
my revenues could not but be less than what my family
were entitled to claim at my hands." He offered, in
January, when he first mentioned his intention of retiring,
to continue the discharge of his old duties until the close
of the session, should the Board permit him to attend
the terms of his circuit, which would only consume six
weeks altogether spread over the whole interval. This
proposal must have been assented to, for his successor,
Davis, apparently was not appointed until the ensuing
July. Madison acknowledged, in a letter to Cabell, that
it would be useless to try to obtain the services of Judge
Tucker, Philip P. Barbour, or some other lawyer of their
exalted standing, for the reason which had led Judge
Lomax to resign, would, in turn, discourage men like
these,—who were in possession either of a large practice
or of seats on the bench,—from accepting the same position.
The only candidate of prominence who seems to
have applied directly for the place was William Maxwell,
of Norfolk,—who, however, enjoyed a literary rather
than a legal reputation.

John A. G. Davis, who succeeded Lomax, was a native
of Middlesex, and a graduate of the College of William
and Mary. In 1824, having removed to Charlottesville,
he became a member of the bar of Albemarle, but for

some months also attended a course of scientific lectures
at the University. He soon married a great-niece of
Jefferson. Like most of the talented and aspiring young
men of that day, he had concentrated an important share
of his energies upon local politics. As secretary of the
convention which met in Charlottesville, in 1828, he won
Madison's commendation by the conspicuous ability with
which he discharged the duties of that position. At this
time, he was associated with Thomas W. Gilmer and
Nicholas P. Trist, in the editorship of the Advocate, a
local journal of recognized influence. He had also
served with efficiency as the secretary of the Board of
Visitors.

Like Gessner Harrison, Davis was elected to his professorship
at the start for a period of one session only,
but his incumbency was made permanent at the close of
his first term as a reward for the unmistakable aptitude
which he had shown for the demands of his exacting chair.
So steadily did he rise in the solid esteem of all, that,
at the time of his unhappy death by the pistol of a
masked student, he had come to be considered the most
useful member of the Faculty. Charles L. Mosby, an
early graduate of the University, and an astute lawyer,
gave the following reason for this advance: "Some of
the professors," he said, in a letter to Cocke written in
1844, "who probably had the largest and most varied
attainments in their respective departments, have been
the least valuable to the institution, from the fact that
they were personally unknown beyond the precincts, and
so made no good impression on the public mind by free
and familiar intercourse with the people. Professor
Davis was an exception. ... To dignity of character,
he happily united a certain freedom and familiarity of
manner which made him as acceptable to the public as

he was valuable to the University." This suavity of
tongue and demeanor was also dwelt upon in the resolution
adopted by the vestry of his church after his murder;
and that body also referred very feelingly to the serenity
of his temper, the gentleness of his disposition, his kindness
of heart, faith in friendship, firmness of mind and
purpose, solicitude for the wants of others, and promptness
in the discharge of duty.

It was said of Davis by a distinguished pupil that he
taught the science of jurisprudence as a code of principles,
and not as a code of precedents, in the manner of his
most prominent successor. In his view of his subjects,
constitutional law formed by far the most vital part of
the course. The Federalist and the Resolutions of
1798–99 were the great fountain-heads of his political
doctrine, and through his exposition of these classic texts,
his pupils learned to deny the supremacy of the Federal
courts when the latter sought to define the rights of the
States according to their own interpretation of the Constitution.
He was, in other words, a consistent and inflexible
disciple of Jefferson and Madison. His loss was
a heavy blow to the prosperity of the school, which was
not softened by the appointment of his temporary successor,
N. P. Howard. Mrs. Ward, who had charge of
one of the hotels, complained to the Board of Visitors
that, in consequence of Davis's death, sixteen of her
boarders, who attended his classes, had withdrawn from
the University.

Dunglison resigned at the close of the session 1832–3.
"I have many fears," he wrote Madison, "that this
mountain air, which is proverbial rheumatic, does not
agree with Mrs. Dunglison, and this dread makes me
disposed to embrace any offer which may be sufficiently
advantageous." He had acquired such reputation in his

profession, that, by 1830, he was receiving invitations to
enter the faculties of other institutions. During that
year, he was elected to a chair in the Medical School of
Cincinnati, but he refused to accept it on the ground
that the site of that town lay too far inland to be convenient
for any one either to go to it or to depart from
it. He was asked to select any chair in the Jefferson
Medical College, in Philadelphia, which he should prefer,
but this invitation he at first declined, because that institution,
he said, had been founded in a spirit of opposition
to the other colleges of the city, and not as the
result of any real demand for its creation in the urgent
needs of the community. He seems to have been disposed
to accept the chair of anatomy in the Medical
School in Baltimore; but he suffered his candidacy to
come to nothing without apparent regret. He finally
received with favor a call to the chair of materia medica,
therapeutics, hygiene, and medical jurisprudence in the
Faculty of the University of Maryland.[16] So high was
the esteem in which he was held that Madison was
anxious that the "door should be kept open for his return"
in case the new post should prove disappointing to
him. He did not sever the tie with the University at
once, but from the beginning of the session of 1833–4,
down to October 15, he delivered his regular lectures on
obstetrics. The thoroughness of his system of teaching
was illustrated in his course on materia medica, his principal
topic: he first discoursed at length on the virtues
and uses of the different articles, and then recapitulated
the whole lecture; or else he recapitulated, equally as
fully, at the end of the description of each article. In
addition, he examined his pupils once a week on the subjects
of that week's lectures,—not, as he said, to catechise
them, but to bring back again whatever might have
been forgotton.

Long, it will be recalled, boasted of the quickness and
readiness with which he moulded himself to the domestic
habits of the Virginians. Apparently, this did not go far
beyond the acquisition of a taste for the humble but
wholesome corn-cake. Dunglison, on the other hand,
went much further. He had been residing at the University
only four years when he bought a negro for his
own household service,—an act the more remarkable as
his wife was an Englishwoman, who could have had but
little tolerance for the institution of slavery. As the
price was small,—two hundred and forty dollars,—the
negro was probably under age; and after his purchase,
occupied perhaps the general status of an English apprentice.

Dunglison was succeeded by Alfred T. Magill. His
appointment had come about in a way that would hardly
have been thought by Jefferson to be sufficient justification
of it, or in harmony with the reputation which the
chair had acquired through its previous incumbent. A
member of the Board of Visitors had been pleased with a
prize essay by Magill on the subject of typhus fever, and
he sent it to Dr. Johnson, the professor of anatomy and
surgery, for him to pass final judgment upon its merits.
In writing of his favorable impression to Magill, Johnson
said, "I read your essay very attentively ... and so
entirely was I satisfied with your ability that I did not
hesitate, though you were personally unknown to me,
to urge your claim in the strongest language." Judge
Henry St. George Tucker, Magill's father-in-law, was
equally enthusiastic about the essay. "For style and
manner," he said to Cabell, "it is not inferior to anything

I have ever seen." Apparently, the genuine excellence
of this single casual production alone brought Magill the
appointment.

He had received his medical education in Philadelphia;
but his active practice had been restricted to the county
of Jefferson, where he resided; and it had been spread
over four years only. The Board of Visitors limited his
first appointment to a single session in order to test his
ability to fill the chair acceptably. His introductory lecture
was delivered to a packed audience, which had gathered
in curiosity to hear the new and untried professor.
"I must confess I was not a little alarmed and agitated,"
Magill modestly reported afterwards, "but I have reason
to believe that I acquitted myself tolerably well."
And this was the history of his incumbency of his chair.
He entered upon its duties with a very moderate preparation
in comparison with his predecessor, Dunglison, but
he soon displayed aptitude of a high order; and when
compelled, four years later, to seek relief from ill-health
in a temporary rest, he received a sympathetic letter from
the pupils in his classes, in which they dwelt with emphasis
on his excellence as a teacher. In addition to his
learning, he possessed an unusual charm of character.
"He is gentle in his manners and free from austerity,"
said his father-in-law, in recommending him to Cabell;
and this, with his fine native talents, pure and conscientious
spirit, and superior attainments, has caused his memory
to remain one of the most fragrant in the history of
the University. He withdrew in May, 1837, and died
in the course of the following month. His last act was to
lift himself up with great pain in his bed, so that a picture
might be taken of him for the solace of his children.
Of the stoutest Revolutionary stock, he endured the ravages
of his disease, consumption, with all the fortitude

of a dying soldier. "This affliction," he wrote to his
father, "has made me see more clearly than ever before
the inestimable value of our religion, and my belief
in it has been to me the source of unspeakable consolation."

Augustus L. Warner, of Baltimore, succeeded Dr.
Johnson in 1834 as professor of anatomy and surgery;
R. E. Griffith succeeded Dr. Magill. He withdrew in
1839, and in his turn was succeeded by Henry Howard
as professor of medicine.[17] The chair had been offered
first to Dr. Gross, and afterwards to Dr. Harrison, of
Philadelphia; but both, being agreeably situated already,
had declined it. So much delay was caused by the effort
to find an acceptable tenant for it that the medical students
openly threatened to desert the precincts in a body
if it was not filled forthwith. In June, 1837, James L.
Cabell was a candidate for the professorship of anatomy
and surgery, which had become vacant through Dr. Warner's
resignation. Cabell was a master of arts of the
University, and after leaving its lecture-rooms, had pursued
his medical studies in a hospital in Baltimore, which
enjoyed the distinction of being the only one in America
in which students were permitted to perform the surgical
operations. At the time of his election, he was walking

the hospitals of Paris. His term of service began with
the session of 1837–8.

Cabell was a nephew and protégé of Joseph L. Cabell,[18]
and in his case, the first sharp issue of nepotism, in the
history of the University, was raised. The criticism
aroused by his appointment had undoubted pertinency,
for the new professor was a very young man whose
capacity as surgeon or physician had not been proven in
actual practice. Indeed, at the hour of his selection, he
had not progressed beyond the stage of studentship himself,
and yet he became, almost on the threshold of his
service, one of the most valuable of all the teachers
embraced in the distinguished circle of the Faculty. At
the start, he seems to have felt some aversion to the particular
department in which he was called upon to lecture.
He was so thoroughly educated that he was fully competent
to instruct in more than one course. As a young
man, he had been the mathematical tutor in the Napton
Academy in Charlottesville; and on the professorship of
moral philosophy becoming vacant in 1846, by the resignation
of Tucker, he came forward as a candidate for
the place, with a very learned and influential backing.
When Dr. McGuffey, who was elected, died many years
afterwards, Dr. Cabell, in association with Dr. Witherspoon,
the chaplain, undertook the duties of the chair
until a successor to McGuffey was chosen. At one time,
he considered very seriously the plan of withdrawing

from the University and establishing a boarding school
of a high order for young ladies. His wife's health was
then infirm, and he thought that the change to the country
proposed would be likely to restore it. In 1847, he was
elected to a professorship in Richmond Medical College,
and actually sent in his resignation of the chair of anatomy
and surgery, which he then occupied in the University;
but so anxious were the Board of Visitors to
retain his services that the advertisement for his successor
was deferred for a period of two weeks in the hope
that he would, in the interval, be induced to alter his
purpose. The resignation was withdrawn, and until his
death, Cabell continued a member of the University
Faculty.

Not a professor in the institution was more esteemed
and valued than he, and there was not one more capable
of original work. In 1859, he published the Testimony
of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind, in which he
drew, in support of his conclusions, upon all the resources
of physiology, zoology, and comparative philology, so
far as they had been opened up by research and observation.
Many of the laws of biology, which were then
unknown, were stated in this remarkable volume, and instances
to illustrate them adduced, which, only a short
time afterwards, were brought forward by the great
English protagonists of the Doctrine of Evolution. The
central point of his thesis was, that, as the lower organisms
had shown the power to develop variety without the
intervention of supernatural agencies, man himself might
have reached his present form by the same process of
natural selection and elimination. Many of the most serious
objections to the theory which the English scientists
foresaw, and more or less successfully combated, Cabell
also anticipated, such as the difficulty of differentiating

species from variety, the supposed sterility of hybrids,
and the absence of indispensable links. The outburst of
the War of Secession not only diverted him from further
investigation in this new field, but also obscured his share
in revealing those biological facts which have given so
much celebrity to the names of Darwin and Huxley.

It might have been easily predicted of a man who could
produce such a work as this that he would not fail to keep
abreast of every great advance in his profession. It was
noticed that he received all the new theories with eager
but discriminating hospitality. Instead of rejecting, it
was said, the remarkable revelations of the microscope
and chemistry, when applied to biological studies, he accepted
them in a spirit of wise enthusiasm. The antiseptic
treatment of Lister found in him an earnest advocate
before its merits had been generally recognized.
He was then seventy years of age, a period of life not
always friendly to innovation in any province of human
affairs. But it was in preventive medicine that his principal
achievement lay. The great movement on this line
which has accomplished so much, began just about the
time that he was chosen a member of the University Faculty.
Its inauguration enlisted his interest at once.
His name is found in the small list of the earliest members
of the American Public Health Association, the first
organized effort to introduce a reform in the laws relating
to hygiene; he became the President of this body in
1879; and as chairman of its committee on legislation,
was chiefly instrumental in drafting the measures which
culminated in the establishment of the National Board of
Health, of which he was appointed the first executive.
He took the foremost part in the work of that Board, especially
as directed to the suppression of yellow fever
in the Southern States by revolutionizing the methods of

quarantine; and it was admitted by his colleagues that it
was due, in large degree, to his peculiar qualifications for
the post that so much success was won.

Of Cabell, it was said that he had the courage of a
lion, tempered with the tenderness of a woman. He was
a man of extraordinary personal independence of character,
and yet full of consideration for the sensibilities of
others; firm and decided in the expression of his own convictions,
yet tolerant of differences of opinion. In his
personal bearing, he showed all the finished courtesy of
the old school, made more impressive by his natural air of
distinction; but nevertheless, when occasion arose, no one
could give sharper tongue to disapproval.

"One winter's morning," says Dr. John C. Wise,
"when Cabell's class in surgery awaited him, scanning
and noting the neat clear syllabus of the coming lecture,
it grew weary, and some impatient spirit going outside,
gathered a huge mass of snow, and returning with it,
inaugurated a ball contest, that soon waxed fast and furious.
Window lights were broken in plenty; the syllabus
was hit; and long irregular lines coursed down the
board. All was riot and confusion, when, in a moment,
the forgotten majestic Cabell was on the platform. He
arranged his notes on his lectern, took from his pocket an
immaculate kerchief, glanced about him and seemed to
shiver; he then saw the wrecked glass, the disordered
floor, and alas, his ruined syllabus. In a moment, it was
all clear to him; his wrath swept him as a typhoon lashes
the China Sea, yet he controlled it, and in a voice of suppressed
emotion he flayed us! 'For boys, yes; but for
men engaged in the serious and dignified study of medicine
to engage at such a time and in such a place in sport
destroying the property of a school afflicted with the
direst poverty, such conduct is incomprehensible and unmanly!"

Needless to say, there was no repetition of the
offense."

XVIII. The Professors' Fees

In the description given of the circumstances of the
English professors' selection and appointment, we referred
incidentally to the emoluments that were definitely
promised them for their anticipated services. As was
then stated, their principal reward was to consist of the
tuition fees. A specific sum was also to be paid, but only
to assure a fair remuneration, should the fees of any
chair turn out to be small and inadequate in amount.
The rule adopted at the University was really the one
that prevailed at the College of William and Mary when
Jefferson was a student there: we learn from LaRochefoucauld
that each instructor in that institution, at the
time of his visit, received four hundred dollars as a fixed
salary; and that he was also allowed to appropriate all
the fees derived from the young men who had entered
his classes.

It has been generally presumed, on the authority of
Jefferson himself, that his object in assigning the tuition
fees to the professors was to prick and stimulate them to
greater energy by making it directly to their interest to
increase the number of pupils seated in their several lecture-rooms.
It is not improbable, however, that the
University's poverty at the start was the true reason for
the rule. Had the first session showed an enrollment
of one thousand students instead of a hundred and twenty-three,
is it likely that he would have been willing for
the enormous fees, which would have resulted, to become
the personal property of a little coterie of men
who could lay no claim to having swelled the volume of
those fees by the influence of their own reputations? It

was the small attendance that was expected at first which
made his plan of remuneration not inequitable either to
the University or to the instructors. This was the only
safe method to follow until the institution should become
popular and prosperous. It is true that it worked
more profitably for the institution than for the professors
at first; but Jefferson was fully justified in thinking,
that, as between the two, the interests of the University
should be paramount. The original rule was, afterwards,
with great persistence, held up as a precedent,
which not even the Board of Visitors, it was asserted,
could validly slight; but this view was not frankly advanced
until the number of students had increased so
much that the fees of the most important classes had
begun to grow highly profitable to the professors who
taught them. The Board, as we shall see hereafter, very
properly refused to acknowledge that there was any partnership
between the University and its instructors, or that
the relation of the latter to the institution was one of
private gain at all. In time, they quietly and resolutely
abolished the right to the fees as a part of the remuneration
of the members of the Faculty; all were placed
upon the footing of an equal salary; and this at once removed
that suggestion of sordidness and self-advertisement
which was so unworthy of a seat of learning no
longer forced to rely upon shifts to preserve its solvency.

After the War of Secession, when there was a return
to the original system, in consequence of the fear that
poverty would hamper the institution for some years to
come, the unexpected accumulation of fees in the hands of
many of the professors from the large attendance of students
became so great that they themselves proposed to
contribute out of their own pockets to the establishment
of certain imperative scientific courses which the University

was unable to introduce, owing to the diversion
of these fees from its treasury.

During the first years, it was the instructors in law and
medicine who complained that the prevailing system bore
more harshly on them than on the other members of the
Faculty; and as this was shown to be true, they were permitted
to charge a higher single fee than the rest of the
schools, so as to counterbalance the disparity. The
Board, anticipating a steady increase in the number of
the students, sought to light upon a rule that would,
without injustice, assure the maintenance of practical
equality in the remuneration. It was finally decided to
allow the fixed salaries of the original teachers to remain
as they were, but, after 1835, to restrict those of the
new to one thousand dollars, which was five hundred dollars
less. No general alteration in the system of fees
was attempted at this time, which left the disparity unchanged.
The following table indicates the relative
profit, in the form of fees, of the different professors during
the years 1835, 1836 and 1837:

                   

	1835	1836	1837	Average
Ancient Languages	$2,180.00	$1,950.00	$1,944.00	$2,031.00
Modern Languages	1,580.00	1,735.00	1,607.00	1,640.66
Mathematics	3,045.00	3,065.00	3,493.00	3,201.33
Natural Philosophy	2,105.00	2,210.00	2,897.00	2,404.10
Chemistry	2,815.00	3,145.00	3,090.00	3,016.66
Medicine	943.00	1,045.00	1,395.00	1,114.00
Anatomy and Surgery	1,130.00	1,500.00	1,465.00	1,365.00
Moral Philosophy	1,280.00	1,710.00	1,195.00	1,395.00
Law	1,475.00	2,755.00	2,135.00	2,121.66

It was reasonable enough that Tucker, the incumbent
of the chair of moral philosophy, the fees of which had
shrunk so sensibly, should have complained to Cabell of
the flagrant inequality in the remuneration. Four of
the schools, he pointed out, received from one thousand to
twelve hundred dollars above the average, and four others,

from four hundred to nine hundred above it. The
difference between the largest and the smallest income
from fees was annually in excess of twenty-one hundred
dollars. The establishment of the School of Engineering
had greatly swelled the profits of two of the schools, which
had already reached a very high figure; namely, of the
Schools of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. "I
have always felt it an injustice and a humiliation,"
Tucker remarks in the letter quoted, "that I receive so
much less compensation than several of my associates,
who perform no more laborious services, whose experience
was no greater than mine, and who incurred no
greater responsibility. ... I am sure that there is no
professor here whose place could not be readily filled, or
whose loss would make the difference of five students to
the University. I have felt the disparity the more too,
as well as those circumstanced like me, because there is,
perhaps, no other college in the United States in which
the pay of the professors is grossly unequal, and except
in the case of the president, is not precisely the same."

Tucker proposed that each member of the Faculty
should receive a fixed and uniform salary out of a joint
fund to be made up of the annual appropriation by the
State and the fees paid by the students. This plan was
in harmony with the one which all the other colleges had
adopted. Moreover, he predicted that it would nourish
a feeling of concord and fraternity among the professors;
and furthermore, by rendering them independent of the
fees of their classes, increase their ability to maintain
discipline and preserve order. Tucker suggested that,
should this solution be acceptable to the Board, the fixed
salary should remain as at present, and that all the fees
should be thrown into a general pot, with the exception
of ten dollars of the amount paid by each pupil, which

should be reserved for the professor of the class to which
that pupil belonged. These sensible proposals led to no
change in the system of remuneration at that particular
time; but, as we shall see, they were adopted in principle
at least, at a riper hour.

In spite of the inequalities that prevailed in the professors'
incomes, the social ties uniting them seemed to
have been, on the whole, kindly and agreeable. We have
already quoted Tucker's pleasant impressions of the
social life of the University. In 1834, Bonnycastle
wrote to Cocke that the members of the Faculty "held
private meetings for the exchange of mutual good feelings,"
and for the discussion of "the most interesting
topics of the day." These parties were composed of the
instructors, the clergyman, the proctor, and visiting
strangers invited by the host. Dr. Magill spoke very
gratefully of the politeness and hospitality that were
lavished on him after his arrival. "I have either dined
or supped with most of the professors," he wrote his
wife, who lingered in Winchester. He sent her word to
purchase twenty or thirty pounds of butter before she
set out, and to bring it along with her in a jar as a part
of her baggage. There was, however, he said, no necessity
for her to encumber herself with pickles and preserves,
for Mrs. Davis, Mrs. McKennie, and Mrs. Emmet
had already filled the storeroom in his pavilion with
condiments and sweetmeats,—all made with their own
beneficent and skillful hands. Some other amiable friend
gave him a barrel of vinegar; but this, unfortunately,
burst, and flooded the entire floor of his cellar with its
acrid fluid.

XIX. The Library

How were the students supplied with the books which
they required for their regular courses or for supplementary
reading? There were, in the interval between
1825 and 1842, several book-sellers established in the
immediate vicinity of the University, who were ready to
furnish all the volumes that were called for in the classroom.
The principal one seems to have been C. P. McKennie;
and next to him were Street and Sanxey, a Richmond
firm, who, during many years, were represented on
the ground by William Wertenbaker. The collection of
articles temptingly arranged in these two stores was large
and varied; indeed, the polite shopmen endeavored to
satisfy every need of the student in the way of the toilet
as well as of the lecture-room. A pair of morocco
pumps would be displayed in close proximity to the Federalist
and the Resolutions of 1798–9, and a bundle of
cigars or roll of violin strings would half cover an ornate
copy of Don Quixote or Gil Blas. Soap, shoes, quills,
sealingwax, bear's oil, hose, snuff-boxes, powder, razors,
brushes,—all were for sale with the latest text-books in
law, medicine, natural philosophy, and the ancient languages.
Whether the student sought to gratify his taste
for smoking, letter-writing, or foppishly adorning his person,
or whether he wished to add to his collection of
books for study or private reading, it was to these accommodating
stores that he first directed his foot-steps.

It would be presumed that, with the University
library at his service, he would not have been forced to
spend much money in purchasing for the pleasure of independent
reading, but, as we shall now see, the volumes
of that library,—at first, at least,—were reserved for
consultation only. It was not a storehouse of literature

for pastime; on the contrary, it was originally gathered
up with the most inflexible reference to its practical usefulness
in complementing the work of the lecture-room.
The plan for its formation was drafted by Jefferson himself.
This plan, like the one for the extension of the
buildings, allowed of the library's indefinite expansion
along the same general lines. The collection was to
embrace: (1) books of great reputation which were too
costly for the average purse; (2) the most authoritative
volumes in exposition of each science; (3) tracts marked
by special merit; (4) books that were valuable because
written in rare languages; (5) several editions of the
same classic, which were esteemed each for its own excellence;
(6) translations of superior elegance in themselves,
or opening to readers works in an abstruse tongue;
(7) books that were valuable as relating to some subject
that had been but little treated.

There were two conspicuous features in this scheme
which were highly characteristic of Jefferson: (1) all
volumes that were designed for amusement only were
to be shut out; (2) the only religious books to be let in
were to be those that were so free from controversial
taint that persons of every sect could read them with
approval. Indeed, so jealous was he of all ecclesiastical
interpretations that he refused to accept any work on
geology that could be made the basis of theorizing on
the evolution of the globe through purely material
agencies. The subdivisions adopted by him show how
thoroughly he had, in his own mind, considered every section
of the field which the volumes of a university library
should cover. They are worthy of repetition as offering
further evidence of the breadth and exactness of his
practical intellect.[19]

         

History		Philosophy
Civil	Physical	Mathematical	Moral
1 Ancient 2 Modern, Foreign 3 British 4 American 5 Ecclesiastical	6 Physics, Pure 7 Agricultural 8 Chemical 9 Anatomy and Surgery 10 Medical 11 Biology 12 Botany 13 Mineralogy 14 Technology 15 Astronomy 16 Geography	17 Arithmetic 18 Geometry	19 Ethics 20 Religion 21 Law—Nature and Nations 22 Law—Equity 23 Law—Common 24 Law—Merchant 25 Law—Maritime 26 Law—Ecclesiastical 27 Law—Foreign 28 Law—Civil Polity
Fine Arts
29 Architecture 30 Gardening, Painting, Sculpture, Music 31 Epic Poetry 32 Romantic Poetry 33 Pastoral Poetry 34 Didactic Poetry		35 Tragedy 36 Comedy 37 Dialogue and Epistolary 38 Rhetoric 39 Criticism in Theory 40 Bibliography 41 Philology

The largest number of volumes in the library, as provided
for by Jefferson, related to the two subjects, in
which,—if we leave out natural history and natural
philosophy,—he felt the most penetrating interest;
namely, ancient languages and the science of law. There
were, in the first list submitted by him, four hundred
and nine titles touching the classics, and three hundred
and sixty-seven touching jurisprudence in all its branches.
Modern history followed with three hundred and five;
religion and ecclesiastic history, with one hundred and
seventy-five; pathology, with one hundred and sixty;
philology and literature, with one hundred and eighteen;
and the remaining subjects in dwindling proportions.

There were certain aspects of this original catalogue
which revealed very plainly the bent of Jefferson's tastes

as a student and as a reader. The number of volumes
which it contained relating to ancient history were nearly
double the number of those relating to modern,—only
seven titles bore on English history and only six on
American. The former included the works of Hume
and Smollett; the latter, of Robertson, Marshall, and
Botta. Only one of the six volumes bearing on natural
history and zoology was written in the English language;
only two of the nine bearing on botany; and only
two of the nine also bearing on the mechanical arts.
All the volumes descriptive of architecture, painting,
sculpture, and music, were written in Italian. Of the
twenty-five titles relating to astronomy, five only were
written in English. All the works in epic poetry belonged
to foreign tongues. No copy of the Paradise
Lost is to be found in the original list. Was this because
that great poem was, in his opinion, tainted with the
spirit of ecclesiastical, not to say, sectarian, aggressiveness?
It was perhaps too orthodox and too controversial
in its flavor to be really palatable to him. The
numerous volumes containing odes and pastorals were,
with one remarkable exception, written either in the
Latin or the Italian tongue; B. M. Carter's Poems was
that exception, for this provincial author seems to have
rushed in where Milton's angels had feared to tread.
All the didactic poetry was in the Greek or Latin language.

Shakespeare gained an entrance under the head of
Tragedy, but no English author enjoyed the like distinction
under the head of Comedy. As the plays of
Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Congreve could claim no
higher usefulness than an ability to tickle the sense of
amusement, they were rejected, and the Latin Humorists
enthroned in their stead. Chesterfield, in English, and

Sevigné, in French, were admitted under the head of
Epistles, and Professor Tucker's Essays under the head
of Criticism. Bacon, Locke, Selden, Gibbon, Johnson,
Berkeley, Blair, and Darwin were represented in their
most famous works; Sterne, strange to say, only in a
volume of sermons. Pope,—except in his translation of
Homer's Iliad,—Gray, and other illustrious English
poets, were not represented at all.

From the point of view of the ancient classics, the
library, in its original selections, was of extraordinary
value; its value from a scientific point of view was hardly
less; but from the point of view of English belles-lettres,
it was so starved and spindling as to be undeserving of
praise. There was a moral and a practical explanation
for this disproportion: first, Jefferson seems to have relished
but little the delights of the classics of his native
language; and second,—and this is the more important
reason of the two,—the University's means were so
narrow that he was compelled to restrict his purchases to
the collection of a working library for the professors and
students. He, perhaps, thought that the study of the
ancient classics would ripen the literary taste of the young
men without the need of bringing in the works of the
principal English writers. Had there been, at the start,
a separate chair of history and literature, it is quite possible
that he would have swelled his list with a greater
number of books bearing on the authors of his own
tongue, for such a school, once created, would have required
as many authorities as the School of Latin and
Greek. A supplementary list removed some of the
English deficiencies of the first list, for in it we discover,
not only Roscoe's Leo X, O'Meara's Napoleon, and
Wirt's Patrick Henry, but also Thomson's Seasons,
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, and Butler's Hudibras; and

in addition, the most famous works of Swift, Molière,
Voltaire, and Franklin.

Thoughtfully and precisely as Jefferson's classification
had been drawn, it was not employed as a guide in the
final arrangement of the library. The one really followed
contained several important modifications; instead
of the titles being distributed under forty-two heads,
they were compressed under twenty-nine,—which was
effected by reducing, under a single head, subjects that
had, at first, been assigned to several. Law was not subdivided
at all, and religious history and ecclesiastical history
were united. Medicine, on the other hand, was
expanded under half a dozen heads. This new classification,
however, was attended with a loss of analytical
lucidity.

The books that were purchased before Jefferson's
death were obtained through the agency of either Francis
Walker Gilmer or William Hilliard, of Boston. A large
proportion arrived at the University in time for his personal
inspection. These were hauled up from Richmond
by wagon under the supervision of W. B. Garth, who, in
March, 1826, delivered seven hundred and thirty-three
volumes in two boxes, and in July, three additional cases.
It is a proof of the closeness of Jefferson's scrutiny, that
he descried a defect in the title of one of the books after
they had been assorted on the shelves in an apartment
of the present Colonnade Club.[20] He had ridden over
from Monticello, and so soon as he entered the room, he
began to take up and look through one volume after another.
After some time thus spent, he called Mr. Wertenbaker

to his side; pointing to a copy of Gibbon's Decline
and Fall, he said, "You should not have accepted
that copy of that book. It should have been returned
at once." "Why, sir?" asked the librarian in surprise.
"It is a very handsome edition." "That may be so,"
replied Jefferson, "but look at the back." An inspection
revealed that the title, instead of being Gibbon's
Roman Empire, as it should have been, was Gibborn's
Roman Empire.

Jefferson had been dead only a week when we discover
Hilliard himself in the library busily assisting Wertenbaker
in opening the boxes which contained the final
instalment of the volumes that had been last bought.
They were found to be in perfect condition, and, in
number and title, in conformity with the invoices.
"The amount furnished for the purchase of the books,"
Hilliard reported to the Faculty, "was altogether inadequate
to the accomplishment of the catalogue made
out." The most expensive works, indeed, had to be
omitted at first because there was only a sum of ten
thousand dollars reserved for the purchase. As the commission
on this amount was too small to assure Hilliard
a satisfactory compensation for his exertions and loss of
time, the Faculty consented to his firm's establishing an
agency in Charlottesville, which was to supply the students
with text-books, and the library with all future additions
to its collection. So great, however, was the
dissatisfaction caused by the failure of the firm to furnish
the German editions needed by some of the classes, and
also by its dilatoriness in general, that the Faculty complained
to the Board of Visitors and urged that New
York booksellers should be employed, as they were in
much more regular and frequent communication with
Europe than those of Boston. The committee reported

in September, 1826, that the present collection was "an
excellent foundation for a public library, especially in
ancient works," but that "it was deficient in modern publications";
and they earnestly recommended that numerous
additions should be made to it in the two departments
of literature and science.

By what means was the number of volumes in the
library gradually increased? In his will, Jefferson bequeathed
to the University all the books that should
belong to him at the time of his death. In spite of the
sale of the choicest volumes to Congress, the residue still
contained works of extraordinary interest and value; but
owing to the debts for which his estate was liable, his
executor, his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was
reluctantly compelled to sell this important remainder.
"Feelings of the most affectionate devotion to my grandfather's
memory," he said to the Faculty, "would induce
me as his executor to gratify his wishes upon these points
at all risks but that of injustice to his creditors, and the
fear that his memory might be stained with the reproach
of a failure to comply with any of his engagements. An
assurance is, therefore, given that, when his debts are discharged,
however much his family may be straitened in
their circumstances, no consideration of pecuniary interest
in their individual distress will bar immediate compliance."

The only books that had belonged to Jefferson which
found their way to the shelves of the library were presented
by him during his life-time. These were but four
in number, and were not of uncommon interest beyond
their association with Monticello. The library also
failed to acquire the collection previously the property of
Francis Walker Gilmer. At his executors' request,
these volumes had been inspected and appraised by a

committee of the Faculty, but the Board of Visitors declined
to purchase them for the reason that the funds
at their disposal would not justify it. It is possible
that many of these books were duplicates of some already
in the library's possession, and that few of them were
modern enough to supply that deficiency in works on
science and literature which had already become a ground
of complaint.

The first gift of importance was from Bernard Carter,
in 1826, which consisted of one hundred volumes. In
the course of the next year, Christian Bohn, of Richmond,
presented five hundred more; and about the same year,
Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, eighty-four of a miscellaneous
character. An addition of some value was made
by purchase from Dr. Dunglison.[21] Dunglison, accustomed
to the English university libraries, was acutely impatient
over the absence of new books in the library of
the University of Virginia. "It is impossible for the
professors to keep pace with the advancing state of
science," he wrote Cabell, in January, 1829, "unless the
necessary materials are furnished them, and none have
been received here since the year 1824. For a period, we
may retain a respectable footing, but unless we can obtain
new materials, the period must arise when our capability
of communicating instruction will fall below the
existing state of knowledge." Lomax had already expressed
the same apprehension. "Certain books," he
said to Cocke, "are indispensable to me, and among them
are Wharton's Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of
the United States, which are not to be found in the
library." "Without these reports," he added, "instruction

upon some of the most important and interesting
subjects must fail."

During the session of 1827–28, there was no lack of
periodicals at least; all the principal American and English
reviews and professional journals were then sent to
the library by Hilliard, Gray, and Company, of Boston,
at an annual cost of over one hundred dollars; but the
subscriptions could not have been renewed, for, in April,
1829, the Faculty adopted a resolution that each member
should order one or more periodicals at his own expense,
to be retained by him for three weeks, and then
deposited in the library for general use. The number
to which the library itself subscribed had fallen from
forty-two to six. Hilliard gave up his agency, and
Wertenbaker suggested that, thereafter, the domestic
journals should be taken through a bookseller at the
University, and the foreign through one with a shop in
a seaport. In 1830, the number of volumes stored in
the library was supposed to be eight thousand. It appears
that, in July of the preceding year, the Board of
Visitors had directed that a large sum standing to the
University's credit in the hands of Baring Brothers, of
London, should, after deductions to meet existing engagements,
be expended in the purchase of new books.
The surplus to be devoted to this end could not have
amounted to much, for, in 1832, the Faculty endeavored
to enlist the powerful influence of Governor Floyd,—
who had shown a friendly interest in the institution,—in
their effort to persuade the General Assembly to make an
annual appropriation for the benefit of the library. The
Board of Visitors had begun, in 1829, to apply a small
sum to its use. This, in that year, was five hundred dollars;
but in 1834–5, it was only three hundred. Money
was now very urgently needed for other purposes.

Heavy rains had fallen in 1834, and so excessive was
the dampness which had followed in the library-room
that it was feared that the entire collection would be
irretrievably damaged. When the librarian, Thomas
Brockenbrough, was sent for by the Faculty, in their
anxiety to stop the progress of the threatened ruin, he
was found to be absent from the University, and a temporary
substitute had to be appointed to take the measures
called for at once. The same dampness had
occurred in 1827; and so great was the apprehension
then of injury to the books stored in the galleries that
they had been removed for the winter.

An addition to the library was made in 1834 by a
friend of Jeremy Bentham, who had, for this purpose,
discriminately picked out the most interesting volumes
among the productions of that philosopher. Two boxes
of books were also presented by the English Government.
To a committee appointed by the Faculty was now referred
the choice of such volumes as the University
could afford to purchase. Bonnycastle was at the head
of this committee in 1836, and his keen critical judgment
in English belles-lettres was shown in his selections,
which comprised such works of established reputation as
Selden's Table Talk, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, De
Tocqueville's America, and Count Hamilton's Memoirs.
Jefferson's principle that the shelves of the library should
not be lumbered with books that were only intended for
amusement, did not appeal to this highly educated English
literary and scientific scholar; and on every occasion
open to him, he continued to increase the miscellaneous
collection by adding to it classical English works that had
found their chief reason for a prolonged popularity, not
in pedagogic utility, but in the gratification of cultivated
tastes. It became customary in time for each professor

to hand in a list of books which he considered desirable,
and from the entire number of these lists, a selection was
made for actual purchase. By this means, the heavy linguistic,
scientific, and professional character of the original
assortment was further diminished, to its great improvement
for the general and casual reader.

The first endowment fund for the library's benefit
had its origin in a provision of Madison's will: he bequeathed
it the sum of fifteen hundred dollars; but with
the restriction that the interest accruing from that amount
should alone be used. He also left it a legacy of about
one thousand volumes out of his own collection. The
Board of Visitors instructed Wertenbaker to send Mrs.
Madison a catalogue, in order that, in picking out these
one thousand volumes, she might be able to avoid the selection
of duplicate copies; but this spirit of helpfulness fell
upon stony ground, for Mrs. Madison not only neglected
to comply with the Board's request at once, but, as we
shall see, deferred all attention to it so long that it was
found necessary to threaten a law suit.

The largest addition to the library made previous to
1842 was embraced in the gift of Christian Bohn, of
Richmond. The books which comprised it included
many volumes that were either duplicate copies or valueless,
for we are told that a committee, headed by Gessner
Harrison, was, for this reason, appointed by the
Board to inspect and assort them with unusual care.
Those decided to be suitable for the library were deposited
on shelves specially reserved for that purpose,
while the rest were packed in boxes and stored away for
future disposition. There were discovered many periodicals
belonging to complete or broken series, and for the
most part unbound. In the course of the following year,
Dr. Joseph Togno, the tutor in the School of Modern

Languages, gave the library a portrait of Cosmo di
Medici; a large portfolio with a handsome engraving
in it; and numerous casts of club-feet,—a present more
appropriate to a collection of anatomical specimens than
to a collection of books, unless, by a stretch of the imagination,
it was supposed to be reminiscent of Byron's deformity.

XX. Librarians and Rules

John V. Kean was the first person to be chosen as
librarian of the University. He was the son of Andrew
Kean, of Charlottesville, who, in recommending him to
the favorable consideration of the Board, said that he
possessed a good English education, a tolerable acquaintance
with the Latin tongue, and some small knowledge of
the Greek. A portion of this learning had been garnered
by him professionally, for, previous to his appointment in
1835, he had been a busy school-master in the adjacent
county of Louisa. He occupied the position of librarian
during nine months, at a salary of one hundred and fifty
dollars. His incumbency was concurrent with the first
session. Few functionaries of the institution were ever
so little burdened with the duties of an important post
as he, for it was not until after the close of his term
that the library was really formed. The only books of
which he could have been custodian in 1825, were such
as had been purchased abroad by Gilmer; and these must
have made up a collection of modest proportions.

The vacancy created by his retirement was filled by
William Wertenbaker, who was appointed temporarily
by Jefferson as a member of the committee of superintendence,
and in April, 1826, permanently by the Board.
Thus began this officer's connection with the University,
which he was to serve, during more than half a century,

with a diligence, fidelity, and integrity that have made
him one of the outstanding figures in its history. His
selection, while still so young a man, was a signal proof
of Jefferson's discernment. Although a mere lad at the
time, he had, through his father's influence, obtained a
seat in the clerk's office in Charlottesville, then in the
charge of Alexander Garrett. Garrett was a capable
man of business and a highly respected citizen, and under
the supervision of this excellent exemplar, young Wertenbaker
remained until he arrived at his majority. During
the War of 1812–15, he joined the company of Captain
Estes, a part of General Cocke's Brigade, and with
his musket on his sturdy shoulder, marched on foot to
Eastern Virginia to assist in repelling the British. After
the close of hostilities, he became deputy sheriff of the
county,—a position that called alike for business habits
and for personal courage. He seems to have entered
the University law school as soon as its lectures began.

Wertenbaker was chosen librarian and secretary of the
Faculty simultaneously. Opposition to his appointment
to the latter post was expressed by several professors, on
the ground that he was not a member of their body;
such an appointment, they predicted, would put a sharp
curb on the free play of their discussions; and it certainly
led to one disclosure,—that of Key angrily kicking
Blaettermann's shins under the table,—which has
caused the dignity of some of these early proceedings to
be doubted by posterity. The librarian's salary now
amounted to fifty dollars only; but the position was accompanied
by distinct advantages of another sort: it
not only took up a small share of his time, but also entitled
him to a dormitory free of rent, and to tuition in
every school without the payment of a fee. He was at
liberty too to use the volumes in his custody without being

liable for the regular charge. His earliest task, as we
have seen, was to arrange the books on the temporary
shelves in the Central College pavilion; his next was to
remove them to the alcoves and galleries of the great
circular room on the main floor of the Rotunda; and his
third, to catalogue them in the proper shape for printing.
This work was finished in 1828.

It was thought to be such a privilege to have access to
the books without being subject to the rigid restrictions,
which, as we shall soon find, were imposed on their use,
that there was no difficulty in obtaining the services of a
student as junior librarian, although no salary went with
the post. In 1827, when the senior librarian must have
been busy in his leisure hours with making up the catalogue,
his assistant was James C. Bruce, the heir to the
largest fortune in the State, and, subsequently, a planter
of wealth and distinction in Southern Virginia. Wertenbaker,
however, was determined to pursue his original
plan of being called to the bar, and in 1828, a candidate
to succeed him was brought forward by Nicholas P.
Trist in the person of Lewis Randolph, a matriculate of
the University. But Wertenbaker does not appear to
have resigned at once. In 1829, he was appointed to the
office of assistant proctor, which, carrying with it police
duties of importance, threw him more than once into
sharp collision with lawless students.[22] He also undertook
the functions of the local postmaster.

During the brief interval of his retirement from the
office of librarian, it was filled by W. H. Brockenbrough,
a kinsman of the proctor of that name, who had been so

intimately associated with Jefferson. He was, at the
same time, a student in the School of Law, and in later
life, rose to be a judge of some distinction in Florida.
The salary had been increased in 1830 to two hundred
and fifty dollars per annum. Brockenbrough proved to
be an unsatisfactory incumbent of the office. We have
referred to his absence from the University during the
heavy rains of 1834. He seems to have constantly left
his post without giving notice; and he did not always
take the trouble to engage a substitute during his absence.
In a report to the Faculty by a committee appointed in
1834 to investigate his delinquencies, he was charged with
selecting incompetent assistants; with putting off the hour
for opening the library; with admitting students without
tickets, as required by the rules; and with winking at
their taking down freely any volume that appealed to
their curiosity. Very often the library was unlocked by
the bell-ringer, a negro servant, without the librarian
being present; and not infrequently, the students entered
it privately accompanied by strangers. They kept the
books in their dormitories as long as they wished, and
were never hauled up for any damage which they had
caused to the volumes.

Proving incorrigible, Brockenbrough was compelled
to resign in July, 1835, and Wertenbaker took his place.
Under the rules adopted six months earlier, the latter
had the right to select two assistants, at least one of
whom was required to reside within the precincts. Of
the assistants named, one was his brother; the other,
Colonel Ward, who was now in charge of a University
hotel. Wertenbaker retained the office of postmaster,
and was told to expect a summons at any time to serve
as secretary of the Faculty. This duty was reimposed
upon him, the following year. In addition to being postmaster,

secretary of the Faculty, and librarian, he was,
as we have already stated, the local agent of the firm of
Street and Sanxey, the Richmond stationers. The shop
was popularly known as "Wertenbaker's book-store,"
but with his multifarious employments, it must have been
left for the most part under the eye of a clerk. At a
later date, he contracted to manage one of the hotels;
and in fact, seems to have been ready and competent to
fill any position except that of professor, at an hour's
call. He was married to the sister-in-law of Warner
Minor, the most discreet and sober-minded of the original
hotel-keepers, and, during some years, resided in the
middle building in the East Range occupied by the proctor
after the close of the War of Secession. It was his
custom, when he was advanced in age, to salute the students,
even in the late afternoon, with a cheery "good
morning"; and when his reason for this was asked, he
would reply that he bade them good morning because
they were in the morning of life,—a proof of the quaint,
but benevolent humor of the man.

The regulations for the government of the library
were drafted in March, 1825, just three days before the
University was thrown open. To the members of the
Faculty was granted the privilege of an almost unrestricted
use of the books; but no student was permitted
to carry away a volume unless he could show a request to
that effect from one of the professors; and the number
which he was allowed to remove was limited to three.
The fine imposed for the detention of a book beyond the
date assigned for its return was graduated by its physical
character: if it was a 12mo, or smaller, and he held it
back one week, he was to pay ten cents; if an octavo,
twenty cents; if a quarto, thirty; and if a folio, forty.
Should he deface a volume only moderately, he was required

to pay its full value; should he damage it seriously,
double its value; and should he lose it, three times its
value.

The librarian was ordered to be on hand in the library
once a week, and to remain at least one hour to receive all
books returned, and to give out all those that were asked
for. A professor had the right to bring back a book at
any hour, and on any day, that was convenient to him,
except Sunday. No stranger was privileged either to
enter the library, or to take down a volume from a shelf,
except in the presence of the librarian. In 1825, the
day for the latter's attendance was Monday; and in 1826,
Tuesday. So anxious were the young men to obtain the
volumes that some of them went so far as to forge their
professors' names to formal permits. In February,
1826, a box was placed outside of the library door, in
which the petitions for books were to be dropped the day
before the library opened; and on the latter day, the
volumes were handed out like loaves of charity through
the iron bars of a monastery. Later in the course of
the same year, the library was accessible to students on
every day of the week, except Sunday; but no one of them
was authorized to enter the room, unless, on the preceding
day, he had sent a note to the librarian containing
that request. A ticket was then made out with his name,
which had the advantage of being transferable. Only
twenty such tickets could be issued for a single day.
When he had succeeded in getting through the door, the
student was not permitted to take down a book of reference
without the consent of the librarian in writing. If
he was guilty of breaking the silence by speaking aloud,
or causing other noises, he was denied the privilege of a
second admission.

In 1825, every student was required to make a deposit

of one dollar as a library fee; and this was, in 1826, increased
to ten dollars; and should this sum be exhausted
at any time during the session by the volume of fines
which he had incurred for damaging or losing books, he
was compelled to renew the original amount. In October
of this year, the hour of opening the library was
shifted to half past three in the afternoon, and of closing
to five; and the only days to which this rule did not apply
were Saturday and Sunday, on which days the library remained
locked. Dr. Blaettermann suggested that each
professor should be provided with a key to the door, but
the Faculty quietly voted this proposition down. The
members of this body were quite as harsh and conscientious
in imposing rules on themselves, in the use of the
library, as they were on the students,—fifty cents was to
be paid for every day that a book was withheld by one
of themselves beyond the time fixed for its return. If
the offender had taken out a periodical, he was to pay
four dollars and a half for every day it was held back
after the first week of its unlawful detention.

In 1831, the regulation was adopted that the library
was to be accessible for a definite interval daily except
Sunday; but no student was to be permitted to enter the
room save to consult a book. He still had to receive
the removable volumes which he asked for, through a
hole in the door. The rules of 1835 required that the
library should be open, from the first day of the session
down to May 1, between the hours of three and five;
and after May 1, between the hours of four and six; but
the former regulation that only twenty students should be
admitted on any one day was still retained. The librarian
was now instructed to furnish, once every two
months, a list of all books which were held back without
his permission; of all fines that had been imposed,

whether paid or unpaid; of all damages to volumes that
had been caused by students or professors; and of all recent
additions to the collection, whether by gift or by
purchase.

An examination of the records of the library during
these earlier years brings out the fact that it was used
very liberally by the professors. Sometimes a member
of the Faculty would be credited with the possession of
as many as ten volumes. Key was the one who drew
most frequently on the resources of the collection; and
he very amiably sponsored many students who belonged
to classes other than his own. The first year the completed
library was open to readers, thirteen hundred and
forty-five volumes were taken out,—among them,
Shakespeare's Plays, sixty-three times; Johnson's works,
forty-two; Chesterfield's Letters, twenty-one; Cervantes's
Don Quixote, twenty; and Gibbon's Decline and Fall,
fourteen. Other books that enjoyed a decided popularity
were Thomson's Seasons, Sterne's Sermons, the
works of Voltaire, Locke, Bolingbroke and Robertson,
the Histories of Smollett and Hume, Middleton's Cicero,
O'Meara's Napoleon, Wirt's Patrick Henry, and Plutarch's
Lives. The number of volumes withdrawn in
the following year were thirteen hundred and twenty-four.
The favored authors during this session were again
Johnson, Gibbon, Chesterfield, Cervantes, and Shakespeare.
Among the books which had numerous readers
were Erskine's Speeches, Robertson's Histories, the
Life of Chatham, Boccaccio's Decameron, Hudibras, Old
English Plays, Thomson's Seasons, Pope's Homer,
Swift's works, and the Columbiad. Many fines were imposed
in the course of 1826,—there were thirty-nine
young men delinquent in this way, during that session;
and some of them were liable for very respectable sums.

XXI. The Dormitories and their Regulations

Having obtained their tickets of admission to the
courses of study which they had decided to pursue, the
matriculates were next required to choose their rooms
and hotels. If the student had brought with him the
written authority of his parent or guardian to reside outside
the bounds, he was permitted to do so; and he could
claim this privilege, without such authority, if he had
passed his twentieth year. In both instances, the outboarding
house, as it was called, selected by him, must be
able to show a notice of the Faculty's approval. During
the session of 1832–3, as many as thirty of the young
men,—a very large proportion of the entire number then
in attendance,—found lodgings and meals in the immediate
neighborhood of the University; but this secession
was probably due to the indifferent fare at the hotels
within the precincts, which, at this time, was causing so
much dissatisfaction. In many cases, a single student
would be domiciled for the session with a friend of his
family who resided in the town; but the majority of these
out-boarders were inmates of houses belonging to refined
ladies, like Mrs. Brockenbrough and Miss Lucy Terrell,
who, by the comforts of their hearths, and the excellence
of their food, were able, with more or less success, to
compete with the University hotel-keepers.

The far greater number of the students, however, preferred
to occupy rooms within the precincts, and to eat
their meals at the hotel tables,—a disposition that, naturally,
was encouraged by the Faculty, as the prosperity
of the institution was largely dependent upon the payment
of the rents, and the very existence of the hotels
upon the payment of the monthly board bills. In 1829,
in order to make the dormitories more homelike, a doorway

was cut through the wall separating each two of
them. By this device, one of the rooms could be used as
a chamber, and the other as a study, by two young men.
The executive committee, at this time, was also instructed
to hang a Venetian blind on the alternate door so soon
as the funds in hand should be sufficient. The object of
this ornamental addition was to assure a greater draught
of air in the warm season without diminishing the
privacy.

When the University was completed, it contained, besides
the pavilions, one hundred and nine dormitories,
with accommodations for double that number of students.
Some of them must have remained unoccupied throughout
the first session, since the attendance of young men,
during this session, was a limited one. Five years afterwards,
many vacancies still existed, although thirteen of
the rooms had, by that time, been assigned to the use of
different professors. In 1835, ten were in the possession
of the hotel-keepers and members of the Faculty.
Of the remainder, twenty were inhabited by one student,
respectively, and seventy-nine by two. This disproportion,
no doubt, had its explanation in motives of economy,
for when two students were tenants of the same apartment,
there was an equal division, not only of the rent,
but also of the cost of fagots and candles. As early as
October, 1826, the name of the occupant of a dormitory
was ordered to be "painted above its door." This apparently
was done on a small adjustable panel furnished
by the regular carpenter of the University,—who, in
1832, was Mr. Vowles,—at the trivial cost of fifty cents
apiece. Although the signs were so inexpensive, the
young men usually failed to put them up, until formally
warned that the consequence of omission was a fine; and
towards the end of the session, they seemed to derive a

joyous satisfaction from throwing them into the nearest
ashheap.

Whatever right the student may have possessed at
first to follow his own whim in choosing his dormitory,
it was seriously curtailed, if not taken away altogether,
by a later enactment, which impowered the proctor to
assign the rooms to the students in such manner as to
ensure an equality of boarders at the different hotels on
the Ranges;[23] and under the operation of the same regu
lation, no student was permitted to change his room without
first obtaining the chairman's approval. For each
hotel-keeper, a definite number of dormitories were reserved,
the inmates of which were required to take their
meals in his hotel. This was the first rule that made that
functionary of almost as much importance in the young
men's lives as the professors under whom they sat. The
second was that the hotel-keeper was to supply each one
with the furniture and linen which he would need in his
dormitory; with servant's attendance; and with laundry.
In the beginning, the student was expected to furnish his
own bedding, fagots, lights, and washing, and it was anticipated
that he would be able to do this with ease
through the hotel-keeper; but in the course of the second
year, the duty of obtaining these articles was imposed
directly on the hotel-keeper in the first instance, with the
provision that his outlay on that account was to be covered

by a general charge.[24] The proportionate cost of
the several items is stated in a report drawn up by the
proctor in 1838,—the total expense, during that session,
was one hundred and twenty-five dollars, distributed as
follows: one hundred for table board, ten for laundry,
ten for service, and five for the use of bedding and furniture.
That officer, at this time, supplied the fuel and
candles. On the other hand, it was the hotel-keeper's
function to procure clean sheets, pillow-cases, and towels
once a fortnight; once a fortnight also, he was required
to have the dormitories thoroughly scoured; and once a
week, to make an inspection of each room, either in person,
or through a reliable agent, and to receive the complaints
of the young men, should their comforts have
been neglected by the servant.

This servant was a negro slave who had been hired by
the hotel-keeper, with a view to his performing all the
menial offices of that set of dormitories. The list of his
duties, in 1835, throws light on a characteristic side of
the students' life at that time. At six o'clock in the
morning, he entered the room with a pitcher of water,—
which, in winter, was quite often little below the temperature
of freezing,—and started the fires and cleaned the
shoes. So soon as the student left the apartment for
his hotel to get his breakfast, which was eaten by candlelight,
the servant swept the floor, made up the beds, and
carried away the ashes. Once a week, he blackened the
andirons and polished the fenders; once a fortnight, he

wiped off the "paint work" of the room; twice during
the summer, he whitewashed the fireplace; and daily, at
that season, brought the ice, and in winter, the wood.
At 2:45 o'clock in the afternoon, he took his stand at
some point convenient to his line of dormitories in order
to receive specific instructions from such of the occupants
as should wish him to run on errands to Charlottesville;
but he was not permitted to loiter about the spot after
three o'clock.

The state of neglect into which the students' domiciliary
conveniences and comforts sometimes fell was full
of danger from the modern hygienic point of view. It
taxed the chairman's vigilance to the utmost to compel
the lessees of the hotels to keep their respective rooms
in a wholesome condition of order and cleanliness; and
the smallest slackening on his part too often resulted in
a return to the slovenliness and untidiness against which
the young men so frequently rebelled. The hotel-keepers
relied upon the shifty negro servants; and the servants
themselves, even when willing, were sometimes unable to
maintain the apartments as they should be because they
were not provided with the necessary linen. In December,
1830, there was an outcry from the dormitories, and
an investigation was begun. It leaked out that many of
the students had not been furnished with fresh sheets and
pillow-cases for three weeks, while the floors had not
been scoured since the first day of the session. One of the
hotel-keepers said, in his own defense, that the negro in
charge of his rooms had been too sick to attend to them
with regularity; another admitted that he never visited
those assigned to his boarders; and a third asserted that,
as she was a woman, it was not proper for her to inspect
hers in person. Some of the students were accused of
bad habits, such as spattering the walls with tobacco

juice, and even with dragging the sheets and blankets
from the beds and sleeping on the floors in front of the
fire.[25]

In the beginning, the young men, as we have mentioned,
were expected to purchase their own fuel, but as many
neglected to do so before cold weather set in, that duty
was afterwards assigned to the hotel-keepers; and as this
led to bickering, then to the proctor. During these early
sessions, when the vacation occurred in the winter months,
it was calculated that each fireplace would consume from
four and one-third cords to five and a half. The proctor,
in making up his fuel-book for the season, was authorized
to recoup himself for certain incidental costs, and also for
the time and trouble in contracting. The conviction
arose among the young men, three years afterwards, that
they could fill their boxes themselves at a lower rate than
he was willing to grant; and it shows how closely they
figured their expenses, that the entire amount which each
expected to save by buying without the intervention of this
middle-man, was only six dollars. They claimed that
they could purchase a cord of wood at the rate of two
dollars and a half,—as it was, they were compelled to
pay the proctor at the rate of four dollars. He asserted,
in his own defense, that he was able to obtain a supply
for each student more cheaply than the student himself
could do, because he secured it in large quantities and at
the cheapest season of the year. The sawyer too asked
less for cutting up a very large pile than for cutting up
the single load which each inmate of a dormitory would
buy. The proctor was successful in holding on to the
right to furnish the fuel; and in his accounts with the

students, he continued to charge for the sawing of the
wood; for the shrinkage in its weight from drying; and
for his commission as before. He seems to have been
put to little inconvenience by this duty, as it was performed
through an agent. In 1832, this agent, under
his agreement with his principal, furnished a sound horse
and cart for hauling wood to the dormitories. He was
the overseer of the woodyard, managed the hired laborers
employed for the sawing, and kept accurate memoranda
of the loads that went out. His remuneration was
fixed at five per cent. of the amount in payment. The
wood was purchased from the owners of forests situated
in the vicinity of the University, and it was delivered at
the yard by their own teams.

At times, the students suffered keenly from nipping
weather. In February, 1836, the thermometer sank to
zero, and as the yard was then empty, owing to mismanagement,
many of them were permitted to leave their
dormitories and temporarily engage rooms in the taverns
in town. Although fagots could be bought even at this
season at three dollars a cord, the unreliability of the
yard-master raised the question with the Faculty of experimenting
with grates and coal in order to find out
whether coal or wood was the cheaper fuel. All the
coal then used in Eastern and Piedmont Virginia was
procured from the Midlothian mines near Richmond.
If a supply was to be obtained from these mines for the
University, it would be necessary to transport it by barge
up the James and Rivanna rivers to Milton, and thence
overland by wagon.

During several sessions, the hotel-keepers were required
to furnish the candles used in the dormitories,
but in 1832, this duty had been taken over by the proctor.
In the course of that year, Davenport, Allen and

Company, of Richmond, supplied as many as fifteen boxes
in one shipment, the contents consisting of spermaceti
candles, the finest in quality manufactured at that time,
and always sold by the pound weight. Oil lamps also
were now used by the students. We find J. Hanson
Thomas, of Maryland, paying Raphael, of Charlottesville,
one dollar and a half for a gallon of oil. But for
some years yet candles continued to be the most popular
means of illumination; in 1833, twenty boxes arrived by
wagon from Richmond; and the like heavy loads were
constantly repeated until 1838, when lamps seem to
have come into more general use in the dormitories.
Some of these cost as much as five dollars, but such were
perhaps of metal, for, in 1840, a glass lamp could be
purchased for fifty cents. Oil, however, had advanced
to one dollar and seventy-five cents a gallon. Spermaceti
candles were still in use, for, in the course of the
same year, thirty-two boxes were unloaded at the Milton
wharf from a barge that had brought them up from
Richmond.

The students needed the flame of both lamp and candle,
not only after night had fallen, but also at break of
day, for the morning bell was heard before the invisible
sun had risen near enough to the horizon to scatter the
darkness entirely. In 1827, the ordinances required that
this bell should be rung at half past six, and in 1828, at
dawn, throughout the session. The young men were enjoined
to leave their beds at this signal and dress themselves
at once. By sunrise, the rooms were to be in
order for the day, and the occupants, to use the words
of the law, "prepared for business."

The most famous of the early janitors, Doctor Smith,
whom we have described elsewhere, seems, in spite of his
personal popularity, to have been looked upon along the

Lawn and the Ranges as an intermeddler, whenever—
the sound of the bell having died away,—he walked
down the arcades to find out whether the rule to ensure
early rising had been complied with. He did not perform
this duty daily, but somewhat irregularly intentionally
in order to take the sleepers unawares, and to confuse
any plot that might have been woven to trip him in
following his round. If he had been without a sense of
humor, his position would have been intolerable, for
every device that the most ingenious boyish deviltry could
suggest was used without scruple to anger, discourage,
and thwart him. Like an army in bivouac, apprehensive
of attack, the students set sentinels behind the pillars, and
so soon as the janitor was seen approaching through the
half darkness, word was quickly passed along, from door
to door, in warning to the startled sleepers to rise at
once, and jump into their clothes with all the celerity
of men frightened by a cry of fire. Sometimes, the janitor
would enter a dormitory too quickly for the toilet
of the occupant to be completed. A jacket and trousers
would, by one roommate, be thrown on in haste, without
regard to the absence of undergarments, while his companion
would bolt under the bed or into a closet. Doctor
Smith would gravely take his seat before the fire beside
the one who pretended to be dressed, and remain
until exhaustion forced the delinquent to acknowledge
that he was caught. In the meanwhile, his half naked
roommate had been shivering in the cold and in darkness.
But sometimes the table was turned on the Doctor by
placing a basin of water above the door, which discharged
its full contents on his head and shoulders as soon as he
seized the knob and entered the room.

But neither he, nor the servants, nor the proctor,—
who was also required to visit the dormitories at sunrise,

once a week,—could force the students as a body to run
so sharply in the teeth of a natural instinct as to comply
with the ordinance with persistent fidelity. The observance
of this senseless regulation was, in the beginning,
however, more constant and general than would have
been predicted. The violations, during the early sessions,
were, in fact, decidedly moderate in number. In
November, 1830, ten young men were reported for rising
late. Some of these had been guilty as often as five
times, and at least one, habitually. In December of the
same year, there were six delinquents. One of them offered
a rather singular excuse, which, however, was put
forward, not in irony, but in good faith: Archibald Henderson,
of North Carolina, asked to be exempted because
early rising, he said, was invariably followed with him by
a pain in the chest; and he had also noticed the same effect
on himself while a pupil at Yale. In May, 1831,
eleven students were summoned before the chairman for
the offense, one of whom had been guilty on seven occasions.
In April, there were seventeen culprits. At this
time, the earliest class assembled at half past five in the
morning, and some of the young men were required to
attend as often as five times a week at this ghostly hour,
for even in summer the sun had hardly yet risen above
the horizon.

Did the Faculty ever show any disposition to recommend
the abolition of the ordinance? "With all its
imperfect execution," remarked the chairman in 1833,
"and with the utter impracticability of a rigid enforcement
but by means and with consequences disproportionate
to its benefits, I am still of the opinion that the
law is a salutary one. It makes almost all, even the
most indolent, rise earlier than they otherwise would do,

and the consciousness of having offended in this particular
is a check sometimes on other violations." This last
observation indicates the chairman's delicate insight into
the contradictions of human nature; but it is questionable
whether it was strictly accurate as applied to these young
men, who quite probably agreed with the modern view of
the regulation; namely, that the Board and Faculty were
as open to criticism for adopting it, in the beginning, as
the students were for breaking it while it lasted. "Before
sunrise, this morning," the chairman records in
December, 1835, "I was sent for by Mrs. Gray because
one of her boarders had struck one of her servants whilst
at breakfast." Was it very heinous that young men,
kept up late at night by their studies, should have been
inclined to be sulky and irascible when they found themselves,
after dragging themselves out of bed by five
o'clock, eating the first meal of the day by murky candlelight,
and quite probably too in a chilly apartment?

The passage of time only served to make the regulation
more grinding and intolerable. In 1836, ninety-six
of the student body of two hundred and forty-two were
reported in the month of October for leaving their beds
late; in November, thirty-six; in December, seventy; in
the following January, one hundred and nineteen; and in
March, eighty-three. There were, in 1837, three hundred
and fourteen cases in the course of the entire session.
At this time, only two hundred and sixty-three students
were in attendance.

But the effect of the law was not alone to encourage
among the young men a spirit of indifference to all laws
by forcing an unwise one on them,—it unquestionably
tended to lower their health by compelling them to leave
their dormitories before dawn, and to eat their meals, and

to be present at lectures, by candlelight. The rebellions
and epidemics of these early years can, in some measure,
be hunted down to this ill-advised ordinance.

XXII. The Hotel-Keepers

There was no department in the system of his new
University which Jefferson was not solicitous to invest
with scholastic dignity, even if that dignity should fail to
pierce below the shadow to the substance. The janitor
himself was at first expected to be a man with skill enough
to handle the philosophical apparatus in the most delicate
experiments. How was it possible to bring the hotel-keeper,
—whose only real duty was presumably to satisfy
the appetites of the students,—into the magic circle of
that student's purely intellectual interests? He might be
a tactful manager of servants, an unerring judge of beef,
mutton, and veal, and an expert in all the countless varieties
of Virginia breads and desserts; he might be able to
discriminate to a nicety between the best shade of cooking
and the next best, at a single tasting; he might have an
extraordinary aptitude for obtaining the earliest vegetables,
the most recently laid eggs, the freshest butter, the
plumpest poultry,—in short, he might be the pattern of
all that a well-informed, honest, energetic, and bountiful
hotel-keeper should be, and yet be unable to contribute
one cubit further to the intellectual stature of his
boarders.

Jefferson's ingenuity,—which was able to convert the
blank ceiling of the Rotunda into a starred and constellated
celestial vault, and to change a simple walking stick,
by a twist of the fingers, into a comfortable and handy
seat,—was quite equal to finding a distinct scholastic use
for the hotel-keeper, apart from his daily ministrations

to hungry youthful stomachs. His plan, it will be recalled,
for the first of the "refectories," as he mediaevally designated
the University boarding houses,—under the spell,
no doubt, of the cell-like dormitories, and the monastic
arcades,—was to use it as a seminary for colloquial
French. It was to be rented to a French family, and
only the French tongue was to be spoken at its tables.
The students were to drop their own vernacular and
employ, to the best of their ability, the language of
France. The hotel-keeper was to turn the intervals between
courses to linguistic account by correcting faulty
accents and suggesting more correct grammatical usages.

The plan was not so fantastic as it seemed. Many
Americans have picked up an excellent knowledge of the
French tongue in private homes in Paris,—the shortest
way of learning,—and there was no reason why twenty-five
students, taking their meals in a small hotel within
the precincts of the University of Virginia, should not
have gradually acquired a fair acquaintance with colloquial
French at least. If it was possible to set up a
French seminary in one hotel, why should not a Spanish
seminary be established in another, an Italian in a third,
and a German in a fourth? Jefferson undoubtedly canvassed
such a plan in his own mind, and was anything impossible
with a philosopher, who, standing upon his own
academic lawn, could look around and see his native blue
sky indented by the tops of those exotic Roman temples
and baths which he himself had erected? A man who
was able to plant on Virginian soil such an architectural
group as that, would not have wanted the power to carry
out any other innovation which had received his own
approval.

Cocke, who was not as prone as Cabell to be dazzled by
Jefferson's original schemes, no doubt joked a little on

the score of the novel French seminary that was actually
proposed, but he too had formed a very dignified con
ception of the part that the hotels should play in the Uni
versity life. "Let us stick to our resolution of reducing
their number," he said, "and by giving due notice of it,
we shall be able to pick out men of such stuff as will
really make our hotel faculty worthy of the other de
partments."

What did he mean by the expression "hotel faculty"?
This is only intelligible when we recall that the hotel-keeper
of the University, at that time, was presumed to
discharge several important functions besides supplying
his boarders with their daily food. We have seen that
he was required to visit their dormitories at regular intervals,
and in these tours of inspection, he was expected
to come into something more than a formal and shallow
intercourse with the occupants. The future was to prove
that this intercourse,—in some instances, at least,—was
to be confined to participation in the drinking and
gambling bouts of the students; but this possibility, which
was anticipated, made it all the more imperative that the
hotel-keepers should themselves be men who would set
a good and not a bad example. In the first place, they
were in reality health officers of the University,—certainly
to the extent of being obligated to maintain a condition
of perfect cleanliness in the dormitories, the points
from which most of the epidemics of that day started;
and in the second, they were the assistants to the proctor
in preserving good order throughout the precincts. They
could not only be called upon to aid in suppressing a riot
and checking every other form of turbulence, but they
were also under orders to report all minor violations of
the ordinances.

Against this last regulation, they, not unnaturally, were

disposed to revolt. The success of their hotels was
largely dependent upon their own popularity with their
respective sets of boarders, and they were afraid lest the
furtive observation which was expected of them, would
arouse the suspicion of their patrons and sour their goodwill.
In the beginning, before a definite row of dormitories
had been assigned to each hotel, this good-will was
indispensable to the keepers' success. Jefferson, in 1826,
complained to Joseph Coolidge that competition had
made them too obsequious to the wishes of the young
men. "We must force them to become auxiliaries
towards the preservation of order rather than supporters
of irregularities. We shall continue this evil until the
renewal of their leases." In September, 1827, at least
one-half of the students put off matriculating because sanguine
of obtaining greater advantages from the several
hotel-keepers, who were actively canvassing among them.
With such inducement, in these first years, to win the
young men's favor, there was small prospect that they
would conscientiously discharge their police duties; and
even after they were made independent of such good will,
they positively declined to testify about delinquencies,
unless peremptorily called upon to do so by the Faculty.[26]
In short, the hotel-keepers failed to perform the part
which was expected of them in the higher administration
of the University's affairs. Ordinances had actually to
be adopted to bring them under penalties for permitting
gaming and drinking beneath their roofs, or for receiving
students who had been dismissed or expelled
from the precincts. As we shall soon see, several were
compelled to leave the University, owing to this undisguised
indifference to their obligations.

When we come to examine the type of person selected,
during the period under review, for the position of hotel-keeper,
we soon perceive that it was not, as a rule, the
one represented by stern upholders of temperance, or
by rigid censors of the other popular forms of college dissipation.
It was calculated, at first, that the office would
bring in a net income of at least fifteen hundred dollars.
"This makes it a post," said Cocke, "that some of the
first men of the State, who have been unfortunate in
their circumstances, would be glad to accept." He was
right. There was no period in the history of Virginia,
before the War of Secession, in which so many families
of good and even distinguished birth, were so down at
the heel as at this time. The hotels were still in the
hands of the builders when there began to rise up a large
number of candidates of this class, who were not naturally
inclined towards careful management, and who
possessed no personal sympathy whatever with the austerities
of Puritanism. A taste for cards and for liquor
was then very general, and to set half a dozen men with
such tastes themselves over a large body of high-spirited
and self-indulgent young boarders was not the course that
was at all calculated to restrain the latter from imitating
the habits of so many of their elders.

These early hotel-keepers were, with one exception,
men who keenly relished their toddies and loved to shuffle

a pack of cards, either in their own apartments or in
the dormitories. At the spring term of the Circuit
Court of Albemarle, in 1826, several of them were actually
indicted by the grand jury for gaming. It was the
loose practice of the times, from which they can be no
more absolved than the students themselves.

Without an exception, they belonged to families of
high social position in the State. One of the earliest
applicants was Major Griffin Stith, of Petersburg, who
was warmly recommended by Charles Fenton Mercer;
and with equal amiability, Mercer also recommended
Mr. Ewell, of Prince William county, who had been
forced by the fall in agricultural prices to look to some
other calling for a livelihood. Mrs. Patton, daughter of
W. S. Crawford, of Amherst, found an earnest supporter
in Chapman Johnson, who, perhaps, correctly
thought that a woman could manage a University hotel
more successfully than most of the unfortunate gentlemen
whose names had been submitted. Thomas Burwell, a
member of Congress, was of the like opinion,—when a
vacancy occurred in 1827, he suggested the name of Mrs.
Nicholson, a daughter of Carter Wormeley, of Rosegill,
and, through him, a scion of the most distinguished social
stock in Virginia. She was described as a "woman of
great dignity of character and propriety of manner"; but
what was more pertinent, Mr. Burwell declared that she
was the best housekeeper whom he had ever known. A
few days later, Nicholas P. Trist advocated the claims of
T. E. Randolph, a kinsman of Jefferson himself. Mr.
Randolph was spoken of by Mr. Trist as a "spotless gentleman,"
and his family "as one of the most virtuous,
high-minded, and in every way meritorious families that
exist." There was a silence as to Mr. Randolph's practical

capacity; but his nomination, with that of Mrs.
Nicholson, indicates the high social standing of the persons
who sought the post.

Both Johnson and Breckinridge urged that the hotels
should be carried up to a second story, since, they said,
some persons would be influenced to seek their management
by the desire to educate a family of sons, for whom
there would be but small accommodation so long as the
buildings were of one flight only. This forewarning
proved to be correct. One of the reasons that led Mrs.
Nicholson to apply for the post was that she had four
sons whom she was anxious to enter in college; and the
same reason governed several of the candidates who were
successful in obtaining the office.

There were six hotel-keepers at the start,—John
Gray, G. W. Spotswood, Warner Minor, S. B. Chapman,
and John D. Richeson. Spotswood was a distant
cousin of Washington, and had received the name of his
celebrated kinsman. He was, from a personal point of
view, the most tempestuous figure in the entire erratic
group. He too had been induced to become a candidate
by the opportunity which the position opened up to educate
his six sons. His family numbered a wife and eight
children in all. He occupied the hotel standing at the
southeast end of East Range, and from the beginning,
cultivated very intimate and jovial relations with the
young men, even to the extent of drinking and playing
cards with them constantly, though punishable under the
ordinances; and this led, on several occasions, to violent
altercations, in which he claimed that he was so much
the innocent party that the offending students should have
been expelled. This brought him into collision with the
Faculty, who refused to accept his point of view. Being
of an impulsive temper, that brooked no disagreement, he

threw up his lease in 1827, on the ground that he had
been insulted by a student, and that the Faculty had
condoned the outrage. He declined to discharge further
the duties of his place, although his resignation had not
been acted upon; he refused, when called on, to give evidence
about a notorious gambler who had secretly
crawled within the precincts; and he conducted himself
generally in what Dunglison, writing to Cocke, described
"as the most reckless and extravagant manner." Some
of his boarders complained that he had failed to provide
them with beds; some that there were no pitchers, washbasins,
or andirons in their rooms, the consequence of
his default.

In spite of his choleric spirit, vehement moods, and
constant neglect of his dormitories, he was patiently retained
in his position; but before another year had passed,
he was again heels over head in a characteristic wrangle.
Entering the room of a student named Hove, who occupied
one of his apartments, he found him in bed, although
the hour of rising had long gone by. "Why are you
not up, sir?" Spotswood roughly asked. "I have no
fire," was the reply. "Why have you not had one made,
sir?" Spotswood again imperiously inquired. "If you
were more regular in your habits, sir, then we should be
more regular in making your fire, sir; and your dog, sir,
how can you expect the servant to clean up after a dog,
sir?" Further hot words were bandied between them.
Spotswood indignantly called Hove "a puppy," and
Hove quite naturally was provoked thereby to strike
Spotswood with the iron shovel snatched up from the
hearth. Again, Spotswood endeavored to have an
assaulter expelled, and again the Faculty refused to take
so summary a step. Then he abruptly resigned for the
second time. Asserting that "his feelings were more

deeply wounded than words could express," he nevertheless
exhibited a certain generosity of mind that was characteristic
of him in spite of dissipated habits and an
ungovernable temper. "Permit me in my poor way,"
he wrote the chairman, "to return to you and every
member of the Faculty my sincere thanks for the kind
attention I have received from you and them, and if I
ever did feel unfriendly to any one member of your respectable
body, reflection, and that magnanimity of soul
which I hope I possess, has done away that feeling, and
I have a hope that it is reciprocated."

In spite of Spotswood's constant violation of the ordinances,
and disposition to quarrelsomeness, the Faculty
decided to extend his lease until July 29, six months
longer. In this interval, he continued to show the habits
which had previously exposed him to censure. His mind,
however, seemed to dwell only on his own supposititious
wrongs,—he complained, that, when he accepted the position
of hotel-keeper, he had in his possession a capital
of three thousand dollars, and that now he was thirteen
hundred dollars in debt; that the rise of water in his
cellar had caused fever in his house, which had carried
off three of his servants; and that he had been knocked
about by so many insults that he could scarcely bottle up
his indignation when he recalled them. "I deserved
them," he added, bitterly, "for not at first taking in
my own hands the punishment!" Such were the belligerent
emotions with which Spotswood's flurried career as
a University hotel-keeper terminated!

John D. Richeson, like Spotswood, sought the office
for sake of the opportunity which it offered of educating
his sons. He too could not resist the temptation of playing
cards and drinking deep with the students, although
he loudly asserted that the card-playing was confined to

innocent whist, and that the entire amount of ardent
spirits which he had consumed could, to a nicety, be
incompassed in an ordinary quart. Richeson was the
son of a Revolutionary soldier, and he seemed to think
that, on this account, he had that permanent claim on the
position which he would, as the son of a veteran, have
possessed, had it been a purely political office. In December,
1827, when the number of students was not great
enough to justify the retention of all the hotel-keepers,
there was a resolution before the Faculty that Richeson
should be one of the three to be dismissed. When he
was informed of the intention to get rid of him, his
patriotic blood seemed to boil over with indignation.
"Was it for this," he exclaimed in a letter to Cocke,
"that my father, Colonel Holt Richeson, expended his
fortune and toiled so hard all through the Revolutionary
War? Was it for this, that, besides being in many
other hard-fought battles, he had his horse shot dead
under him at the Battle of Brandywine, when he was
almost in the very ranks of the enemy, and made his
escape without being taken prisoner, with his pistols in
his hand? Was it for this that he was at the capture of
Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781? Was it for this
that he pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor,
to obtain that liberty we are now enjoying? Was it for
this that he was a volunteer at Braddock's defeat in 1754,
when he was but seventeen or eighteen years of age?"

Cocke, sitting in his library at Bremo, must have found
the reading of this letter a delightful morsel to his sense
of the ridiculous; but he was sufficiently versed in character
to know that Richeson was not the first man who
had endeavored to bolster up his own deficiencies, official
or personal, by a pathetic or stirring appeal to the military
achievements of his ancestors. The Faculty very

properly decided that there was no real connection between
the battles of Brandywine and Yorktown and the
management of a University hotel, for Richeson lost his
place. After leaving the precincts, he opened a school at
Rose Hill, near Charlottesville, and on Nicholas P.
Trist's resignation of the secretaryship of the Board of
Visitors, he was an unsuccessful applicant for that position.
By 1831, his family had fallen into a state of extreme
destitution, and many of the professors generously
subscribed for its relief.

Edwin Conway, like Spotswood and Richeson, was of
a jovial temper, and as early as 1826 was accused of
playing cards and drinking with the students in their
dormitories. Loo was now the favorite game throughout
the term, while the eggnog party was the popular
entertainment in December. The genial face of Conway
was often seen shining in the midst of these jolly gatherings,
but, by the supple exercise of shrewdness, he managed
to escape the forfeit of his lease. He was still in
possession of his boarding-house as late as 1837, although,
during that year, to evade the consequences of
two protracted sprees, he was forced to join the Temperance
Society,—an extraordinary hardship to the hotel-keeper.
It was noticed by the suspicious eyes of the
Faculty that his period of abstemiousness was not to be
indefinite, but was to end on the fourth of July, with the
close of the academic year.

In the opinion of Cocke, a cool and discriminating
judge of men, with a dry, sarcastic insight into their infirmities,
Warner Minor, "was the only man of the
whole set of the right character for the station." He
alone of all the hotel-keepers was reserved in disposition,
and being a man of quiet domestic tastes, found
no pleasure in participating in the gambling and drinking

bouts of the students. But he was disliked personally.
In 1828, at least nine young men declined to matriculate
because they would be assigned to his hotel. They criticized
his table, his linen, and his servants. All declared
that he was disagreeable in his manners; and one spoke
feelingly of his "closeness." Minor would have been
more popular, perhaps, had he been inclined to play loo,
drink juleps, and loan money to his boarders. He was
careful in his business, and his reputation for parsimony
was probably based on foundations not more solid than
his laudable endeavor to make both ends meet in the management
of his house,—a strenuous and perplexing task,
as we shall see.

However great may have been Minor's deficiency in
joviality, it was supplied to a surfeit by John Gray, who
leased the hotel situated at the southwest end of West
Range. Gray had married the sister of Arthur S.
Brockenbrough, the proctor, who was a member of an
old and distinguished family. When he obtained the
lease, he had a large family of children; but this did not
deter him from plunging even deeper than Spotswood
and Richeson into the merry dissipations of the students,
and contemning the ordinances which he had sworn to
observe. By his conduct, he forfeited his lease in December,
1826. "My heart is full to overflowing," he wrote
Lomax in a lachrymose strain on the 18th of that month,
"but for myself I would ask nothing; but for my wife
and seven children, I must implore your utmost exertions
to have us reinstated." As Lomax was the father
of nine boys and girls, this appeal must have touched his
sensibilities in a very tender spot, although he had already
gone so far as to say that Gray had been guilty of "immoralities,"
by which he meant only drinking and card-playing.
Mrs. Gray herself, writing to Madison, in

1827, sadly complained that her husband had "always
been unfortunate in his progress through life"; and that
the "small remaining portion of his property would soon
be sold for the benefit of his creditors."

It had been the Visitors' policy up to this time to appoint
no woman to the position of hotel-keeper, as it
would be impossible for any one of that sex to inspect the
dormitories in person, or to serve as the proctor's assistant
in the enforcement of the police regulations. But
Mrs. Gray had so many strong claims to special consideration
that, when her husband's rights were forfeited,
John Carter was permitted to lease the vacated hotel
nominally, and then practically to sublease it to her. She
continued to be what she had previously been,—the
most vigorous personality in the circle of the hotel-keepers.
She was described by Leiper Patterson, son of Dr.
R. M. Patterson, who accompanied his father to the
University, as "an elegant and aristocratic lady, who
always wore a white turban after the fashion of the
famous Dolly Madison." A student, testifying about an
altercation that had taken place between her and one of
her boarders, affirmed that "she had returned fully as
much as she had received."[27] This was her character,—
she was prompt, resolute and outspoken. Her husband,
after seeking employment as a book agent, in the North,
finally removed to Florida; and during his residence there
visited his wife and children in Virginia only at long intervals.

S. B. Chapman, the last of the six original hotel-keepers,
did not offend as often as most of his associates
by furtive indulgences in the rooms of the students; but

he was very hospitable in his own hotel; and on one occasion
at least, was summoned before the Faculty for violating
the terms of his lease by setting strong waters
before his guests. He frankly admitted that he had
"introduced wine and brandy, but not until some of
his company had asked for it." "Finding that the students
made too free with it," he said, "he prudently put
it up."

When Spotswood's lease expired in July, 1829, he was
succeeded by J. N. Rose, who would have taken the post
the previous December, had he then been able to obtain
the funds for the purchase of the indispensable outfit for
the dormitories. Although a member of a wealthy
family residing in Nelson and Amherst counties, he had
been reduced to the point of applying for the office of
toll collector on the James River and Kanawha Canal,
and had even failed to secure this. When he resigned
in 1834, the two candidates for his berth were Captain
Daniel Perrow, who had been the proprietor of the
tavern in Rockfish Gap, and Colonel Ward, who was the
popular landlord of a hotel in Charlottesville. Their
military titles were more probably conferred in a spirit
of courtesy by genial guests than won by arduous services
even in the militia. It shows the weight given to
deportment in selecting an incumbent for the position
that the proctor, in writing to Cocke, thought it necessary
to say that "Colonel Ward had more dignity of
person and manner than his competitor." "Captain
Perrow, however," he added, "is wholly free from pecuniary
embarrassment, whilst Colonel Ward is involved."
The Board wisely preferred solvency to dignity, and
Perrow was appointed; but he lost the place in July,
1835. Ward apparently succeeded him. During several
years, Wertenbaker leased one of the hotels.

XXIII. The Hotel Fare

In the beginning, a vegetable garden was reserved for
each hotel. These gardens were actually laid off on the
borders of the University grounds, but their area was
afterwards re-appropriated by the Board for other purposes.
Several acres situated further off were assigned
in their stead, but the hotel-keepers found this land so
poor that they did not think it worth the expense of enclosing,
especially in the light of the fact that the materials
for doing so had to be hauled from a remote spot.
They all asserted that it was necessary for each one of
them to own a horse, and they united in petitioning the
Board for stables. These animals were chiefly useful in
the search for supplies through the countryside. Captain
Perrow testified, in 1829, that nearly all the articles
of food consumed by the students,—meat as well as vegetables
and fruit,—were procured from the country
people, who came at their own convenience, and sold at
prices which they themselves had named. He complained
that they were irregular in delivering; that no
dependence as to the time could be put in them. "One
scarcely knew at the close of the day," he said, "what
these people might choose to furnish the next." "Sometimes,"
he added, "I have been compelled to go twenty
and even thirty miles for fresh butter." There were no
means of transporting meats from a great distance before
the construction of the railway; and it is possible that
the only fish that ever reached the University were obtained
from the Rivanna. In winter, occasional barrels
of oysters were brought up from Richmond by wagon.

However inclined to drinking and card-playing they
may have been, Spotswood, Richeson, and Conway knew
to a nicety what good food and what good cooking was.

When Spotswood was informed, before he first went up
to the University, that the monthly charge for each
boarder was to be limited to ten dollars, he openly expressed
his indignant and contemptuous surprise.
"This," he said, "will only suit a Yankee, who has
never been used to anything more than onions, potatoes,
and cod-fish, and his coffee sweetened with molasses, and
who will mind the abuse of the students no more than a
Spanish dog would mind the kicks and cuffs of his master."
The Board of Visitors had merely required that
the fare should be "plentiful, plain, of good and wholesome
viands, neatly served and well dressed," but several
of the hotel-keepers, in the beginning, went far beyond
this modest restriction. "Some of them," Cabell wrote
Cocke, "are producing an infinite deal of mischief by the
luxury of their tables and other indulgencies, which they
provide to conciliate their boarders and give fame to
their hotels." This was in 1826, when there was still
room for competition; but after the assignment of an
equal number of dormitories to each hotel-keeper, there
was not the same stimulating motive for maintaining the
excellence of their fare.

The low price of board would not have permitted of
a good table even for a short time, whatever the incentive,
had not the price of food been also low. In 1827,
a pound of ordinary beef was purchasable at the University
for three cents; and the best portions could be bought
at the rate of five. During this year, thirty-two pounds
of mutton were sold for two dollars and sixty-five cents,
or eight cents a pound, and four hundred and seven
pounds of bacon for thirty-two dollars and twenty-six
cents, or seven and three quarter cents a pound.

These reasonable prices, which prevailed until the fifth
decade, when the inpouring of Californian gold led to inflation,

ought to have assured the continuation of the
excellent original fare, but, after 1830, the students had,
on many occasions, ground to complain, not only of uncleanly
service, but of very indifferent food. In April,
1831, the boarders at Rose's hotel, in protest against
the meals of the previous day, went in a body to town
and ordered their dinner there. The customary way of
proving that the dissatisfaction was fully justified was to
send the unfortunate chairman of the Faculty specimens
of the bread that had aroused indignation,—thus on the
day of the revolt just mentioned, the seceders solemnly
handed him, through a formal committee, two rolls,
which he, after examining them, had to acknowledge were
unfit to be eaten. Under these circumstances, he always
felt constrained to direct the proctor to take a meal at
the offending hotel and report his opinion of the food.
This was an unpleasant duty for that officer to perform,
for the hotel-keepers were all on a friendly social footing
with him, and in some instances they were his kinsmen.
Mr. Gray, for example, was a brother-in-law of Brockenbrough,
who was so often called upon to inspect the fare.
The proctor's disposition was naturally to be lenient in
his judgment; and this only provoked further complaints.
Even when he was frank in his condemnation, the supple
hotel-keeper had numerous excuses to offer, some of
which, unhappily, were rendered only too sound by the
occasional uncertainty of the local supplies.

One of the reports sent in by the proctor taken at random
will be a good sample of many others which were
submitted to the Faculty during these early years. He
had been ordered to inspect the table of Edwin Conway's
hotel. He found that Conway provided his boarders at
least twice a week with turkey; that the roast-beef was
ordinarily very badly cooked; that sometimes, at dinner,

the dishes were boiled beef and boiled bacon, and that
next day, there would be cold beef and cold bacon, without
a single hot meat; that the bacon, hot or cold, was
always poor in quality; and that it was rare for a pullet
to be seen on the table. Fish was, of course, still rarer.
Turnip-tops in season, however, were never missing from
day to day; but dessert was only brought on once a week.
The tea and the coffee served were very mean to the taste.
There was complaint of the constant use of rice as a vegetable;
this was easily purchased along with potatoes;
and both could always be looked for in the fare throughout
the session.

This monotony was one of the principal causes of the
students' dissatisfaction with the food; and their discontent
on this score finally became so chronic that the
Faculty, in 1834, decided to draw up a regular bill of
fare, and to hold the hotel-keepers strictly to its observance;
and it may be taken for granted that they called
for no dish that, in their own combined opinion at least,
was not procurable, whether by weekly importation from
Richmond, or by daily purchase in the surrounding country.
In our times, when a world war has not only raised
prices to an unprecedented height, but cut down the number
of articles for consumption, the following varied and
appetizing ménu, adopted by the Faculty eighty-six
years ago, proves, on its face at least, that the students
of that period enjoyed a substantial advantage over the
students of our own; but, unfortunately for the former,
as we shall see, this ménu was too often a mere scrap of
paper: "Breakfast shall consist of hot or cold meat
or fish; light and sweet loaf bread or rolls, biscuits, and
cornbread; sweet and good butter, good molasses; tea
and coffee to be made of good materials; good loaf
sugar for the tea, and good brown sugar for the coffee,

and cream or rich milk for both; and fresh milk for drink
for those who desire it. Dinner shall consist of hot
bacon, hot roast fresh meat and poultry; soup well boiled;
four kinds of vegetables, from the commencement of
the session to the first of January, three kinds from the
first of January to the first of May, and four kinds again
from the first of May to the end of the session; sweet
and good butter for the vegetables; a supply of mustard,
pepper, and other proper seasonings for the meats and
vegetables; good molasses, wheat and cornbread, and
dessert once a week, to consist of pies made of fresh fruit,
or mince pies, puddings made of raisins or rice, fritters,
with sugar and butter, or tarts, or any two of them occasionally
varied. Supper shall consist of hot or cold
meat or fish, good molasses, light and sweet loaf bread or
rolls, biscuits and cornbread, sweet and good butter, tea
and coffee and cream, or fresh milk for drink for those
who desire it, from the commencement of the session to
the first of March, and from the first of May to the
end of the session."[28]

The articles embraced in this bill of fare were to be
furnished in abundance; and they were also to be of

wholesome quality, well cooked, and served without slovenliness.
It was not accepted as a valid excuse that they
could not be obtained at the University or in its neighborhood
although this was quite probable during the
severest part of winter and during protracted spells of
bad weather in summer.

Only a few months had passed when the students' protests
assumed as outraged a tone as formerly. Rice and
potatoes were dished up with all their previous regularity,
and no attempt was made to lessen this monotony by occasionally
obtruding a third vegetable. So mean became
the food again that, in 1836, the students began to turn
surreptitiously to the kitchens of the professors, whose
cooks were always ready to earn, in this furtive way, a
few dollars by providing a dinner or a supper,—sometimes
at their master's expense, but the young men, doubtless,
in most cases, supplied the raw materials for these
meals. Breakfast was smuggled into the dormitories by
means of a shrewd little black boy, who went up and
down the arcades with a covered basket ostensibly selling
apples to the passersby. When the hotel-keepers, during
the same year, told of their inability to purchase the fowls
called for in the prescribed bill of fare, the chairman required
them to serve two desserts a week instead. A
committee of students was now appointed, which criticized
almost with ferocity the patent deficiencies of Col.
Ward's table. There were no biscuits furnished for
breakfast; no wheat bread for dinner; and there was a
very small amount of butter allowed for the vegetables.
All the popular dishes were so meagre as to fail to go
around to all. The middling was too fat to be eaten;
the tea and coffee too watery to be drunk; the desserts
too much restricted to dried apples to be palatable. Very
naturally a spirit of rebellion was aroused by these shortcomings,

which were made the more intolerable by the
chilliness and disorder of the dining-room. A student
would sometimes seize a dish of vegetables and pour the
entire contents into his single plate; rolls would be thrown
about the room as in a game of snow-ball; hands would be
loudly clapped; and above all the noise, would rise the
ear-piercing notes of the jewsharp.

The poverty and meanness of the food, the slovenliness
of the napery, the crudeness of the table, and the
clumsiness of the attendance, which were only too often
observed, sprang principally from the smallness of the
margin of gain. During the period when there were
as many as six hotel-keepers, this margin was so slim
that it was always trembling upon the vanishing point.
"The profit," said Warner Minor, the most capable
manager among them, "will induce no man who is well
qualified in all respects to keep a hotel. My candid
opinion is, that, admitting to each house its greatest number
of thirty-three boarders, the profits are not worth the
attention of any man of business. ... My house, this
year, with an average of twenty, will feed my family and
clear about three hundred dollars:

             

Total amount of board	$2,035.00	Hire of cook and two dining room servants	$266.00
		Wood	200.00
Lodgings	158.00	Amount eaten	1,320.00
Servants and washing	290.00	Keeping two cows	100.00
		Other necessary expenses	200.00
	_________		________
	$2,483.00		$2,086.00"[29]

Minor, in this estimate, placed no valuation whatever
on the services of himself, his very capable wife, and
his five robust negroes. After deducting three hundred
dollars for profit, he was left with only ninety-seven dollars
to pay his contingent expenses. He was all the more
dissatisfied with this annual upshot because every article
of food on his tables, except the meats, was bought at
wholesale prices, and most of the meats on the hoof.
And to darken still further the outlook for the hotel-keepers,
the students were not very prompt in depositing
the second and third instalments due for their board.
As many as thirty-two were delinquent in March, 1831.
The chairman stated, the following year, that unless the
number of hotels was cut down to three, there would be
no room for gain; and Mrs. Gray expressed the same
conclusion, in another form, when she said to Cabell,
that, unless the hotel-keeper could count thirty mouths in
his dining room, he could not expect to possess a satisfactory
margin of profit.

XXIV. Health of the University

The University precincts were unable to show that
they were proof against those alarming epidemics of
disease which were so common in those times, even when
the precautions then considered sufficient had been taken
to prevent their occurrence. It was an age when the
true laws of hygiene had not yet been intelligently

grasped. The necessity for constant vigilance in maintaining
systematically the highest degree of cleanliness on
private and public premises, was not, in actual practice
at least, owing to the slipshod slave service, always energetically
complied with. The climate of the mountain
region,—which was so loudly trumpeted for its salubrity,
and in the main, deservedly so,—was subject to recurrences
of a malignant type of typhoid fever; and it was
this distemper which broke out at the University again
and again during the first half century of its existence.
That, in these early years, it should do so was a fact to
be expected in the light thrown on the causes of this fever
by modern research and observation. The water, which
was undefiled enough in its origin on the roofs, or on the
watershed of the academic mountain, was drawn, not
directly from one open central receptacle for immediate
distribution in the pavilions and dormitories, but from
scattered closed cisterns, to which it had been first
allowed to flow. These petty reservoirs depended upon
a periodical cleaning out for their purity; and even with
frequent drawing off of their water with this purpose in
view, deleterious substances must have often percolated
in through the interstices of natural drainage.

Moreover, the dormitories were, to a certain extent,
shut off from untainted and invigorating draughts of
fresh air. The Lawn, though open to the south, the
direction of the prevailing wind, was often close in its
atmosphere in comparison with the high and breezy tops
of the neighboring ridges. The two Ranges faced respectively
east and west, and the bitter cold and the torrid
heat which their situation exposed them to at certain
seasons of the year, may have caused something more
than discomfort to the occupants of those rooms. As
early as 1825, there was an impression that East Range

especially was liable to the recurrence of typhoid fever.
Major Spotswood, who had leased the hotel at the
southern end of this Range, lost, as we have already mentioned,
three of his servants by this disease, and for a
time was forced, with his family, to find refuge in a
vacant pavilion. The inefficient services of that day furnished
by lazy, untrained slaves, who had been hired out
only too often because their characters were bad, was an
additional cause of these outbursts of distemper. There
were perpetual complaints of the state of neglect in which
so many of the dormitories were suffered to remain, and
the word "filthy" was frequently on the lips of the chairman
when constrained to inspect them in person. Not a
quarter of a session passed that he was not compelled to
remonstrate with some of the hotel-keepers for their inattention
to this dangerous condition, and he again and
again, in words of sharp impatience, reported them to
the Faculty for this reason.

Perhaps, a partial cause at least of the sickness that so
often occurred was the one we have already censured;
namely, the ill-judged regulation which required the young
men to leave their rooms before the sun had dissipated
the cold humidity of the mountain air, to attend classes,
frequently before breakfast, to bolt that meal by candlelight,
and to go back to the same ill-heated and ill-ventilated
lecture-room, out of which they had groped their
way half an hour earlier.

There was no real provision for the sick among the
students; no hospital to which they could be carried where
their needs would be met by constant and skilful nursing.
When stricken, they remained in their comfortless and
lonely dormitories, without any attendance beyond that
afforded by the visiting physician and one untrained, unsympathetic
servant. It is far from improbable that the

natural depression caused by their forlorn situation in
illness had its influence in aggravating the epidemics that
so often occurred. Occasionally, a hotel-keeper would
provide a room in his own house for a sick boarder; this,
Colonel Richeson, a kindly man, did in 1827; but it was
an act of benevolence too risky for the keeper's family
to have been frequently repeated. Richeson's unselfish
conduct suggested to the proctor, Brockenbrough, the
advisability of erecting another story on the top of each
hotel for use as a private hospital for the exclusive benefit
of the young men occupying the dormitories assigned
to that hotel; but although this plan was submitted to the
rector, Madison, it does not appear to have won the
Board's approval,—quite probably because they anticitpated
that it would put the families of the keepers in
jeopardy, and also diminish the privacy of their homes.

When the epidemic of typhoid began in the winter of
1829, there were no ameliorations of this character
whatever for the afflicted students. The first announcement
of that outbreak was made by the chairman on
January 22; and at the same time, he gave warning that
the disease might be contagious. There were already fifteen
young men down in bed with it. He was constrained
to report that most of the dormitories were in a very unclean
state, in consequence of their not having been
scoured since the beginning of the session. The Faculty,
at their meeting on the same day, decided to convert a
vacant hotel into an infirmary, but the space open to use
was too contracted for the comfortable accommodation
of so many patients. At the start, Dr. Dunglison was
sanguine of soon stamping out the disease, for he found
the cases to be of a mild character, though the debility
seemed to linger for an unusual length of time. But the
outlook did not long continue so propitious, and on the

31st, the Faculty were hastily called together again, and
decided that it was imperative that the intermediate examinations
should be suspended. Forty-four of the
students had already left the University, and eighteen
were busily packing up in expectation of an early departure.
Hardly a week had gone by when the Faculty were
again hurriedly in session. Two additional cases of fever
had developed; one of them in a very aggravated form;
and there was now good reason for thinking that the distemper
was highly infectious. Already one of the students
had died, and it was doubtful whether several
others would survive. There was an alarming turn for
the worse in the complexion of all the new cases, and in
consequence, the Faculty determined to stop all lectures
until the first of March, which would enable every student,
not already infected, to leave. At the same time, the
professors let it be known that they were willing to
continue to teach, however few members of their original
classes might stay on to listen. Sixty-two of the
students had already withdrawn, while twenty of the remaining
fifty-five were victims of the distemper.

There being no improvement by February 1, the University
was then closed, with the announcement that the
return of the young men was to be postponed beyond
March 1 for an indefinite time. As a change for the
better began to manifest itself after that date, the first
of April was appointed as the day of the re-opening, but
the absent students were advised to engage rooms and
board,—for a time at least,—without the precincts.
This would seem to indicate that the epidemic had not
spread from the dormitories into the country roundabout.
Seventy young men had, by April 10, resumed
their studies. Only one case of sickness was then reported
as present within the limits, and this belonged to

a disease which was not of a contagious or infectious
nature. It will be recalled that, when the institution was
first opened, one reason given for prolonging the session
through the summer was that this would tend to enlarge
the patronage from Eastern Virginia and the States
further South, owing to the proverbial healthfulness of
Piedmont Virginia at that season. Regret was now felt
by some that the original arrangement had been altered.
Two students, who had hastened to their homes in the
Tidewater region, had died after their arrival, and it
was correctly presumed that they had carried the infection
with them in a form that had quickly developed after
they had begun to breathe the warmer atmosphere of the
lower country. "If summer vacations continue from
July to September," remarked the proctor, Brockenbrough,
warningly, "I think it probable we shall not have
many students from that quarter."

The explanations of the cause of this typhoid outbreak
which were heard differed in character. The proctor,
Brockenbrough, a man of excellent practical sense,
thought that it was due to the following condition:
"Few of these young men," he said, "were accustomed
to sleep in rooms with the outdoor opening immediately
upon them, which are thrown open by daylight of a cold
morning, after a hot fire the night before. This led to
colds, the first symptoms of the disease." Dr. Somervail
of Essex county, whose two wards had been students
at the University, but had escaped the disease, remarked
that it could not spring from the air, "for this was common
to that and the adjoining county, but must come from
something in the place itself, though undiscovered. I
am told some of the dormitories have cellars under them,
and others are near the ground, and here the fever began,
and most of the sick were. It is said the rooms near the

ground were floored over shavings. Chips, which may
be now in a state of decay and lacking air, may have
caused the sickness."

Dunglison himself was of the opinion that the distemper
rose and sank with the alterations in the state of the
atmosphere; but nevertheless he was careful to have
all the infected rooms fumigated, and the uninfected
thoroughly scoured. Mr. Madison also thought that the
disease had its origin in the air. "The fever, whatever
its cause," he said, "is well understood to have no respect
for places as ordinarily distinguished by healthiness or
the contrary. It prevailed in my family a few years
ago in a very mortal degree, notwithstanding the salubrity
of the situation, without any visible circumstance
that could account for it, and without prevailing in situations
adjoining of a like character. It is a fact, I believe,
that it visited a solitary family dwelling on the summit of
Peter's Mountain, the Chimburazo of our Lilliputian
Andes, where all the known atmospherical and local
causes, instead of explaining the phenomenon, ought to
have been safeguarded against it. As the radical cause
must be referred to some mutable condition of the atmosphere,
we must hope that a favorable change, if not already
commenced, will soon take place." Tucker, like
his colleagues, the other members of the Faculty, declared
that he had no explanation to offer. "I can hear
of nothing," he said, "which is common to those attacked,
either as to situation, diet, or habit of life." The Board
were forced to content themselves with the statement that
"it was one of those epidemics to which the most salubrious
situations were subject"; and that it raised "no reasonable
ground for apprehension in looking to the future."
It is quite probable that the real cause of the fever lay
in the contaminated water of the University cisterns, or

in the contents of the milk pitchers placed on the tables
of the several hotels. The distemper was, perhaps, aggravated
after it began, by the unwise exposure of the
young men to the chill and dampness before sunrise.

The University's enemies seized upon the occurrence of
the epidemic as a means of blackening its prospects and
damaging its reputation. An onslaught on that ground,
full of sly malevolence, was published in one of the
Richmond journals,—to which Dr. Dunglison made a
pointed and dignified reply. The fever was also brought
up by persons who attributed a strong irreligious leaning
to the institution; it was a proof, they said, that Providence
inflicts punishment on atheism, whether hospitably
entertained by men or by seats of learning. A clergyman,
who was later to become a distinguished bishop, did
not entirely cloak his approval of this explanation when,
not long afterwards, he delivered a sermon under the
roof of the Rotunda, and in the presence of the professors
and students. The injustice of the hinted slur,
as well as the inappropriate hour and spot for utterance,
aroused, as we shall see, lively indignation among the
listeners.

One natural result of this epidemic,—the first to befall
the University,—was to create a feeling of nervousness
during the years that immediately followed. In
1832, the whole country was menaced with an invasion of
cholera. Tucker, then the chairman, ordered the proctor
to cleanse the precincts thoroughly without delay.
"It is generally admitted," he wrote in August, "that
the cholera will find its way into all the inhabited parts
of the United States, villages as well as towns, and that
its malignancy can be partly mitigated by timely precautions."
The precautions upon which he insisted
were: (1) the whitewashing of all cellars and dormitory

walls, and the scrubbing of the woodwork; (2) the cleaning
up of the outside closets; and (3) the removal of all
kitchen slops to a distance. Thomas Jefferson Randolph,
a member of the Board, acknowledged, in a letter
to Cocke, that the "whole establishment" was now in a
most menacing condition. A large drain was at once
dug between the pavilions of Professors Davis and Emmet
on West Lawn, and all stagnant water about the
buildings and under the arcades was drawn off in the
endeavor to purify the grounds. Dr. Dunglison proposed
that a large barn standing on the University's
land should be so altered as to afford room for fifteen to
twenty negro patients. The hay which it contained was
carted away and the roof and frame-work repaired.

In the course of the ensuing spring, a panic was caused
by the discovery in the pond from which the ice for the
pavilions and hotels was obtained, of an anatomical
cadaver that had been dropped into its waters for preservation,
or mischief's sake, at an unknown date, by medical
students. It had, when brought to the surface, wasted
away to a skeleton.

The young men who were sick were still forced to be
physicked and nursed in their dormitories. Although it
was planned, in 1836, to allow a separate apartment for
them, yet no step, owing to the contracted income, seems
to have been taken at that time to carry this out. The
University doctors who professionally called on indisposed
students charged, like regular practitioners, for
their services: thus, in 1840, Cabell received, for six
visits, fees at the rate of one dollar a visit; and he added
one dollar and a half for medicines furnished, and two
dollars and a half for office prescriptions. Dr. Johnson's
stipend for five calls, in 1831, was four dollars and
a half altogether. He also performed dental work, for

which his surgical education had perhaps very well fitted
him; nor was this confined to mere tooth pulling; for in
1832, he demanded five dollars for filling three teeth
with fine gold. The gold had quite probably been supplied
by the patient. The like work of Dr. Porter, of
Charlottesville, was much more costly, as demonstrated
by a bill presented to a student named Pickett, which
amounted to thirty dollars.

XXV. The Uniform Law

It would be presumed that the Board of Visitors, with
so many grave causes for irritation and rebellion already
rankling in the students' breasts, would have been slow
to adopt any new ordinance that was quite certain to
increase the existing discontent. Now, a uniform law
was as nicely calculated as the rule requiring early rising
to create perpetual friction with the Faculty, for it too
could only be enforced by espionage, and by an espionage
that would be frequently constrained to descend to a
pettiness that was as exasperating as it was undignified.
This law was in operation as early as 1827. The proctor,
Brockenbrough, once spoke of it as "the favorite
measure" of the Visitors. Why was it of such preeminent
importance in their view? As we have previously
stated, the University, during these formative
years, was looked upon by many persons with a censorious
eye as the institution of the wealthy alone,[30] and this
popular impression was to be particularly deprecated in
its case, since it had to rely upon the General Assembly
principally for its support. The accusation seemed to be

confirmed by the spirit of profusion which pervaded
Southern life at that time, and which, naturally enough,
was reflected in the behaviour of young men turned practically
at large, before they were of age, upon the free
arena of the University.

The reasons for the passage of the ordinance were set
forth succinctly in a circular issued in 1828,—they were
the enforcement of economical habits among the students,
the prevention of invidious distinctions, and the discouragement
of frivolous tastes. The law was primarily a
fulmination against extravagance in dress, and its general
purpose was to preserve the University's reputation for
sobriety, on which its ability to retain popular favor depended;
and also to maintain, as far as feasible, an equality
of expenditure among the young men, so that those
of small means would not be made to feel the disparity in
fortune. The ordinance had in view, not only the cultivation
of the public good-will, but also an increase in the
attendance, for the lower the general expenses could be
cut down, the more students would be led to matriculate.

It is possible that the idea lurked furtively in the minds
of the Visitors that the University of Virginia, like all its
great prototypes, should have an academic costume, but
that the adoption of the English cap and gown would
appear imitative, if not pretentious, in a Republican seat
of learning. In their judgment, the uniform agreed
upon accomplished the same sentimental and ornamental
purpose, accompanied by an equal, if not higher, degree
of practical utility in the spirit of economy which it would
foster. Madison did not assent to this view. He declared
that the peculiar organization of the University
made such a law inconvenient. "I am of the opinion,"
he said, "that a cheap black gown, such as is used in other
like institutions, would answer all purposes better."

It was thought that the law would strengthen the hand
of discipline, but time failed to prove that this forecasting
was correct. The expectation probably had its origin
in the stern associations of a uniform. The Faculty,
as a body, showed a conscientious determination to enforce
the law; but it is questionable whether they considered
it a wise one, apart from those public aspects
which had led the Board to adopt it. It was only natural
that they should look at it chiefly in its practical
working within the University; and as that working only
caused inconvenience, annoyance, and resentment, their
judgment may well, on the whole, have been biassed
against the ordinance. Two of the most sensible men
connected with the government of the institution were the
first proctor, Brockenbrough, and the first chairman,
George Tucker, both of whom held the regulation in
very small esteem.[31] "I have no doubt that the uniform
law was adopted for economy," wrote the former to
Cocke, who was its ardent advocate, "but, in many cases,
to persons in moderate circumstances, it is otherwise.
There are hundreds of Virginians who can clothe their
sons decently at home in order to send them to the University,
but would find it inconvenient to raise forty or
fifty dollars, in addition to the other charges, to purchase
clothing at the University, for the kind and cut
of the cloth can't always be known in every section of
the State. Some might think it proper to clothe them in
Virginia cloth. I have known students to come here
with clothes sufficient for the session that have been
obliged to procure the uniform dress, and some of them

have found great difficulty in getting it. The objection
is so great that I consider it rather a preventive than an
inducement to students to come here."

This was the opinion of a man who considered the law
on its practical side alone, and whose ability to judge
that side correctly had been ripened by his long participation
in the administrative affairs of the institution.
Prof. Tucker, as chairman, looked at the law on its sentimental
side. "He has not only made up his mind not
to execute it because he deems it unreasonable," wrote
Trist to Cocke, in 1828, "but he goes so far as to express
himself to that effect to the students themselves.
In relation to the proscription of boots, he observed to
one or more of the students that he was not going to
examine whether they had on boots or shoes; and although
Dr. Dunglison made repeated reports to him
concerning the violation of the uniform law, they were
never noticed." Trist had been asked by Cocke to report
as to how far the ordinance was enforced, and it is clear
from his words that he sympathized with Cocke's feeling
in favor of its being carried out unfalteringly.
Tucker's sense of dignity was probably ruffled by the suggestion
that it was the chairman's duty to lower his eyes
to the feet of every student who passed him; or it is
possible that he scornfully regarded such a regulation as
puerile in an institution that was founded on the broadest
principles of personal liberty. Indeed, to such an
absurd point was this opposition to boots pushed that, at
a later date, a student who had been reported for wearing
a pair, earnestly asserted that, in doing so, he had
not intended to "bid defiance to the Faculty."

What was the character of the uniform? It consisted
of a coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons, manufactured from
cloth of a dark mixture. The coat was cut high in the

neck, with a braided standing collar, and skirts of moderate
length, with pocket flaps; the waistcoat was single-breasted,
and the pantaloons were marked by a conspicuous
stripe. The buttons were flat in shape and covered
with cloth of the same dye as the suit. One of the students
of this period, in recalling the uniform in afterlife,
said that it was of the color popularly known as
pepper and salt, while another speaks of it as having been
of an invisible gray tint. The cloth was usually designated
as "Oxford mixed," and it was, from year to year,
imported in large quantities by the merchants of Charlottesville.
The shoes in use were labeled in the stores
as "cotton" and "union." In the beginning, gaiters
were required in winter and white stockings in summer.
Boots were, as we have seen, strictly forbidden. In winter,
the stock was made of black cloth, and in summer, of
white. The hat was black in color and round in shape;
but at a later date, a cheap cap was also permitted to be
worn. The entire details of the summer costume were not
fully agreed on until after 1827. The choice, at first, lay
between bombazine, bombazet, and silk. Silk was preferred
by the students; they objected to bombazet as too
heavy; but it was the least costly of the three. As
finally prescribed, the pantaloons for the warm season
were to be of a light brown, inexpensive cotton stuff,
while the waistcoat was to be of some white material.
An embroidered vest was at first connived at, but was
afterwards prohibited.

How unsteady even as late as 1830 was the rule governing
the proper materials for the uniform was shown
by what Cocke then noticed in the shop of Henry Price,
the principal tailor. "I found on the shelves," he told
Brockenbrough, "so great a variety of cloths—all of
which seemed to be considered to be within the meaning

of the regulation for uniforms,—as to explain at once,
at least in part, the difficulties we have heard of in this
branch of police. Would it not be best in you to adhere
strictly to the enactments in selecting some specific shade
of dark mixed cloth, and apprise Mr. Price that no other
can be received in compliance with the regulations?"

By the terms of the ordinance, each student's outlay
for clothing was not to run beyond one hundred dollars
during a single session. What proportion of this sum
was used up in the purchase of the uniform? In 1832,
the cost of a full suit of the best quality, embracing the
coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons, was thirty-eight dollars.
In such case, the tailor furnished the material. The
charge often ran down to thirty-three, twenty-nine, and
twenty-seven dollars. The cost of the most expensive
coat did not exceed eighteen, while the average price
ranged somewhat lower. The students whose incomes
were small procured the cloth from the local stores, and
then had it converted into a full suit,—under these circumstances,
the charge for the uncut material, including
the trimmings, was fourteen dollars and fifty cents; the
charge of the tailor for making the coat, four and a half to
six and a half, for the waistcoat, one dollar and seventy-five
cents, and for the pantaloons, one dollar and fifty.
The total expense at the shop was rarely in excess of ten
dollars. The buttons cost about twenty-five cents the
dozen; the cloth cap, two dollars and a half. Every student
was called upon to purchase two suits in the course
of each session,—one for the frigid season, the other for
the warm, which fortunately for him, was less expensive.
Some of the young men were compelled to buy at least
three suits, if not four, during a single session as their
only means of keeping up an appearance of neatness.
With one hundred dollars as the limit of their expenditures

for clothes, it would not require many suits to trench
so closely on the margin as to leave but little for the
purchase of under-garments.

When was the uniform to be put on? In 1829, the
Board announced that it was to be worn on the Sabbath,
during examinations, at public exhibitions,—including
balls and parties,—and whenever the student left the University
precincts. In the interval, at this time, a plain
black frock-coat was permissible in winter, and a light
gown or coat in summer. In 1836, the occasions for the
use of the uniform were stated to be public balls, private
parties, church services, public celebrations, public addresses,
visits to private houses, and excursions to Charlottesville.
The uniform was also to be worn on Sunday
whenever the students were absent from their dormitories.
Apparently, it was not required at this time
while they were attending lectures.

The extreme strictness of the regulation was, from the
beginning, subject, during short intervals, to relaxations.
In April, 1833, for instance, the young men were permitted
to wear round-abouts. They had already obtained
leave to put on the summer pantaloons and waistcoats
which they had procured from home. So many of
them, during the autumn of 1835, asserted that it was
necessary to send their uniforms to the tailor that no
objection was offered for the time being to their appearing
outside of their rooms in ordinary clothes, provided
that they were not seen in that dress at a private ball.
When, in 1840, Dr. Tyng, of New York, preached in the
Rotunda, the chairman feared lest the students should
remain away because their uniforms were shabby; and as
he was anxious for the congregation to be a large one,
he posted a notice that the uniform could, if desired, be
doffed in anticipation of the services.

At first, there was no relaxation of the ordinance in
the case of single individuals. Melville Gillies, a naval
officer, was a student at the University in 1834, and having,
before he left home, purchased all the clothing he
would need, he asked to be relieved from the operation
of the uniform law. "The change of seasons," he wrote
Cocke, "required a constant change of dress, but as I
have been advised to hold myself in readiness for sea
service this summer, I feel very unwilling to subject myself
to expense for clothing, which I shall be compelled
to lay aside in the course of a few weeks, and I request
I may be permitted to wear those in my possession."
Reasonable as this application was in substance and in
spirit, it was, in obedience to the supposed requirements
of the ordinance, denied. But in the following year, the
good sense of this action was questioned; John Rodgers,
George Wickham, and George W. Randolph,—all of
whom were young naval officers like Gillies,—were now
granted the right to wear their professional uniforms.
J. H. Bryant was also excepted on the ground that he was
a married man, and had reached the age when exemption
was always allowed. That age was twenty-three. Professor
Garland, formerly of Hampden-Sidney College,
was excepted too; but John B. Young, who had lost both
parents, was refused permission to wear an ordinary
mourning suit.

Although the uniform was, as a rule, becoming to the
young men, and although too it was noticed that they
showed no dislike to wearing it voluntarily when passing
the summer in the mountain resorts, yet, within the precincts,
they always exhibited a sharp distaste for its use.
As early as 1828, the hostility to the law was so acute
that the Faculty had to seek the assistance of the parents
by asking them to curtail their sons' supply of pocket

money, with which they had been buying civilian clothing.
At a private ball held in Mr. Rose's hotel, a few years afterwards,
nineteen of those present were dressed without
any regard to the ordinance; and at another ball, given
at Mrs. Gray's, there were eleven in the same irregular
costume. In 1831, the students held a tumultuous public
meeting, and after violently condemning the uniform law,
announced that they would not observe it. The resolution
was withdrawn when it was suggested that more
could be accomplished for its recall by a riot; and this was
at once precipitated.

There were, after this date, frequent dismissals and
suspensions for defying the ordinance; but this only
served to fan the exasperation. In 1833, thirty-seven
young men were, on a single occasion, summoned for violating
it; the proctor, in fact, acknowledged that, at this
time, only one-fourth of the students observed the law;
and as spring had now set in, and the hot season was
approaching, he predicted that there would be an ever
increasing number disposed to ignore contemptuously its
hateful provisions. At a ball given in one of the hotels
in April, 1835, the members of the Faculty present, we
are told, were shocked by the extravagant costumes
which were flaunted in their eyes. Many of the pantaloons
had been made especially for that festive hour, and
in cut and color, bore no resemblance whatever to the
sober model which the Board had enjoined; indeed, some
of the young men had even had the audacity to discard
the plain trousers and to substitute the courtly velvet
knee-breeches for them. From this time, the violations
of the ordinance continued to grow in number, and the
culprits included some of the steadiest and ablest collegians
then in the precincts. William J. Robertson, perhaps
the most distinguished lawyer and judge of the

State in his day, and James A. Seddon, afterwards a
conspicuous member of Congress and Confederate Secretary
of War, both very quiet in their general demeanor
and successful in their classes, revolted against the irksome
inconvenience of the law; and their example was
imitated by many others equally temperate and studious
in their habits. Robertson went so far as to prefer
rustication at Bowcock's tavern, where so many suspended
students, in those times, in supposed seclusion,
chewed the cud of defiance of unpopular ordinances.
Some, when summoned, boldly said in the presence of
the Faculty that they considered themselves fully justified
in disobeying the law, as its only effect was to impose
offensive restrictions without proportionate advantages in
economy or discipline.

The reasons offered for assuming civilian dress were
numerous, but, in most instances, bear the stamp of honesty
and sincerity. In the autumn of 1830, a party was
given at one of the hotels, and one-third of the young
men present were observed to have left off their uniforms,
though required to wear them on an occasion of that
nature. The plea of each one was that his coat was too
thread-bare to be worn at such entertainments. The
chairman's reply was concise and pointed. "If your suits
are so shabby," he said, "then stay away." Another popular
excuse was that the coat, trousers, or waistcoat had
been sent to the shop for repairs; and this was quite
probable, for as long as the expenditure for clothing was
limited to one hundred dollars, there must have been
many students whose wardrobes did not contain a single
surplus garment of the approved model. The venerable
age of the coats was frequently brought up in defense;
so was the monstrous dilatoriness of the tailors in fulfilling
their commissions. Some asserted that no gentleman

would be willing to dance in such a plebeian suit as
the uniform; one at least justified himself on the score
that his coat had been spattered with mud and torn by
briars in an "anatomical expedition"; another, charged
with wearing a white hat, said that his head was so diminutive
that the cap prescribed would not fit it; and still
another, who had appeared in white pantaloons, swore
that they had been originally brown, but had been worn
white. The chairman candidly admitted that, by the end
of the session, the excuse of shabbiness was one that it
was not possible to rebut.

Although the existence and practical enforcement of
the uniform law would seem to have been sufficient to
shut out the possibility of the students spending much
money in the purchase of other clothing, yet the records
for this period show that large sums were often wasted
in this manner by those among them of extravagant
tastes or handsome fortunes. A single bill sent in by
Henry Price to Richard Morris, in 1833, amounted to
sixty-three dollars and twenty-six cents; and among the
articles that had been bought by him were white silk
handkerchiefs, white waistcoats, satin stocks, gloves, and
flesh brushes. Robert C. Stanard's haberdasher's account
was even larger; and hardly smaller were the
accounts of Robert H. Tomlin and S. Posey,—all men
of distinction afterwards in professional or political life.

Pumps seem to have been a very popular footwear in
those times, and their variety gave room for a wide latitude
of choice. There were prunella, morocco, and
buck calf pumps. The shoe most often called for was
known by the name of "nullifier,"—in honor presumably
of Calhoun. There were several kinds of hats in
use,—two of which, the silk and the fur, were very
costly. The silk, as it was always associated with a London

hat-box, was, doubtless, imported from England.
The cap, which was inexpensive, was of cotton and the
cloak, of blue camlet. The overcoat was dubbed the
"Petersham"; and this, too, was probably from a British
factory. There was a rich profusion of satin scarfs
and stocks, and also of Pongee handkerchiefs. The
gloves were made of white silk or buck-skin; the shirts of
linen or cotton; the waistcoats, of figured silk, or of pure
white or black stuffs of different sorts; the stocks of silk
or nankeen. A handsome pair of trousers was often of
checkered pattern, and the dress coat, of dark blue cloth,
with brass buttons. Very costly umbrellas are frequently
noted; so also are embossed snuff-boxes, elaborated cigarcases,
clouded canes, and the other elegant paraphernalia
of fops. These expensive articles of clothing or ornamental
service could only, for the most part, have been
used at long intervals, and perhaps then surreptitiously;
and they were too costly to be in the possession of the
average student, who, very probably, continued to wear
his more or less shabby uniform even during the hours
when he was not required to do so.[32]

XXVI. First Code of Discipline

In a previous chapter, we quoted Jefferson's remarkable
opinion as to the best method of governing the
young men who were expected to enter the then newly
completed University. It will be recalled particularly
that he questioned the wisdom of raising the emotion of
fear in order to enforce discipline among them; and
that he earnestly advised that their pride, ambition, and
moral susceptibilities alone should be appealed to, as the
most certain means, not only of controlling them, but
also of nurturing in them that general combination of
qualities which he designated as "erect character." The
relation of tutor and pupil should, in his judgment, be the
counterpart,—at least in spirit,—of those of father and
son, at once benign and affectionate, firm and inflexible.
It was not congruous with the genius of American institutions,
he said, that the college youth should "be hardened
to disgrace, to corporal punishment, and to servile
humiliations." The statutes of the country laid
down the penalty for crime, whether committed by student
or citizen; academic authority, on the other hand,
had only to consider the irregularities that were too small
for the statutes to notice,—they, and they alone, were
the offenses which that authority had to restrain and to
correct

Before the first session had begun, the Board of Visitors,
under his supreme direction, adopted the comprehensive
principle that too much government of the students
should be avoided; that there should be slowness in
multiplying occasions of coercing them by converting
trivial actions into actions to be punished; and that ample
room should be left to each one of them to exercise
habitually his own discretion. In short, it was the University

of Adolescent Freedom which Jefferson had in
view, and not the College of Juvenile Discipline. The
young men were to stand upon a platform of equality in
all things,—in the choice of studies; in personal association
unhampered by the social ties that accompanied
subdivision into classes; in absolute self-domination.
Public sentiment was to play the same repressive part
within the precincts that it played in the great communities
without; but at the very time that it curbed the
spirit of license, it was expected to give full rein to the
spirit of liberty.

The University was constructed in such a manner as to
limit the scope of a peeping eye,—each dormitory was a
separate house in itself, a legal castle, a monastic cell,
that could be securely shut by the occupant against the
prying intrusion of his fellow-students, and the suspicious
scrutiny of the professors. It is doubtful whether
a third of the young men, who, in these secluded rooms,
violated the ordinances by playing cards, guzzling eggnog
and mint sling, or eating surreptitious chicken suppers,
ever fell under the Faculty's displeasure through
the accident of being detected.

The system, not so much of discipline as of lack of discipline,
which Jefferson wished to put in force in this
academic village, was, on its face, as idealistic as a code
of laws adopted by the sublimated Parliament of Utopia;
but it becomes perfectly intelligible, whether practicable
or not, if we bear in mind his point of view. In the first
place, he expected the University founded by him to be
patronized, not by raw boys, shirking their studies and
running after irregular pleasures, but by sedate young
men, who were to engage in graduate work in general
preparation for some active pursuit in life. Were not
persons with such a solid purpose in their minds certain

to be animated by a steady and sober spirit, that would
reject with scorn the mere thought of indulgence in boyish
pranks or wild profligacy? So he unquestionably presumed.
In the second place, as he knew that the youthful
matriculates would, as a body, belong to the oldest,
wealthiest, and most cultured families of the South, he
took it for granted that their instincts would be gentle;
that they would disdain to violate those precepts of upright
conduct which they had learned at home; and that if
there were to be found among them, as in the whitest
flock, a small number of black sheep, these degenerates
would be shamed into decent behavior by the compelling
example of the great majority. The plan only demonstrated
in another form Jefferson's noble faith in the abstract
rights and the ultimate perfectibility of humanity.
It was, in reality, an extreme expression of his fundamental
principle that that is the best government which governs
the least; and that they are the happiest people who
are most able to dispense with a constabulary. It is
doubtful whether such an administrative conception as this
could ever have had the smallest chance of practical
success except in the old widely dispersed colonial communities
of America, or in those Southern plantation
communities, equally scattered over a broad surface, that
existed before the abolition of slavery.

Even if Jefferson's expectation of establishing a genuine
university had come to fruition in his own life time,
it is doubtful whether his system of self-government could
have been carried out by the mature body of students
whom he so sanguinely counted upon. There would, under
these circumstances, have been one fact at least to
bring about an unhappy issue for it; namely, the young
men would have been pent up within narrow local hedges,
a condition in itself provocative of frictions that were

sure to call for restraint and repression. Jefferson
always held towns in detestation, largely because every
great aggregation of human beings, however civilized,
confused that principle of the least government the
best, which he so earnestly advocated. This principle
could not work smoothly in a packed community; nor
could it have done so at the University of Virginia and
for the same reason. Instead of that noble band of
young men visualized by him as too buried in their studies
to indulge the natural wildness of their age, numerous
youths, as heady as greyhounds and as fractious as colts,
matriculated in 1825. The disorder and insurrection
that followed before many months had passed, appear
logical enough when we remember that these boys were
brought together with little restraint upon their actions
beyond that created by their intermittent consciousness
of the existence of sheriffs, judges, and juries. It was not
because the proper ordinances had not been adopted before
the University opened, but because they were to be
enforced, not by the Visitors or the professors, but by a
Board of Censors selected by the Faculty from among the
student of the highest reputation for discretion. This
was to be the principal judicial body, although their decisions
were to be subject to the approval of the collegiate
authorities. The young men were expected to be methodical
and peaceable in their conduct, but should they
slide into irregularities, they were to be punished by a
court of their fellows. This was a novel plan of scholastic
government, which almost at once caused much rubbing
of eyes without the precincts. "As to our friend,
Mr. Jefferson's notion of jury trial by school boys,"
wrote John Patterson, of Maryland, in surprise to Cocke
at the time, "I can't hear of any institution for the education
of youth where such a mode of keeping order
among the scholars is in practice, and I have made diligent
inquiry about the matter."

The term "school-boys" was not altogether impertinent
as applied to the students of the first session. Jefferson,
speaking of the matriculates in March, said that
only six of their number were twenty-one years of age
or more; only nine, twenty; while twenty-three were nineteen
years of age; ten, eighteen; ten, seventeen, and three,
sixteen. Two-thirds of the entire number were either
nineteen years of age or under that age. It was not
simply that they were as youthful as these figures would
indicate, but that they had been reared under a system
tending to nourish in them unusual independence of character
in spite of their immaturity. There is no reason
to think that, during that period, parental control was
less strict in the Southern States than in the Northern;
there was certainly as much authority brought to bear
upon the actions of the young in the homes of the South
as in the homes of the same class in other parts of the
Union; but the free life of the plantation and the presence
of slaves created an unconscious dislike of restrictions not
imposed by parental right; and it is also fostered a
haughtiness of spirit that chafed against the supervision
which became necessary so soon as these young men gathered
in a large but compact community. The majority
of them were the sons of affluent parents, and expecting
to be wealthy in turn by inheritance themselves, had never
acquired habits of extreme self-denial and self-repression.
Removal from the vigilant eyes of their natural guardians,
with purses more or less lined with money, with
bodies tingling with health, and with no need to consider
the future, was it to be wondered at that so many kicked up
their youthful heels so wantonly when first turned loose
in the University pasture?

We learn from a letter written by Cocke to Cabell
that, previous to September 20, in the session of 1825,
not a single class-roll had been called; not a single examination
had been held. Mr. Wertenbaker also informs
us that, during the greater part of this session, no discipline
at all was enforced because the Faculty were waiting
for the students composing the Board of Censors to carry
out the functions of their office. These students either
openly or silently declined to do so. Indeed, it was but
natural that they should have shrunk from the rôle which
had, without their consent, been thus imposed on them.
Had they taken it up, it would have put them in the position,
not only of judges, but of spies on the conduct of
their fellows. The unpopularity certain to follow would
have poisoned their intercourse with the young men in
general, and perhaps jeopardized their ability to remain
within the precincts with any personal comfort. As they
failed to sit, and as the Faculty, in their respect for Jefferson's
plans, were reluctant to assume the neglected
duties,—indeed, had no power to do so without the
Board's specific authorization,—the University, as we
shall see, gradually fell, as Mr. Wertenbaker expressed
it, into a state of "insubordination, lawlessness, and
riot."

It was charged by those who disliked the foreign professors
that this unhappy condition was directly traceable
to their influence. Long earnestly and justly resented
the accusation. "I believe," said he, "that they did as
well as native professors would have done and even better.
Whatever people thought of our discipline,—and
I believe that even those excellent men, the Visitors,
thought that we were sometimes too severe,—yet I
have not the least reason to regret anything I did." The
English professors, while they regarded with indignant

aversion the licentious conduct of the students, were
heartily in sympathy with the spirit of freedom which
distinguished the University, for it was to this untrammeled
spirit that they had been accustomed in the English
seats of learning. The disorder that broke out was
not due to any abnormal depravity in the constitution of
these first students. Who had a more complete opportunity
of judging their real character than the thoughtful
Long, a discerning foreigner without any reason
whatever to be biassed for or against them? "I believe
and still believe," he wrote Henry Tutwiler, after a host
of English pupils had passed through his lecture-hall,
"that I never had more youths of good abilities under
me, nor more youths more capable of being made good
and useful men."

Perhaps, in the whole course of his protracted and diversified
life, Jefferson was never so keenly chagrined by
an unexpected turn of events as he was by the ungovernable
temper which the students manifested during this initial
session. Not only was the success of the institution
thrown in jeopardy, but his favorite theory was exploded,
—certainly so far as it could be made to apply to youths.
Consternation and depression must have filled his mind
for the moment. "If you regard the future happiness
and well-being of our State," Cocke wrote Cabell in September,
1825, "prepare yourself to make an effort at
the next meeting of the Visitors to correct these evils.
The old sachem is well prepared, from what I learned, as
I passed through Charlottesville, to adopt measures calculated
to reform the symptoms of irregularity, that, if
not corrected, will soon grow into enormities." About
two weeks after the date of this letter, Jefferson himself
publicly acknowledged that the "experience of six
months had proved that stricter provisions were necessary

for the preservation of order,—that coercion must
be resorted to, where confidence had been disappointed."
"We are not certain," he added, "that the farther aid
of the Legislature will not be necessary to enable the authorities
of the institution to interfere in some cases with
more promptitude, energy, and effect than are permitted
by the laws as they stand at present." It must have been
with a sense of poignant mortification that he made this
admission. He started out with the serene conviction
that these young men should possess the right to govern
themselves without any interference of any sort by
the Visitors or the Faculty, and yet before the first half
of the session had terminated, he was compelled to avow,
in the report of the Board, that additional laws would
have to be enacted by the General Assembly before the
authority of either the Faculty or the Visitors could be
successfully enforced. His disillusionment could hardly
have taken a more dismayed form.

His original plan having been discarded, and the censorship
abolished, the duty was imposed on the Faculty
to pass upon all offenses, and to inflict such punishments
for them as the ordinances had laid down. "We shall
tighten or relax the reins of government," said Jefferson
himself, "as experience shall instruct us." But, during
many years, the reins were held so stiffly as to err on the
side of sternness and rigidity, where mildness and relaxation
would have been more effective. The code of regulations
grew too plethoric; it went down too deeply and
too intimately into the social life of the students; it encouraged
an espionage too petty and too unremitting to
be consonant with the spirit of a seat of learning that
justly claimed to be modeled on the standards of a great
university. The system now adopted was the system
of the strait-jacket. "Offenses, often trivial in themselves,"

says Frank G. Ruffin, a distinguished alumnus of
that period, "were made prohibitive because matters of
discipline, whilst multiplying and irritating rules increased
the trouble they were meant to correct." Such rules were
those which at one time required the young men to retire
to their rooms at the sound of the college bell at nine
o'clock at night, and to rise at dawn; to wear a uniform
which they detested; and to be confined to the precincts
and bound down to their studies during the Christmas
holidays, when even the slaves were tacitly granted all
those privileges of freedom and indulgence which enlivened
that season in every Virginian home. These causes
of irritation did not justify the turbulence that so often
prevailed, but they largely explain it. We have now
entered upon the only dark side of the early history of
the University, which has to be described in a spirit of
candor, if that history, during this formative interval, is
to be correctly and comprehensively presented. Fortunately
for the permanent reputation of the institution,
the very violence of this period led to its own reformation
by the creation of a reactionary influence which, in the
course of the following period, found its highest expression
in the adoption of the Honor System and the establishment
of the Young Men's Christian Association.

XXVII. Minor Offenses: Noisy Disturbances

The most primitive form of the disorder which so often
exhilarated the lives of the students was loud noise created
by a variety of instruments. They raised a hubbub,
—sometimes for the purpose of giving vent to youthful
spirits; sometimes, and perhaps most often, for racking
the nerves of unpopular professors. The shrillest sound
was that of the split-quill, which must have penetrated

far down the Lawn and under the arcades in the silence
of night; the young men, after attending a public meeting
of protest, would frequently join in a rebellious concert
of this piercing character as they marched back in
ranks to their dormitories. The raucous blare of the
tin-horn was sometimes blended with that of the split-quill;
but more often yet, the entire performance was
confined to a mighty fanfare of horns.

On the night of April 17, 1832, the precincts were
startled by an extraordinary outburst of this hoarse
music, which continued, during several hours, to increase
in volume. The proctor was quickly aroused by the din,
and precipitately leaving his house to find out the reason
for it, ran into a large mob of students disguised with
masks, who were parading up and down the Lawn with
horns at their lips, which they were blowing at the top
of their vigorous lungs. When he earnestly remonstrated,
they threatened to seize him by the collar; and
as he prudently retreated, hurled stones at his back.
One of their number, who was recognized and summoned
before the Faculty, stated, in his testimony, that the
"demonstration" was entirely free from resentful spirit,
and that it was intended simply as a "frolic" to dispel
the "long dull quiet" of college life, which had become
fatiguing and depressing. But this was not always its
purpose. In 1831, William Wertenbaker, then a young
man, was serving as assistant proctor. Not only was he
conspicuously resolute and energetic in ferreting out offenders,
but his age was so near the age of many of the
culprits that his activity seemed to them too presumptuous
to be allowed to go unrebuked, and, in consequence, the
peace of his home was constantly disturbed by inharmonious
concerts with tin horns under his window. It must
be stated, however, that these concerts sometimes took a

legitimate turn, for, occasionally, the performers were invited
to give a serenade before a professor's pavilion to
gratify the curiosity of young ladies who were his interested
guests from a distance.

As a concert with split-quills was apt to be accompanied
by the bellowing of horns, so the confusion was often
further heightened by the ringing of the college bell.
Knowing that the bell gave out a very loud and alarming
sound, the mischievous students were always itching to
seize its dangling rope and pull it with all the strength
of their youthful arms. The Faculty, aware of the
allurement, endeavored to keep the belfry closed to every
one except the janitor. But not always with success.
In April, 1831, four young men raised a ladder to one
of the windows of the library, and breaking into that
apartment, made their way up to the bell by a very
dark and precipitous passageway, and tying a second
rope to the one already attached, dragged this doubled
rope behind them to the Lawn, where they continued to
ring the bell with great violence until the janitor came
running from under the arcades and frightened them
away. On one occasion, the bell was carried off and was
only found after a protracted search and inquiry.

The most obstreperous students amused themselves at
night, as they passed under the arcades, with singing what
were described at that day as corn-songs. These songs,
which had been learned from the slaves, who sang them
with pagan gusto at the corn shuckings in the autumn,
were remarkable, not for their musical quality, but for
their coarse and sometimes very obscene humor. The
young men having heard them sung on their native plantations,
from season to season, could roll them out with
as much spirit as the negroes themselves; and after a
champagne supper at Keller's, or in a friend's dormitory,

they as often vented their hilarity in the corn-song as in
a performance on split-quill or tin-horn. Each verse
as trolled out ended with a very loud but simple chorus,
in which the most untrained voices could join with resounding
success. Whenever the students were particularly
eager to shock the public proprieties, they always
sang the most indecent corn-song in their repertory; and
they were sometimes guilty of this form of indecorum
when passing in front of a church in Charlottesville on
Sunday morning while the services were going on.

Another but more innocent way of making a noise was
to drag iron fenders over the brick pavements under the
arcades. Still another was to explode crackers there,
as the echoes redoubled the sound. So reckless was their
use, in 1831, that the Faculty prohibited their firing even
on the Fourth of July. A popular manner of causing annoyance
with a cracker was to light it and hurl it at the
study door of a professor, and then to hurry on and
hurl another at the study door of a second professor,
and so forward repeating the outrage, until half a dozen
members of the Faculty had been startled and aroused.

But a far more serious instrument for the creation of
noise within the precincts at night was the pistol or
gun. Although there was a very stern regulation forbidding
the carrying of firearms, it was found impracticable
to suppress this annoying and dangerous habit. The
young men had been accustomed to the use of such
weapons in their life on the plantation, and refused to
give them up after their matriculation, although compelled
to keep them out of sight of the officers, whose
eyes were always watchful for their detection. The
loudest noise that broke the nocturnal stillness of
the Lawn was a fusillade of guns and pistols, and no
single explosion was ever heard that it was not promptly,

and in a spirit of some alarm, followed up by the proctor.
But not invariably with success, for when more than one
student was implicated in the firing, a guard was always
set at every corner. So soon as the proctor was seen
hurriedly approaching, the cry would be passed on:
"Look out, fellows," and the culprits would dive into
the dormitories or behind the Ranges. "I firmly believe,"
reported the chairman very sadly in October, 1831,
"that nothing can enable us to detect offenses of this kind
committed by a combination of students but a system of
espionage, to which no gentleman can submit." The
minutes for this year are full of entries like these: "Last
night, there were several pistol shots on the Lawn;"
"Last night about eleven o'clock two guns were fired off
on the Eastern Range;" "Last night, a pistol was fired
out of a dormitory window." Similar entries without
comment are found in the records for later years. So
frequent was the explosion of guns and pistols within the
precincts in 1836, that the attention of the public at large
was called to it with emphatic disapproval; and very properly
so. On the night of November 7, between the hours
of nine and ten o'clock, the reports of as many as eight
muskets were simultaneously heard coming from the
Lawn, and when the chairman hastened to the spot to
identify the guilty parties, they retired like skirmishers
to another position, firing as they withdrew, the sound
being repeated from East Range by imitators of the main
body. The Faculty always declined to accept any excuse
for a disturbance of this kind, great or small. A student,
on a different occasion, represented himself as shooting
at a mark in anticipation of going to sea; but although
his statement was an honest one, he was punished like
a wanton offender. If the practising, however, took
place beyond the precincts, it seems to have been liable
to no interference, provided that the pistols were not
brought back to the dormitories. The popular shooting
ground was situated on the south side of the University.

The noises which we have enumerated were raised by
the young men either to pinprick the professors, or to
afford themselves an hour of idle amusement. There
were other offenses of a different and more serious nature
which were wantonly intended deeply to anger the authorities.
One of these was gassing, or "fuming," as
it was described in those times. A student was dismissed
in December, 1832, because he had furtively endeavored
to fill the chairman's office with the suffocating odour of
assafoetida, and when he had seen that his design was
frustrated, he had entered the room with a stick in his
hand and threatened that officer with a personal assault.
A few months afterwards, an effort to smoke the apartments
in which the Visitors were supposed to be sleeping
was detected barely soon enough to prevent it. The
method used was to thrust paper matches into the key
holes, and then to light them from outside. About the
same time, a somewhat similar attempt was made on the
chairman: the bell in his office rang, and on his going
to the door and opening it, he found his feet entangled in
a rope, which had been fastened to the knocker. A
paper funnel was lying on the pavement nearby, and
when examined, it was found to contain brimstone and
tobacco for fumigation. It had been the student's purpose
to keep the door open by pulling the rope while the
mixture in the funnel, burning on the sill, would fill the
room with acrid smoke.

Another impish act that was sometimes committed occurred
at Dr. Patterson's expense in 1831: his stable door
was smashed in, and the tail of his horse clipped to the
skin. Dr. Davis's horse was similiarly mutilated during

the following year. Another perverted act that
sometimes occurred was the removal of the University
wagons to the public roads; or the gates in the highway
to Charlottesville would be wrenched from their hinges,
and with a laborious energy worthy of Samson at Gaza
borne away to a great distance. In 1832, a band of
students scaled the walls of the proctor's garden late at
night, pulled up the young shoots, and turned several
cows into the enclosure. A cherry tree was cut down in
the garden of Mrs. Gray the same night, and the shrubs
there were also destroyed. A fine tree in the chairman's
grounds was also felled, and the chicken coops in the
other professors' backyards broken open and the poultry
quietly strangled and carried off.

An instance occurred in the course of the same year
which disclosed the extraordinary persistence with which
the students often sought to carry out a mischievous purpose.
It was known that Professors Davis and Bonnycastle
would leave their pavilions after dark to catch the
stage coach for Richmond. It was anticipated that they
would mount to their seats near the precincts, as the vehicle
passed on its way from Staunton, and in this expectation
the young men piled up a great mass of stones
and planks in the road between the University and the
town. Owing to the delay thus caused, the stage did not
set out from Charlottesville until after midnight. About
two o'clock in the morning, when it had got some distance
beyond the town, the horses came to a stop, and the
driver descending found the highway again blocked by a
heavy barricade. He was received with a triumphant
shout from a band of students who had hidden themselves
in the bushes at the roadside; they had run on ahead of
the coach, and hurriedly built this barrier in its way in
order to delay again the journey of the two professors,

and also, perhaps, to break up rudely their uneasy slumbers.
This occurred early in the month of February,
when the air, four or five hours before dawn, must have
been raw and piercing to the marrow.

It was noticed that an illumination of the Lawn by the
students was always premonitory of a disturbance. This
lighting up was produced by several means. In January,
1833, a small stack of straw was erected on one of the terraces
about ten o'clock at night, and a torch applied to
the inflammable material. Crackers had previously been
thrown into it, and as the heat reached them there was
a rapid succession of explosions. At once, the cry was
raised all along the arcades that the University was afire,
which called out the entire population to the scene. This
exciting exploit was repeated the following evening in a
more flagrant form. A crowd of students gathered
around the burning pile, danced like Indian warriors in a
circle about it, and sang corn-songs. The proctor was
unable to put a stop to the commotion, and as the young
men wore masks, he was prevented from reporting the
names of the culprits. The offense to peace and order
was made the more objectionable by the selection of Sunday
evening for so discreditable an escapade.

In September, 1835, the storage basements of the University
were broken open at night and several barrels,
full of tar, rolled away to the Lawn, where the torch was
applied to them. The great roaring flame that leaped
up immediately gave rise at once to the fear that the
safety of the buildings was in jeopardy; and the creators
of this spectacular scene must have known this to be so,
for they were prudent enough to hide themselves within
the shadow of the arcades. But the most ordinary way
to provide an illumination was to stick candles, separately
or in groups, to the pillars, and to light the wicks. So

smeared with grease, in consequence, had the pillars become
by April, 1834, that the Faculty ordered them to be
whitewashed; and a charge of five cents was imposed
upon each student to defray the expense. An illumination
was always accompanied by disorderly noises. One
that occurred on the night of Sunday, November 12,
1837, was enlivened by successive fusillades of pistols
and guns, and by hallooing so loud that they echoed
throughout the precincts. It was repeated, on the following
night, with the customary shouting and pistol-firing,
rendered all the more deafening and confusing
by the ringing of the big college bell in the belfry of the
Rotunda. In all this lawlessness, there appears to have
been no evil intention beyond raising a delightful uproar,

There were several minor offenses which were not accompanied
by alarming or annoying outbreaks in the
public eye. One of these was a very mild form of hazing
consisting simply of sitting up with a newly arrived student
and wrapping him about with a cloud of smoke so
thick that the figures of those present were hardly perceptible
even in a small room. The tyranny of class to
class, so often noticeable in curriculum colleges, never
prevailed in the University of Virginia. Profane swearing
was a vice which the Faculty endeavored to suppress,
but with little success. The Cyprian evil also was an
elusive one. In 1828, there was a house of ill repute
situated at the foot of the hill on the southeast side of
the precincts; this was in charge of a sinister free negro
from Philadelphia, associated with a white woman of a
still more abandoned stripe.

The University authorities found it impracticable to
put an end to the students' patronage of the hostelries in
Charlottesville, which was reprobated even when the
young men's only purpose was to procure an ordinary

meal. The most popular tables with them were those of
the Fitch and Midway hotels, and of Brown's and
Vowles's taverns. The most frequented confectioneries
were Garner's, Grady's, and above all, Keller's. These
houses also furnished accommodation in the form of lodging,
but were prepared at all hours of day and night to
serve a transient customer who wished a beef-steak, mutton-chop,
ice cream, or sweetmeats. No student could
lawfully spread a supper in his room for his friends'
enjoyment without first obtaining the chairman's permission,
and this was always refused if "vinous or spirituous
liquors" were also to be provided for the guests. The
meagerest proof that what was described as a "festive
entertainment" was going on was seized upon at once
and reported, whether or not an investigation had confirmed
it. On the night of November 22, 1831, the
chairman, at a late hour, strolled very quietly from one
end of the Lawn to the other, and announced to his colleagues
afterwards that he had heard a sound that
"seemed like the breaking up of a festive party." The
suspicion which he voiced in such cautious language was
undoubtedly very well founded, for a student had testified
only recently that the dormitories at that very time
were very frequently the scene of cozy and friendly little
suppers. Most of them, he said with ingenuous frankness,
were restricted to a dish of broiled or stewed
chickens, washed down with cups of very cold water.

In enumerating, with great minuteness, the minor offenses
that were subject to penalties, the Faculty apparently
forgot to include cock-fighting.[33] When Mr. Winfree
was summoned, in 1832, to answer for his having

taken part in this sport, he pointed out that the ordinances
had passed over the cocking main in silence,—doubtless,
he said, with sly humor, because it was a harmless pastime;
but even if they should think differently now, there
was, he asserted, no need of punishment, for the day for
this amusement had gone by, and there was no prospect of
its revival. But he was mistaken. Thirteen days after
his testimony was received, a cock fight came off on the
Lawn in the shadow of Dunglison's pavilion. This was
on Sunday. Another occurred a week later; and a third
in the following April. We learn from the records of
1834 that one of the students of sporting tastes was
granted a leave of absence, but that instead of blithely
going on his way, he remained in concealment within the
precincts, and occupied his unlettered leisure in pitting his
game-cocks the one against the other. The scene of
battle chosen by him lay just behind the University stables.

XXVIII. Major Offenses: Dissipation

A minor delinquency repeated once or twice became a
major offense; but there were certain offenses which were
designated as major in their first committal. These were
acts that went further than annoying misconduct or petty
misdemeanor; indeed, not infrequently, they fell just
short of actual crime, or even leaped beyond the border
to crime itself; but for the most part, they were social
vices rather than flagrant violations of law The most
common of these vices were gambling and drinking. Unfortunately,
drinking was universal, and gambling not
rare, outside the precincts, in that age of hearty geniality
and profuse living, and the University was a small mirror
that reflected the general condition elsewhere. The vigilant
Faculty, fully aware that habits of this nature would

be certain to loosen the reins of discipline, were unyielding
in their determination to punish the guilty student, although
they were so often thwarted that they had, from
time to time, to acknowledge a feeling of profound discouragement.

The playing of cards in the dormitories was constantly
detected, but where one instance was dragged into publicity,
it is quite probable that one hundred eluded detection.
We have already mentioned that one of the duties
imposed on the hotel-keepers was to report every case of
gambling among the young men that fell under their eye;
so far from doing this, they were repeatedly implicated
in the practice of this vice by their boarders. Even those
who kept aloof declined to testify. "If we do so," said
Warner Minor, in 1826, "we will be viewed in the light
of informers, and as such treated, and as things are now,
it would expose a man who respected himself, and was
determined to fulfill his engagements, to constant insult
and a certain loss of business." Loo was the most popular
game with students and hotel-keepers alike. In a
game occurring during that year, one of the young men
lost the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars at a sitting;
this happened in a dormitory that had the reputation of
being a gambling-hell; and it was even suspected that the
cards had been packed. At this period, it was the custom
to play on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights.

In 1830, Dr. Johnson, confident, from certain shuffling
noises overheard by him, that students were playing cards
in the neighborhood of his pavilion, cautiously left his
house, and gently knocked on the door of the suspected
room. It was furtively opened a little way and then
slammed violently in his face; but he had had time to
note the identity of those who had been taking part in
the pastime, as they leapt recklessly from the back-window.

One of the players was dismissed. This incident
illustrates the delicate sensitiveness of the professorial
ear of that period to the mysterious sound of chips
or coin, and also the danger that accompanied even
a quiet game i nthe dormitories. Harassed by this unresting
pursuit, many of the players retired in dudgeon
to Fitch's hotel in Charlottesville for their next bout.
In 1831, West Range, which, at that time, was the congenial
seat of all sorts of wild spirits, harbored the most
inveterate patrons of this sport. The chairman was informed
this year that at least one of its denizens had lost
two thousand dollars at a sitting. A large gambling-hell
now flaunted itself near the precincts; and this was a
popular resort with the dissolute students, in spite of
the vigilance of the Faculty, who endeavored to find out
the habitués by sending the janitor and the assistant
proctor to spy upon them. In April of this year, one of
the young men was called up to answer the charge of
having lost a thousand dollars in one of these disreputable
establishments. He testified that the bankers who
managed them always refused to play except for cash.
He denied that there was a professional gambling apartment
within the University boundaries.

The hotels in town, in 1833, were sometimes the
scenes of gambling, in which blacklegs from Richmond
and Washington took part. In several instances, at that
time, young men were prevented from matriculating by
the loss at the tables in the local taverns of the money
brought by them from home for that purpose. On one
occasion, a newly-arrived student was thus fleeced of one
hundred and twenty dollars in a game into which he had
been allured by a sly fellow-student in his second year,
who was acting as a stool pigeon for a notorious foreign
sharper. So rigid were the regulations that even a game

of backgammon was forbidden, although the delinquents
forgot this important fact. In November, 1836, the
proctor, while passing the door of a dormitory after dark,
heard the tell-tale words "Hearts are trumps. Play on,
friend, I hold low." When the bolt was turned at his
knock, the occupants of the room looked confused, but
asserted they had only been playing an innocent round of
draughts. Two of the players were, nevertheless, suspended
for the remainder of the session. Sometimes,
a game went on in the grounds of a University hotel,
but always there at a late hour. A supper would be given
in the dining-room after midnight, and if the weather was
warm, the whole party would go out to the secluded backyard
and play cards by candlelight.

Drinking was much more general than card playing,
since it required no previous scientific training for its indulgence.
The bars of the taverns were open on Sunday,
and as the young men were entirely at liberty on that day,
many of them were encouraged by idleness to visit these
spots. Drunken collegians were a constant annoyance
to the professors, both inside and outside the precincts;
and this began almost as soon as the University opened.
In 1826, two typical instances of this occurred. A student,
very much under the influence of apple toddy, while
driving in a hack from Charlottesville, saw a member of
the Faculty passing along the side-walk with one of the
ladies of his family. He poked his head out of the window
and reviled the professor in the foulest language.
Another, in the same condition of extreme inebriety, insulted
Bonnycastle on the steps of the Episcopal church
in town after the service. One of these rowdies was expelled,
and the other simply reprimanded in the presence
of his classmates.

The military company during this period never neglected

the social side of their organization. In April,
1828, "a treat," as it was called in those times, was
given by the officers, which consisted altogether of exhilarating
beverages. A large quantity of apple-toddy,
among the other brews, was provided for the fifty members,
and they, with some view possibly to mild dilution,
ground their arms at one of the University pumps to
drink it. The assembling of the company seems to have
been frequently only an occasion for this sort of imbibing.
A member testified that, at one of these meetings, he
had consumed, at a single sitting, about five glasses of
brandy julep. Two pitchers of julep and one of sangaree
had been provided as a "starter," he said, and in the
course of the meeting had been often replenished. A
general drinking party occurred on the 18th of January,
1831, and another on March 14 of the same year, which
were long remembered for the uproariousness which attended
their dispersion at a late hour. Bonnycastle, on
the latter occasion, went out on the Lawn and barely
escaped a serious injury when a bottle was thrown at him,
which, missing him by a hair's breadth, was smashed
against one of the pillars of the arcade behind him. It
was said that this party of young men was composed of
the most prominent, and curiously enough, of the most
"exemplary" students then enrolled at the University.
Perhaps, it was one of this superior band who very politely
asked the chairman whether he would be permitted
to drink in his dormitory a little claret mixed with a large
quantity of water,—which very moderate request was
very positively and promptly refused.

The smallest clue was now followed up. In the course
of 1831, the assistant proctor, Mr. Wertenbaker, reported
that, in visiting one of the rooms, he had discovered
an empty glass that was faintly, but still perceptibly,

tainted with the fumes of liquor. The two occupants
admitted the truth of the charge; but they said, in
their own defense, that they had been suffering from
colds, and that a young friend in the medical school,—
for whose professional knowledge they had the highest
respect,—had advised them to drink a mixture of spirits
and ginger before retiring to bed at night. They had
very cheerfully and trustfully followed this prescription.
The chairman drily replied that this recipe was entirely
without virtue, but the two students, guided by their own
experience, did not agree with him. Perhaps his judgment
was somewhat warped by the number of bottles
marked "medicine" which were now reported to him to
be on the shelves in the dormitories.

Although Wertenbaker was so active in detecting any
suspicious odor which might linger about a glass, yet he
too, following the long established custom of the hotel-keepers,
gave social parties at which the guests were
bountifully supplied with toddy, brandy, and wine. The
mixer of the bowl at one of his entertainments was
accused of showing some "excitement before the end,"
which was hardly remarkable in a person engaged in performing
a duty that called for such constant sampling.
Mint-sling was now the popular beverage, and again we
notice that it was the habit of many of the young men
inclined to this indulgence, to seek the spring situated
near the janitor's house, as the proper place for its enjoyment.
There was a conspicuous return about this
time to the custom of holding drinking-parties in the dormitories;
at one meeting of the Faculty in 1835, three
such parties were reported for their flagrant violation of
the ordinances. The beginning of this session (1835–6)
was marred by many instances of drunkenness, which occurred
because the delay in opening the lecture-rooms

had left the students in a state of idleness. The dissipation
again broke out during the following Christmas,
when it assumed the form of numerous parties to drink
egg-nog; one that was held on December 22, led to fifteen
students being summoned before the Faculty and the
suspension of the host. These boisterous entertainments
took place, not only in the dormitories, but in a vacant
hotel. Even the proctor disregarded the ordinances in
his own residence,—in 1836, Colonel Woodley was
charged with supplying his guests with brandy with which
to brew a large mint-julep.

The students, as time advanced, lost none of their ingenuity
in evading the charge of violating the law against
drinking. One who was called up in 1837 asserted that
the julep found in his room had been left by a friend
on his table while he was asleep, and that when he awoke,
being only human, he had been unable to resist the temptation
of emptying the glass. The presence of mint was
always accepted by the Faculty as unrebuttable proof of
guilt; unfortunately for its possessor, that sweet smelling
plant had but one practical use; and the janitor was
ordered with sternness to report every instance of its
discovery. The same conclusion could not so irresistibly
be drawn from the presence of champagne bottles;
three espied in a dormitory, in 1837, were boldly declared
by their owner to be simply innocent receptacles for
his milk, molasses, and lamp oil.

The secrecy accompanying some of these champagne
parties was often incredible. Having reason to suspect
that such an entertainment was going on, the proctor
and chairman, on the night of March 4, 1837, spent
two hours heroically walking up and down the arcades
in the cold and darkness seeking in vain to detect a sound,
—the popping of a cork, an outburst of hilarity,—that

would indicate the room in which it was in progress. In
general, however, the culprits revealed their merriment
in a very blatant manner. In the following April, a
party that had been drinking heavily were not satisfied
until they had broken into the courthouse in town and
alarmed the awakened population by the violent ringing
of the bell and prolonged shouts and war-whoops. In
July, a similar party took possession of a vacant dormitory
and kept up their carouse long after midnight,
when they dispersed with a wild concert of yells. A less
boisterous demonstration occurred the ensuing Christmas
eve. The scene was a dormitory in West Range,
and although the noise was restrained, the proctor was
sent to suppress it. He tried to push his way into the
room, but the door was finally slammed in his face. In
their defense before the Faculty, the students who were
summoned claimed that the proctor had stated, before
the entertainment came off, that no objection would be
offered to it provided that it was conducted with decorum.
He, however, asserted that what he had really said was
that, while the Faculty would give no specific permission
to drink spirits of any sort at Christmas, he felt
confident that there would be no interference if the indulgence
was free from excess and the hour unmarred by
turbulence. "It was the general custom of the country,"
the Colonel had sympathetically remarked, "and to
be maintained on condition that the bounds of reason
were not crossed." "Let there be decency and order,"
he added expansively, "and all would certainly go well."
This comfortable doctrine, so much in harmony with the
social bent of the times, was promptly repudiated by the
Faculty. They acquitted the culprits in this instance,
but announced that such leniency would not be repeated.
Few months went by, before the close of the period under
review, that the members of drinking parties were not
summoned before that body for punishment; and not
even severe penalties, ranging all the way from admonition
to expulsion, were able to scotch the evil.[34]

XXIX. Major Offenses: Tavern Haunts

How were all these liquors obtained? Not infrequently
in a very furtive and roundabout way. As early
as 1825, a lame free negro named Ben was caught by the
proctor in the twilight of the cellar of pavilion I selling
fermented spirits to the students. This man was, doubtless,
in collusion with the cook of the professor's family.
Three years afterwards, a similar dark cellar in one of
the houses situated not far from the precincts was also
turned into a bar-room, and owing to its proximity, it
was very liberally patronized by the young men. It was
from dens like this that a great quantity of liquor was
smuggled into the University in harmless looking baskets.
The chairman, on one occasion, suspecting a servant
of Conway's, stopped him on the walkway, and removing
the cover of his basket, found snugly hidden
away inside a bottle of rum and a bottle of whisky.
The proctor, about the same time, discovered a bottle of
rum and a bottle of wine in a basket which one of Mrs.
Gray's servants was carrying on his arm. But it was to
the taverns of Charlottesville that the young men went
for their principal supply of stimulants. One of the
most convenient of these was Mosby's, which stood apparently
close to the road leading down to the town.

Spotswood testified before the Faculty, in 1826, that the
students were in the habit of stopping here to enjoy a
glass, and he confessed that he never passed it that he
did not treat or was not treated by them. Other popular
taverns for drinking parties were Vowles's, Ward's
and Fitch's; and Boyd's also possessed a wide reputation
for the insinuating mixtures of its bar. Heiskell's was a
disreputable retail liquor dive situated very near the precincts.
The Faculty endeavored,—apparently in vain,
—to influence the court to refuse to reissue its license.

More censurable than even the taverns and the retail
shops were the confectioneries, all of which had obscure
backrooms for the accommodation of thirsty habitués;
and, indeed, they relied for profit more upon sales of
liquor to such patrons than upon sales of ice-cream,
sweetmeats, and fruits, or upon the income from their
eating tables. Among the earliest was Weidemeyer's,
where many scenes of drunkenness occurred. Garner's,
Toole's, Brown's and Miller's also enjoyed a profitable
share of the same bibulous and half subterranean custom.
But the most frequently mentioned in the records of the
University, at this stage of its history, was Keller's.
Keller was by trade a baker. Alexander Garrett, who
knew him personally, spoke of him as an "honest and
good-hearted man." "Mrs. Keller," he said, "was a
fine, neat, and industrious woman," and she also had
some claim to social consideration, for she was related
to the family of Dr. Foushee, a distinguished physician
of foreign extraction, long a highly respected citizen of
Richmond. The Faculty had numerous reasons for holding
this confectionery in low esteem, however meritorious
in character Garrett may have justly looked upon its owners
to be. As early as 1830, the students were warned to
be shy of the place, not only because all such shops were

banned by the ordinances, but also because this shop,
which stood not far beyond the precincts, was burningly
obnoxious as a chronic scene of disorder caused by the
sale of liquor in copious quantities. The chairman did
not mince his words in speaking of it: he denounced it
openly as a "dangerous den."

In the very first glimpse that we have of Keller's, eight
or ten students are discovered in a group near its door,
one of whom was so intoxicated, that, when a professor
was seen approaching in the distance, they were compelled
to pick up their helpless comrade, and carry him off at a
run to escape detection. The excuses offered by some
of the young men, when summoned for entering its portal,
were remarkable for variety, if not for veracity; one
had simply stepped in to get his cane before mounting his
horse; another to purchase candy and fruit; another to
drink a glass of soda-water; and another to eat oysters.
In 1834, rollicking champagne parties assembled here
and caroused to a late hour; and these scenes occurred
most frequently on Sunday night. Wine, whisky, and
brandy mixed with honey were all to be bought here at all
hours; and so flagrant grew the evil in time that the chairman
set a permanent watchman opposite the door, with
instructions to report the name of every student who
should enter. The scandal finally reached such a height
that Keller was threatened with indictment by the grand
jury, and in his apprehension, he offered to give bond
that, during the remainder of the session, he would decline
to sell liquor and would only sell soda-water, ice-cream,
and sweetmeats. Six members of the Faculty
favored acceptance of this overture, while three,—who
were doubtful of his good faith,—were opposed to it.
In the following year, this agreement was renewed, on

condition that Keller would consent to the examination of
his store accounts at short notice.

By the autumn of 1835, the former attitude of suspicion
must have returned, for again every student who was
known to have visited the premises, was reported and
punished; and an attempt was also made to prevent the
issuance of a new license to the proprietor. His old
license apparently was not revoked, but his trade with the
young men was so much hampered at this shadowed place
of business, that he leased the Midway Hotel, and retired
from the immediate vicinity of the University. But, if
possible, this hostelry, under his management, became
more objectionable to the University authorities than the
shop had been. It was popularly known as Keller's tavern.
Students patronized it throughout the day and
night, and the drinking was unrestrained in spite of the
fact that every collegian seen there was reported to the
Faculty. It was said to have been less difficult to detect
them in the hotel than in the confectionery. The discreditable
use so often made of the place was illustrated
in an instance that occurred there in 1837, and which involved
a student, who, in after life, won a position of
national distinction. A combination was formed by several
of his friends to make him drunk, and they set out
with him for Keller's. There the former absorbed, with
the utmost liberality, weak claret punch and whisky
punch, while the victim was confined to raw whisky.
The party were able to return to their dormitories,—
probably with the assistance of a town hack,—and on
their arrival, one of its members, while flourishing a pistol,
accidentally shot another, but happily not fatally. It
was stated in the inquiry which followed that the young
men from the University never visited Charlottesville

without carrying arms in order to defend themselves
against the assaults of a class designated by them as
"mechanics." There was a patrol on the streets at this
time at night, perhaps for the purpose of watching the
slaves who had slunk abroad; and these men were chronically
in collision with the students.

In 1837, Keller, having become a bankrupt, expressed
an intention of returning to his original trade of baker.
We have seen that, during the existence of his covenant
with the Faculty, his accounts were open to their examination
at any time. This was to prevent the extension of
credit to the young men, especially for the purchase of
stimulants. An ordinance, adopted in 1837, prohibited
the patron from paying any bill drawn on him by a
student in favor of a tradesman whom he had reason to
know or believe "to be a retailer of vinous, spirituous, or
fermented liquors." This ordinance had a rather notable
consequence. It appears from the statement of
Colonel Woodley, the proctor, that, in 1838, there were
several important merchants in Charlottesville whose
business would have been sensibly contracted by it, and
they were so much irritated by its passage that they joined
in an underhanded agreement with the students, by the
terms of which the latter were to make the greater number
of their necessary purchases before they should
matriculate, and the merchants, by a discount, were to
recoup their youthful patrons for the two per cent. additional
commission, which they, in case the bargains were
detected, would be required by the regulations to pay
the patron. This furtive stipulation led many of the
young men to place in these tradesmen's hands all the
money remaining in their possession after their settlement
for tuition fees. The deposits with the patron, in
1838, owing to this cause, fell off one-half of the average

amount, resulting in a loss to him of three or four
hundred dollars.

So anxious were the Faculty to take away from the
students all excuse for visiting Charlottesville, that, in
1833, they gave a free mulatto, Jack Kennedy, permission
to use a cellar within the precincts as a barber shop;
but this primitive apartment was not to be kept open after
dark.

The determined effort to discourage drinking habits
among the young men was not confined to the strict
enforcement of formal ordinances. As early as June,
1830, a temperance society had been organized at the
University, but with the odd provision that the members
should be allowed to retain the right to drink wine. In
the following October, not long after the beginning of a
new session, the students met in the Rotunda, and reestablished
the society, with the Faculty's full consent. In
April, 1832, seventy members were enrolled. For the
time being, its influence was very perceptible. "The
drunkenness and yells by which our peace used to be
disturbed, night after night," said the chairman, "are
no longer heard." Cocke, as was to be expected of a
man who favored universal prohibition, took a burning
interest in the society, and presented it, through Alexander
Garrett, with many bulky packages of pertinent documents.
But they seem to have had little influence, for,
by the session of 1835, the organization had begun to
languish. Colonel Pendleton, the proctor at this time,—
who, like Colonel Woodley afterwards, was probably
without sympathy with the movement,—was frankly
discouraging in his reports to Cocke. He very correctly
said that the cause of temperance at the University was
one hedged about with all sorts of thorny difficulties, and
that only the rarest practical wisdom and patience shown

there could crown it with success. The methods to be
adopted with that view were left by him in the
dark, except that he advised that some famous advocate
of total abstinence should be invited to deliver an address
to the students. A meeting among themselves,—
as warmly urged by Cocke,—would, in his opinion, only
barb and reenergize the opposition. Professor Davis's
report was couched in words in harmony with Pendleton's.
"Young men," he said, "accustomed to indulge in the
use of ardent spirits at home, and to see them used in
their families, as most of our students unfortunately are,
can hardly be expected to entertain proper views on the
subject."

William Wertenbaker, who, after giving up his hotel,
became such a stout and fanatical friend of the Cause,
that, in his letters to Cocke, he always signed himself,
"In the bonds of temperance brotherhood," was compelled,
in 1841, to write in the same disheartened vein:
"I have but little hope," he said, "of seeing the professors
engage in temperance with anything like unanimity.
There are perhaps two who agree with us in principle;
namely, Professors Howard and Rogers; and others
may be influenced to unite in the usual pledge of abstinence
from intoxicants, under the persuasion that their
example might influence many students to do the same.
The professors friendly to the Cause, do not wish to appear
to take the lead, but are waiting the action of some
of the students, who have promised that, in a few weeks,
they will make an effort to organize a society. ...
Several of the students have united themselves with a
temperance society formed in Charlottesville." Cocke
firmly refused to give away to depression. "I shall
never cease," he said, "while my connection with this
University lasts, to urge upon the Faculty, and all connected

with it, the vast importance of bringing the temperance
reform to operate on the students."

XXX. Major Offenses: Assaults

The drinking habit, which was so general among the
students at this time, was the principal cause of the reckless
violence that was so often exhibited by them. A
furtive device employed in several instances,—at long
intervals, fortunately,—was to fill a bottle with powder,
insert a quill in the cork, pack this quill with a slow-burning
fuse, fire the fuse, and set the bottle on the windowsill
of a pavilion occupied by an unpopular professor.
If this little infernal machine was not soon detected by a
passerby, or an inmate of the house, the explosion that
followed was certain to disrupt the window frame and
shutters and shatter every pane of glass. But flights of
stones were the means ordinarily employed in such malicious
enterprises. "Last night," records Professor
Davis in October, 1835, "the glass and sash of a window
of the hotel in which the proctor had his office was broken
by a party of students," and this outrage was repeated
at a later date in the smashing of the front windows of
the same building, and of the front windows of Colonel
Ward's hotel. But the attacks were not confined to windows
and doors. Servants, for real or supposed impertinence,
were sometimes viciously assaulted. In 1828, a
student struck a negro who was taking his order in
Minor's dining-room. Minor was justly indignant and
complained to the Faculty. The student, hearing this,
threatened to flog Minor; and his friends loudly backed
him up in the menace: "I was anxious," was the cool testimony
of one of them, "that Minor should be whipped,
for he had acted in an ungentlemanly way in not suffering

Boyd to lead the servant outside to chastise him."

Another scene with a servant characteristic of the intemperate
spirit of the age, occurred near the entrance to
the precincts in 1839. Several negroes began to fight in
the street, and when two students sprang forward to stop
them, Bonnycastle's servant interfered. "These men,"
he shouted, as he waved his stick, "are free, and they
shall fight as much as they choose." The students
promptly turned on the intermeddler, and while one hit
him repeatedly with a cane, the other pommeled him with
his fists. They ordered him to leave the ground and as he
slunk away, he picked up a stone. This was a signal for
one of the students to strike him again with the cane,
and for the other again to beat him about the head with
his fists. Bonnycastle now came up in a state of excitement,
but when he endeavored to defend his servant,
he was seized by the collar, roughly shaken, and threatened
with further violence, in the midst of a shower of
oaths.

The collegians never failed to rush to the rescue of
any one of their number, who, whether wantonly or unwittingly,
had become mixed up in a quarrel with strangers.
In 1832, three students were passing down the road
in front of Keller's shop on their way to Charlottesville,
and their boisterous singing, broken by drunken hallooing,
aroused the dogs belonging to a couple of wagons that
had halted by the roadside. One of the wagon boys, in
the ignorance and irresponsibility of youth, set the barking
dogs on the noisy students without being aware that
he was throwing a stone squarely into a hornets' nest.
Within a few minutes, thirty or forty young men, hearing
the uproar, ran up, and attacking the wagoners with
fists, stones, and sticks, forced them to fly for safety, like
so many rats, to Keller's cellar. When the frightened

and battered teamsters ventured out again, they found
that all their harness had been cut to pieces and their vehicles
damaged. But it was not simply insolent slaves
and incautious country folk who knew how heavy was the
hand of the angry student. During a lecture in 1838,
Blaettermann ordered one of his class, who had been impertinent,
to leave the room. The young man quietly
arose from his seat, put his hat on his head, and walked
in front of the professor's chair on his way to the door.
As he passed by, probably with an air of bravado, Blaettermann
made a pass at the hat and knocked it to the
floor. The student quickly turned upon him, and in the
midst of a scene of extraordinary confusion, struck him
repeatedly.

Professor Harrison, who bore himself always with dignity,
though sometimes impulsively, did not escape.
There were two reasons for this: (1) he served many
terms as chairman, and as such was an inflexible custodian
of order, which made him very unpopular with the
lawless students; and (2) he was, in the beginning, very
young, even for the position of teacher. Indeed, he was,
previous to 1830, of the same age as many of the members
of his own or other classes; and he was also then,
as afterwards, very candid and emphatic in the expression
of his condemnation of all forms of evil doing.
Sometime during that year, he happened to overhear
loud and indecent talking at his door, and in a state of
indignation, he went out to put a stop to it. He chided
one of the young men with vehement severity for his conduct;
nothing was said by the latter at the moment; but
after lecture on the following day, he walked up to the
professor, told him that he would not tolerate a rebuke
from him, his former fellow-student, and struck him.
The student was promptly expelled, and a few hours

later, his friends assembled in the Rotunda in a body
and passed a resolution justifying the assault and reflecting
upon Harrison. But they were too prudent to send
a copy to the Faculty.

This assault, indefensible as it was, was not so aggravated
as the one which occurred in 1839, when Harrison
was serving as chairman. He had left his lecture-room
only a few minutes when he was confronted by two students,
one of whom had been recently expelled and the
other suspended. One of the couple was very much
larger and stronger than the professor. While this one
roughly seized him and held him tightly in his arms,
the other laid on vigorously with a stout horsewhip. At
least an hundred students rushed from all sides to the
spot, but only two or three offered to interfere, and these
so timidly and half-heartedly as to be brushed aside.
Finally released, Harrison vehemently denounced the
outrage of which he had been the victim as the assault
of two cowards, whereupon the attack was violently renewed.
Interrupted, the desperadoes immediately took
horse and fled towards Lynchburg. Pursued, they were
overtaken, and one was shot in the shoulder. Both,
who had been aiming to escape to Mississippi, were captured
and brought back. The following day, the friends
of the wounded man endeavored to arouse sympathy for
him and excite hatred against the Faculty by exhibiting in
the dormitories the coat which he had been wearing when
he was struck by the bullet, now stained with his blood.

The young men who declined to hold the persons of
their teachers as sacred were not likely to refrain from
equally violent assaults on each other. The pistol, dirk,
bowie knife, and cowhide were properties very much valued
by members of this reckless class. The use of the
cowhide was ordinarily provocative of the use of the pistol.

Many quarrels arose over games of cards, which led
to the flourishing of more than one of these weapons.
One young man testified, in 1836, that he always carried
a dirk because he might have good reason at any moment
for whipping it out. The fact that a dirk had been seen
hidden under a student's coat was sometimes reported
to the Faculty. Sometimes, too, as in a rencontre which
took place on May 20, 1836, a collegian was shown to
have been carrying concealed about his person both a
dirk and a pistol. Should the pistol snap, he could snatch
out the dirk. In the following year, one prominent
student received a wound in the leg from this weapon in
the hand of another, who probably had been thrown to
the ground. A dangerous stab was inflicted with a dirk
in a fight in a dormitory in 1838. A student, summoned
before the Faculty a few months afterwards for carrying
a bowie knife, explained his action with the remark that it
was necessary to take precautions against all contingencies.
When asked to define the contingency that would justify
the use of such a weapon, he replied, "If a man insults
me and refuses to give me honorable satisfaction."

This was probably an extreme method of closing a
violent dispute, for there was as strong a sentiment in
the University in favor of the more orderly duello, as
the proper way of settling an altercation between gentlemen,
as there was, at this time, in the society of the
Southern States at large. Nothing but the strict regulations
for its repression prevented its more frequent recurrence.
As early as 1826, a meeting between Henry
Dixon and Livingston Lindsay was arranged to take place
beyond the jurisdiction of Virginia. The seconds advised
that it should be put off until the session was ended;
but the Faculty got wind of the challenge, and stopped
the impending fight by the interposition of the sheriff.

Slyly aware of the nervous apprehension felt by the
chairman, the students at this time amused themselves
with mock-duels. One such came off in 1831, and another
in 1832. The latter was reported by Professor
Blaettermann, and when the supposed principals were
called before the Faculty, they declared somewhat oddly
that it was a hoax devised to reconcile the seconds, who,
it appears, had been quarrelling. The chairman was as
much shocked by the boyish adventure as if it had been
in mockery of a religious ceremony. He sternly rebuked
the thoughtless participants, on the ground that
their travesty had brought down ridicule on the most
solemn of all the enactments.

In 1834, T. J. Pretlow and Daniel C. Johnson were
put under bond to keep the peace, since information had
been received that they had arranged to fight a duel; and
in the course of the following year, two students,
McHenry and Matthews by name, left the University to
meet on ground in the District of Columbia which had
been made famous by the hostile shots so often exchanged
there by quarrelsome Congressmen.

A duel that was brewing between Hamer and Wigfall
in 1835 seems to have aroused the chairman to an extraordinary
state of perturbation. So soon as the news
of their purpose leaked out, he hurried off word to the
sheriff in Charlottesville to be on the watch to seize the
principals and seconds, for the quartet had got away
unobserved before they could be stopped. Hamer's
room, when visited, had been found empty, and Wigfall
had contrived to escape after being arrested. Warrants
for their capture were issued, and while the proctor
boarded the stage for Washington, the janitor and constable
mounted that for Staunton; but before the coaches
could leave, Professor Davis, coming up in a hurry, announced

that the duellists had gone in the direction of
Lynchburg. He also reported that the weapons to be
used were rifles, which were to be placed on rests at ten
paces. The chairman had hastened after Davis, and
finding out when he arrived in Charlottesville that two of
the blood-thirsty students had turned their faces towards
Scottsville, he sued out additional warrants, and accompanied
by Davis, galloped off down the road that led to
that village. After they had gone five miles from town,
they overtook Wigfall and Cheves, his second, who
promptly disputed the validity of the papers for their
arrest thrust into their hands; but when threatened with
an uprising of the county, Wigfall reluctantly consented
to return, on condition that the Faculty would defer the
question of the penalty to the county court. He and
Cheves asked permission to withdraw at once from the
University, but this was refused. Hamer and his second
turned up again a few days afterwards.

The Faculty's inflexibility in punishing the offense of
duelling was illustrated in the case of B. F. Magill.
Magill, a student, was absent in Staunton on leave, and
while there, went to a ball as the escort of a young lady.
There being a drunken fellow present, he advised his companion
to decline to dance with him, should he ask her
to do so. The man approached her, was refused, and
hearing that she was acting on a warning from Magill,
he called the latter to the door, and being the strongest,
there gave him a severe beating. Magill challenged him
on the following day, but being informed upon, was arrested.
The Faculty, apprised of the challenge and
arrest, expelled him from the University.

A challenge passed between W. H. Armistead and H.
C. Chambers in January, 1840. Although their purpose
was suspected, they were permitted to leave the University

on another excuse. When their real object became
fully known, warrants were issued for their capture,
but Chambers alone was taken. It seems that the
weapons chosen by the challenged party were sticks, but
as the challenger refused to fight with such contemptible
weapons, rifles were substituted. Chambers and Armistead,
and their seconds also, were expelled. This severity
failed to put down the evil, for, in the course of the
following month, Walke and Bell, two students, were
said to have actually fought a duel in the District of
Columbia.

XXXI. Major Offenses: Riots

The students, during 1825, being free of all personal
control,—the Board of Censors having declined to act
and the Faculty possessing no real power,—a spirit of
insubordination soon boiled up to the surface. Premonitory
symptoms of this rebellious mood cropped out
as early as the night of June 22. A similar outburst took
place on the night of August 5, and again on the night
of September 19. These "vicious irregularities," as
Jefferson himself described them, came to a furious head
about ten days later. After dark, a great crowd of
students collected on the Lawn disguised with masks,
and the cry arose, "Down with the European professors."
A large bottle, filled with a foul liquid, had been
tossed through a window of Long's pavilion into his
sitting room, the night before, and the violent feeling
which broke out twenty-four hours afterwards was chiefly
directed against Key and himself. One student,
wrapped in a counterpane, was the most conspicuous of
all. Dr. Emmet, who, with Professor Tucker, had
boldly gone among the rioters, seized him by this flowing
garment. "The rascal," cried the youthful outlaw,

"has torn my shirt!" Immediately, one of his friends
threw a brick at Emmet, while Tucker was assailed with
a cane. The vulgarest words of abuse were hurled at
both, and they were determinedly resisted by the entire
band, amid the tumult of derisive shouts and howls.
The ensuing day, instead of showing contrition for their
violent conduct, they sent a committee to the Faculty
with a resolution that sharply criticized Emmet and
Tucker because they had both ventured to lay their
hands at the same moment on the person of the same
student. About sixty-five young men had joined in this
resolution, which was so extraordinary in its assertions
that it was taken to be a sly device to shift the burden of
responsibility from their own shoulders to those of the
two stout-hearted professors.

Key and Long, as the direct upshot of these lawless
events, gave up their respective chairs. "We have lost
all confidence in the signers of this remonstrance," they
said, "and we cannot and will not meet them again."
This spirit of disgust was not confined to them. The
Faculty, as a whole, adopted a resolution that, unless
an effective system of police was established at once by
the Board, they would send in their resignations in a
body. The Visitors were now in session at Monticello;
and after their arrival at the University on the following
morning, they were indignant eye-witnesses to the state
of extreme disorganization into which the institution
had been thrown. They assembled in one of the apartments
of the Rotunda. Professor Tutwiler, who was a
student during the first session, has left a record of his
vivid recollection of that memorable scene. "At a long
table near the centre of the room," he says, "sat the
most august body of men I had ever seen,—Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe, who had administered the Government,

twenty-four out of thirty-six years of its existence
under the Constitution; by their side, Chapman
Johnson, the head of the Virginian bar; J. C. Cabell,
statesman and patriot, and John H. Cocke, generosity
and philanthropy unbounded. Jefferson rose to address
the students. He began by declaring that it was one of
the most painful events of his life, but he had not gone far
before his feelings overcame him, and he sat down, saying
that he would leave to abler hands the task of saying
what he wished to say. Johnson arose and made a very
eloquent and touching speech. He did not spare the
offenders, and ended by calling upon every one who had
been concerned in the riotous conduct to come forward
and give in his name."

This appeal went straight to its mark; the numerous
culprits crowded forward to have their names set down
by the secretary of the Board; and among them was a
nephew of Jefferson, whose appearance in such a discreditable
position aroused an indignation in the agitated
sage which he found it impossible to disguise. The
young men most seriously implicated in these disorders
were expelled. Jefferson now drafted a resolution, addressed,
through the Faculty, to the students, who were
told of the necessity for establishing at once an inflexible
system of discipline, to be applicable as well to those who
were conscious of their own rectitude as to those who
had committed notorious breaches of the peace. He
was very sharp in his reflection on the general disposition
to shelter the guilty by declining to testify against
them. He urged the innocent to throw off with disdain
"all communion of character" with offenders by exposing
their identity, and by co-operating with the Faculty
in their repression. "Let the good and the virtuous of
the alumni of the University do this," he exclaimed, "and

the disorderly will then be singled out for observation,
and deterred by punishment, or disabled by expulsion,
from infecting with their inconsideration the institution
itself, and the soundness of those it is preparing for virtue
and usefulness."

The next riot of importance occurred on the night of
May 18, 1831. The night before, there had been an
intermittent firing of pistols within the precincts. While
the Faculty was in session, the students began to assemble
on the Lawn; at once a pandemonium of discordant and
alarming noises broke out; pistols were fired off; shrieks
and yells were raised; split-quills and tin-horns were
blown; and the college bell rung with unexampled violence.
Slowly the collegians withdrew to one of the gymnasiums
fronting the Rotunda. Leaving the Facultyroom,
Emmet, Davis, and the chairman started towards
the spot, and as they drew near, several students hurried
forward and warmly counselled them to go back, as the
mood of the rioters was such that there would certainly
be personal violence if the professors endeavored to remonstrate
face to face. A shower of stones began to
fall about them, and they decided that it would be discreet
to retire. The tumult, it seems, was designed as
a protest against the Uniform Law. At a late hour, the
crowd dispersed, with a final outburst of noise, but without
having done any damage to property.

In 1833, an ordinance was passed which provided that,
in case of a riot at night, all students were to retire to
their rooms so soon as the signal was sounded on the
college bell. The young men seem to have strongly resented
this regulation. A mass meeting was called to
take place at Hotel C, the present hall of the Jefferson
Society, for the purpose of resisting "the late tyrannical
movements of the Faculty." The chairman, observing

this notice on the college boards, incorrectly supposed
that it was directed against a new rule touching the
Uniform Law, and he gave an order that the hotel
door should be closed. The students, when they assembled,
finding the door locked, smashed in the panels and
entered. A resolution was promptly adopted condemning
the passage of the retiring ordinance as an ex post
facto one, and advising that it should be ignored.
The proctor now came in and wrote down the names of
forty-four of the seventy students present; and three of
these, at his instance, were summoned before the Faculty
as having broken down the door. Before action
could be taken in their case, Rev. Mr. Hammett, the
chaplain, in person warned the Faculty that, if these three
students were dismissed for their supposed offense, the
entire body of their fellow students would withdraw
from the University. He entreated the Faculty to put
off their decision until the excitement had subsided.
That body concluded to take no action at all against the
three, as they were apparently no more culpable than
the rest of their companions. They announced explicitly
that they had no wish to curtail the students' right to hold
public deliberations, provided that permission had been
obtained to assemble in a room previously approved, and
that the spirit shown was an orderly one.

XXXII. Major Offenses: Riots, Continued

The riotous humor which had been so often displayed
before 1836, swelled to the proportions of a small rebellion
in the course of that year. In September, on the
threshold of a new session, the military company had been
formed as usual, but had intentionally neglected to ask
for the Faculty's approval. The captain, when summoned

by the chairman to explain this omission, coolly
said that he was not aware that the Faculty's consent was
required either for the organization or for the use of
the muskets. He was informed that he must obtain this
consent at the Faculty's next meeting, but, in the meanwhile,
the drills would be permitted to continue. When
application was finally made (October 29), the conditions
that had been always imposed on the company were renewed,
—these were, that the University uniform should
be worn; that no musket was to be fired on the Lawn or
in the Ranges; that this weapon was only to be handled
in the course of military exercises; that the company was
to be dissolved if it violated any of these regulations; and
that the muskets were then to be returned to the armory
in Charlottesville,—which, it appears was the common
jail.

Early in November, the chairman was told that the
company had not accepted the conditions imposed: and
when the Faculty assembled the same day, they sent for
Captain Morris, who, when questioned, replied nonchalantly
that, while the company had not actually rejected
the conditions, it had taken no action on them
simply because the Faculty's right to prescribe them was
disputed. Indeed, the company went so far as to claim
that it existed as a State military body independently of
the University, and even in opposition to it. The Faculty
emphatically denied this, and ordered the company
to return the muskets at once to their place of safe-keeping
in Charlottesville. Those who should hold back the
firearms were to be summoned, on the ground that they
had violated the ordinance which expressly prohibited such
retention.

As the military company had not accepted the conditions
so plainly laid down, it was, in reality, not a legal

organization at all, and, therefore, there was no reason
why it should be formally broken up. The only step
necessary to be taken was to deprive its members of the
muskets. To disband it was to recognize its legality.
The members of the company met, and no patriotic association
in the War of the Revolution ever breathed
forth more burning sentiments of defiance to tyranny
than they did in their speeches and resolutions. It was
the spirit of 1776 in a perverted form, and in a very
small teapot. They pledged themselves by a solemn
oath to stand together. A committee of six, with
Captain Morris at their head, was appointed to lay
an ultimatum before the Faculty. This ultimatum consisted
of three clauses: (1) the company would not
disband; (2) it would attend the drill as usual without
the least regard to the Faculty's command to the contrary;
(3) every member having bound himself to remain
faithful to his comrades, the action of the Faculty against
one would be accepted as action against all.

When the committee called on the chairman to submit
this ultimatum, the firing of muskets had again started on
the Lawn, and the sound of the explosions was so loud
and continuous that the indignant protest of that officer
was drowned in the uproar. The firing was prolonged
for two hours, and was finally only stopped by the rain
that began to fall. The proctor was ordered to search
the dormitories to find out whether the muskets were still
held back, and he discovered that the very first member of
the company whom he visited still retained one in his
possession. The proctor's purpose of ferreting out
others becoming known, Captain Morris sent to the
chairman a full roster of his men, with the announcement
that, if one gun was to be removed, all must be
removed. The Faculty convened on November 11 to

examine this roster, which they found to comprise seventy
names,—among them, some of the most prominent
in the contemporary social and political life of the State.
It was determined to call upon each in turn for an explanation
of his use of a musket at an unlawful hour.
The first on the roster was Thomas S. Walker, and the
janitor was dispatched to summon him to the Faculty's
presence. "He cannot come. He is on parade," was
Captain Morris's curt reply.

The Faculty then decided to ascertain who were the
students participating in the drill, and to institute action
against them all in a body. The proctor, with the roster
in his hand, went to the spot where the drill was taking
place; Morris, with studied politeness, called out the
names from this roster; and then quietly offered the following
brief and emphatic resolution, which was adopted
with unanimous voice: "We have our arms and intend
to keep them." The proctor having returned to the
Faculty a list of the sixty-six members present at the
drill, that body at once recorded the statement that these
young men had, without lawful authority, brought firearms
into the University grounds, and had since announced
their intention of retaining them there without
permission. The organization had thus become a combination
that illegally defied the valid commands of the
University's officers. The entire company was then
formally expelled.

On the ensuing Saturday, the drill was held as usual,
and when the company halted, the proctor informed its
members of the Faculty's decision, which was received
with groans and shouts of defiance. They then marched
to the Rotunda, raised their flag to its top, and deliberately
shot it to shreds. A large number of other students
now joined them, and while one party remained to

ring the bell without any cessation, another hastened to
Charlottesville, and taking the bell from the belfry of
the Episcopal church, carried it away. That night was
marked by ungovernable disorder. The students broke
the glass in the windows of the pavilions, battered the
blinds with volleys of stones, beat violently on the front-doors
with heavy sticks, and fired fusillades of musketry
under the arcades. In several instances, the professors
and their families, in a state of very justifiable alarm,
withdrew to their upper stories for personal safety.
They were threatened, reviled, and hooted. The following
night, which was Sunday, the rioting again grew
furious. The bell had been tolling all day long, and as
darkness fell, the fusillades were renewed and all the
terrifying incidents of the previous night repeated.

The professors now began to arm themselves, in the
expectation that they would be called upon to defend
their families,—not from mere personal assault as before,
but from attacks with deliberate intention to kill.
Two students, well informed as to the spirit of the
rioters, privately told the chairman that the outrages so
far committed were much less heinous than those which
were designed for the future. So soon as he thus heard
that the violent disorders of Sunday and Monday were
to begin again in a more aggravated form, he adopted the
course that should have been followed on the preceding
day: he summoned the civil authority to the Faculty's
assistance. On the morning of the 15th (Tuesday), two
magistrates and the sheriff appeared on the ground; the
grand jury was called; and a military guard was placed
in control of the Rotunda. The students who had been
most deeply implicated in the riot, now, in a state of
consternation, started to scuttle away from the University
precincts. The grand jury convened on the 16th,

examined the professors, and brought in indictments.
By the 19th, under the salutary influence of this firm and
sensible action, order was fully restored.

It shows the perverted spirit of the students who remained
that they had the boldness to assemble and pass
a resolution that the "unhappy difficulty,"—which had
really been precipitated by their own indefensible conduct
alone,—should be "calmly and deliberately reviewed
by the Board of Visitors, and by an enlightened
and impartial public opinion." They magnanimously
promised that, should the Faculty's order disbanding the
military company be confirmed as within the power of
that body to adopt, they would "cheerfully acquiesce in
the decision." They gave their word of honor that no
firearms would, in the interval, be brought by them
within the precincts. Emmet sternly urged that not a
man should be readmitted who was unable to swear that
he had had no part in the disorders. Davis, on the other
hand, advised, in a conciliatory spirit, that none should
be shut out who were willing to make the proper atonements;
and this course was, in the end, followed by the
Faculty. The public journals, as a rule, condemned the
weakness shown by that body in not calling in the assistance
of the civil authority at an earlier hour, and in
inflicting so mild a punishment on the bulk of the culprits.
Smarting under the whip of popular criticism, Davis, as
the spokesman of the Faculty, issued an exculpatory reply,
in which he stated that all the muskets had been
handed in; the company disbanded; and only those young
men readmitted, who had been the least responsible for
the riots, and who had expressed regret for whatever
share they had taken in them. At least thirty of the dismissed
members of the company failed to return, and
their action indicated that they looked upon themselves

as too much discredited to be acceptable to the University
again as students.

A serious riot occurred in the course of 1838 because
the Faculty declined to permit the students to celebrate
Jefferson's birthday with a ball. This refusal was
based on the information that the drunkenness which had
disgraced the similar ball on the previous February 22
was to be repeated. It was known that one of the
young men who had taken part in that entertainment had
had so severe an attack of mania a potu that he was, with
difficulty, rescued from the grasp of death. In retaliation
for their disappointment, the college bell on April
13, was rung throughout the night; tar barrels, taken
from the cellar of the proctor's house, were rolled upon
the Lawn and ignited, thus causing a conflagration that
the wind at one time threatened to spread to the roofs of
the pavilions and dormitories; there were processions up
and down in masks; pistols and guns were fired off in
volleys; the arcades rang with shouts and corn-songs; and
the houses of the professors who had opposed the ball
were attacked. "Most insulting ribaldry was used,"
writes Professor Rogers, who was the most obnoxious of
all for this reason, "and neither I nor my family considered
their persons safe. Hence we got firearms for
defense."

The disorder continued until midnight. The chairman
was threatened in his office next day by one of the
offenders. The third night a large body of students
made an assault on Professor Rogers's house again.
The front-door was battered in, and a great number
of missiles of all sorts hurled against the four outer
walls. Most of the glass in the windows was broken.
The work of destruction at the back was done by a single
student, who had crept up to the rear of the pavilion,

and hidden himself in the shadow. In vain the sturdy
Rogers watched for him to show his body, for, with his
pistol loaded and cocked, the outraged professor was determined
to shoot the marauder on sight. "Our police
is worthless," he wrote with bitterness afterwards.
"Two or three rowdies can, with impunity, stone our
dwellings, destroy our property, jeopard our lives, and
take away from us that quiet without which the situation
is worthless to a man of science." The Faculty had
learned from experience a practical lesson of importance:
so soon as order was restored, civil process was obtained
against six of the ringleaders in the riot. One of these
took to his heels when he received the summons to court,
while another hurried to the chairman's office and made
him the target of foul abuse.

The spirit of the rebellion of 1836 always flared up
on its anniversary; that event was celebrated by the
students as another Declaration of Independence; and it
was held in as much honor in their college annals as the
glorious Fourth of July, 1776, was in national. This
perverted and intemperate attitude culminated in November
12, 1840, in the murder of Professor Davis, a
man who had shown a forbearing, though firm, spirit
in his relations with the young men, and who, of all the
professors, the least deserved such a fate at the hands
of one of them. Aware of their custom of celebrating
every return of this date, he was always anxious to suppress
the demonstrations that accompanied it, because
he correctly thought that it fostered a hostile and insurrectionary
spirit. Hearing a great noise under the arcade
in front of his pavilion, which was situated on East
Lawn, he went to the door to find out the immediate
cause. Stepping down to the pavement, he attempted
to remove the mask from the face of one of the rioters,

who had taken refuge behind a pillar, and as he did so,
he was fired upon and fatally wounded. After lingering
several days, he expired, amid the grief, horror, and indignation
of the entire community.

So soon as the shooting was known, the young men as
a body showed the most ardent determination to run
down the assassin, and it was through their assistance that
he was detected and arrested. The principal was
proved to be Joseph E. Semmes, a student from the far
South, and the accessory, William A. Kincaid, of South
Carolina. Semmes had remained quietly at the University
the day following the crime. The bullet, when
cut out of Davis's body, was recognized to be one of those
which, on the morning of the fatality, had been given
to the murderer by a friend, who promptly came forward
and testified to this fact. It seems that Semmes had no
reason to nurse a grudge against Davis, but he had been
heard to say that he intended to shoot the first member
of the Faculty who should attempt to tear off his mask
during a riot.

Very able counsel were employed to defend him, and
when the Circuit Court convened, they urged that he
should be released on bail on the ground that his health
was likely to be undermined by close imprisonment, and
that his life even might be put in jeopardy by it. Judge
Lucas P. Thompson, a man of learning and experience,
and remarkable for his common sense, declined to
acknowledge the pertinency of this line of reasoning; he
refused to admit Semmes to bail; and very pointedly intimated
that if his health was really poor, it was due to
his own excesses. The Court of Appeals, unfortunately
for the credit of the judiciary, showed itself to be more
amenable to the sentimental plea of the lawyers, and
liberated the criminal on his giving bond with the penalty

of twenty-five thousand dollars. Semmes failed to appear,
as might have been anticipated; his bond, in consequence,
was forfeited; and he himself afterwards perished
miserably in Texas. Kincaid returned from South
Carolina to Charlottesville to testify at Semmes's trial,
and when that was postponed, decided to remain until
the following October, the time set for the second trial.
He was placed under bond and became an inmate in his
surety's family. He seems to have attended lectures at
the University during several years after the murder, and
apparently he was not again brought up in Court.

XXXIII. Punishments

Unless an offense took place directly under the eye
of a professor, or one of the officers, it was very difficult
to detect the culprit to an extent that would justify an
open charge of misconduct against him. The authorities
of the University, under the influence of Jefferson's
principles of freedom, had voluntarily deprived themselves
of all power of finding out the facts in each case
by forcing the young men to depose as in a court of law.
When the rules were adopted in 1824, it was announced
that, should a student be unwilling to testify, when
summoned as a witness, the moral obligation which rested
upon him to speak out should alone be held up before him,
in the hope that he would perceive it to be his duty to
relate whatever he knew respecting the offense under
investigation. The regulation that went into operation
in March 1825, and continued apparently throughout
the period now under review, was that a student, when
asked to make a statement in such a case, was
to be informed that he was altogether at liberty to
refuse if compliance was repugnant to his sense of

right. Under no circumstances was he to be required
to take an oath. The upshot of this system of voluntary
testimony might have been predicted. When
Dr. Patterson's stable was broken into at night, in 1831,
and his horse's tail mutilated, the chairman, after inquiring
into the incident, remarked with asperity: "All
the students whom I have seen, or whose sentiments
I have heard, speak with indignation of the outrage, yet
I doubt whether there is one who would not screen the
offender from punishment were he known to him."
"The discovery of offenses," he added regretfully, "is
the greatest difficulty in governing the institution, and
with the existing feeling of honor among the students, insuperable."

In the annual report for 1832, the Board of Visitors
dolefully acknowledged that the false sentiment which
deterred one collegian from testifying against another
was the real cause of their lack of ability to combat disorder
successfully when it had got well underway, or to
put it down so soon as it started. That body was finally
compelled, with palpable reluctance, to adopt an ordinance
which provided that, when an offense falling within
the supervision of the civil courts, had been committed,
every student who was likely to have had any personal
knowledge of it was to be summoned before the grand
jury to give testimony under oath. It was natural that
the professors should shrink from such a confession of
failure in enforcing discipline as this enactment would
seem to indicate, and, in consequence, they urged that
the process should be sought with extraordinary caution,
and only in a case in which there had been a most flagrant
violation of law. Even under these extreme circumstances,
the Faculty thought that they should have the

right to decide whether the process should or should not
be asked for.

We have seen that, in his petition for the incorporation
of Central College, Jefferson endeavored to clothe
the proctor with all the powers of a justice of the peace;
and this was probably a wiser measure than the very
elaborate judicial one proposed by the Board of Visitors
at a subsequent date. Under the provisions of the latter
scheme, a court was to be erected at the University, in
which the professor of law,—who was to receive an
addition to his salary for his supplementary services,—
was to sit as the sole judge. The jurisdiction of this
court was to run on all fours with that of the Albemarle
county court, with the single exception that it was
not to reach out to felonies committed within the precincts;
it was, however, to extend to all the smaller offenses
of which the students should be guilty within the
county at large. The judge was to be a conservator of
the peace in the county as well as in the University, with
the right to arrest any one charged with a breach of the
law, to issue warrants, to take recognizances, and to exercise
all the other powers of the office.

The terms of the court were to be held quarterly in
November, March, May, and July, and monthly in October,
December, January, February and June. A grand
jury was to be summoned from Albemarle county to
sit at every quarterly court. Students above nineteen
years of age were to be qualified to become members of
this jury, and a certain number of them were to be impaneled
at each session. Petit juries, with the same proportion
of students, were also to be called together.
The proctor was to act as the sergeant of the court,
with all the customary functions of that office; and was,

as conservator of the peace also, to possess the right to
call a posse comitatus to enable him to enforce his
legitimate authority. The University court was to be
empowered to issue process beyond its jurisdiction, and
like the county court, could compel obedience to its summons.
The University jail was to be identical with the
county jail. The attorneys who practised in the county
court were to be admitted to the University court, and
they were to have the same right of appeal in the one
tribunal as in the other.

The real object of this elaborate scheme was to employ
the enginery of the grand jury in ferreting out students
who had committed separate offenses, or participated in
general disturbances, within the precincts. There is no
reason to doubt that, had the Legislature approved of it,
it would have made impossible most of the discreditable
events that darkened the history of the institution
throughout this formative period. The young men
seemed always to contemn the Faculty's authority, but
they never failed to exhibit a very lively apprehension
when dragged across the threshold of a civil court. The
General Assembly, in refusing to grant the right to establish
the University judgeship, was probably afraid that
it would conflict in jurisdiction with the county court of
Albemarle; and they would, doubtless, have declined a
second time on that ground, had the same plan,—which
was again broached in 1832,—come up for decision once
more.

It is possible, as Professor John B. Minor has suggested,
that the erection of this court would have been
looked upon by the students as a threat, and on that
account, would have caused still greater friction in their
relations with the Faculty. But this friction could hardly
have been more exasperating than it was, and if it had

been mingled with a little of that fear which Jefferson
deprecated so earnestly,—and as the upshot proved, so
unwisely,—perhaps the harassed professors would have
loomed up more formidably to them, and thus appeared
more entitled to their respect. There was no sound reason
why the proctor should not have been invested with
the powers of a justice of the peace as Jefferson himself
had proposed. This would have given the Faculty
almost as direct and immediate means of suppressing disorder
as if the University court had been in existence,
for this officer would, in that character, have been able,
not only to arrest offending students, but also to summon
outsiders to his assistance to put down disorder in
its very incipiency. And this power would not have been
in conflict with the jurisdiction of the local courts.

We have seen that there were four different forms of
punishment,—reprimand, suspension, dismissal, and expulsion.
A student who was suspended might be ordered
to return to his home for a definite period; or he
might be rusticated in one of the numerous taverns standing
within the boundaries of Albemarle county, or even
in private houses in that county which were willing to
receive such a guest. The inns usually selected for this
purpose were Cocke's, Bowcock's, and Clarke's. The
Cocke hostelry was situated near Greenwood, on the well-trodden
stage highway running from Charlottesville
across the mountains to Staunton. It was under the skilful
management, first of Colonel Charles Yancey, and
then of Colonel Cocke, and the reputation of its excellent
fare was carried far by the numerous patrons who halted
here for a meal while journeying to and from the summer
mountain resorts in Western Virginia. Colonel Cocke
was a useful and respected citizen; occupied for a time
a seat on the bench of magistrates; and survived to a

period as late as 1879. Clarke's tavern was situated on
the stage-road leading from Charlottesville to Gordonville.
There was a large stable maintained here for the
exchange of coach horses, and there were so many other
houses also that the place resembled a village. Bowcock's
tavern was a less animated centre, but its landlord
was a man of high repute for integrity and public
spirit.[35] This inn was rather remote in its situation. A
student, who was rusticating there in 1837, left before
his term of suspension had expired, and when charged
with the delinquency, defended himself by saying that
the house was so solitary and dull that it was impossible
for any one to remain there.

Occasionally, however, the number of young men
under ban stopping in these taverns was so large that they
must have formed a congenial group of their own, to
whom, not only was a public bar accessible, but also, in
season, the pleasures of the hunting field and the fishing
stream. The period of rustication was sometimes protracted
for three months, and it rarely terminated under

one week. Among the private houses that received suspended
students were Mr. Howell Lewis's and Mr.
James Duke's; and they were certainly brought under far
more refining and restraining influences in these very respectable
homes than in the county ordinaries, which were
either crowded with travellers, often vulgar and dissipated,
or almost empty of guests, with no amusements,
during most of the year, beyond tippling in the public
room. It is true that there was a law that inflicted a
heavy penalty on tavern-keepers who permitted students
to become intoxicated on their premises; but incidents of
this kind occurring in country inns were not likely to be
reported to the authorities for punishment.

XXXIV. Diversions

The "vicious irregularities,"—to use Jeffersons' indignant
phrase,—of the students, during this formative
period, unquestionably made up the most exciting, and,
perhaps, the most enjoyable, part of their diversions.
These, however, did not consist altogether of ringing the
college bell, firing off pistols and muskets, blowing tinhorns
and split-quills, shouting at the top of their vigorous
young voices, playing games of loo and whist for
stakes, or drinking an uncountable number of glasses of
wine, whiskey-toddy, and mint-sling. There were other
and more legitimate recreations; but as the University
was remote from the large centres of population, the
social life of the students, on the whole, moved along in
a rather sluggish fashion. Its current, in fact, was
rarely enlivened by any pastime except what they themselves
had created for their own entertainment. They
derived but little from the professorial circle within which
their own revolved because there was only an occasional

point of social contact between them; but they owed much
to Jefferson during the sixteen months that he survived
after the institution opened. Indeed, the social life of
the young men, like their intellectual life, harkens back to
the philosopher of Monticello. It was a beautiful and
touching habit of his to invite them in turn to dine with
him on Sunday, the day chosen because they were then
exempt from attendance on lectures. On each occasion,
at least a dozen were asked, and in the course of the session,
—as the number of students, during the first and
second years, was small,—each of them was present under
his roof more than once; and gross and obtuse,
indeed, must have been he who failed to value the privilege!

One of the many remarkable characteristics of the
great Virginians of the Revolutionary Age was the polished
politeness of their manners. It was accompanied
in Washington, as we know, with sternness, and perhaps,
with stiffness, and in Madison, with stateliness, in spite
of his diminutive size. Jefferson impressed Long at
first, as we have seen, as cold in his deportment, but this
was probably due to his transitory disappointment over
the too youthful appearance of this English professor.
No one could unbend with more grace and dignity than
he, or could put forth, without affectation or pretense,
a greater personal charm. Not only was he, through
his mother, sprung from a family that possessed all the
social culture of Colonial Virginia,—the ripest that has
been noted in the long history of the same community,—
but he had been thrown, at the most susceptible era of his
life, with the most accomplished gentleman of those times,
Governor Fauquier, and with the members of the hardly
less courtly circle who passed the fashionable season in
the capital of Williamsburg. It was a school of manners

as well as a school of politics, a school of gentlemen as
well as of statesmen; and in neither particular has it been
since surpassed on the American Continent.

So simple, unassuming, and cordial was Jefferson's
bearing towards his youthful guests, so patently sincere
were his warm words of welcome, so sympathetic and responsive
was his interest in their welfare, that they almost
at once forgot his age and great personal distinction, and
were as much at ease in his presence as if they were dining
under the roof of a near kinsman or an intimate
friend. He knew well the histories of the old families
from which most of them were descended; a grandfather,
a father, or an uncle, perhaps, had been a contemporary
and disciple of his own in the political struggles of the
past; he was familiar with the counties from which they
came, and with the people and varied interests of their
native localities; he was also apprised of the standing of
the most prominent students in their several classes; and
upon all these topics, he would comment in so sprightly a
manner, would intersperse his conversation with so many
of the entertaining experiences of his own career, that
his hearers listened to him with delight and engrossing attention.
"His hospitality and sociability," says Burwell
Stark, recalling one of these visits nearly seventy years
after it occurred, "made us free in his company and endeared
him to all our hearts." It was the memory of
these charming hours under his roof that caused so many
of the young men to step out of their way to receive his
kind salutation as he walked or rode through the University
grounds.

Previous to 1827, lessons in dancing could, with the
Faculty's consent, be taken within the precincts; but the
pupils were not permitted to attend the cotillions which
the teacher gave, at intervals, in Charlottesville. Monsieur

Ferron, the instructor in fencing, applied for the
place of instructor in dancing also. He had been suspected
of using the opportunity created by his connection
with the University to draw off to his private French
school many of the members of Blaettermann's classes;
and on this ground, the Faculty declined to allow him the
use of a dormitory for his dancing pupils; but as there
was reason to think that he would, in consequence, establish
a dancing academy at Charlottesville, which would
afford many students an excuse to visit town, the executive
committee revoked the refusal, and approved the
petition. But, apparently, he did not act on it, for, when,
in 1830, Mr. Bigelow asked permission to teach dancing,
Ferron, fearing a dangerous rival, made haste to say
that he would instruct a class at once. Bigelow was now
giving lessons in music, and wished, in addition, to give
dancing lessons. Ferron seems to have been successful
in his protest, for we learn that, previous to July 2, 1831,
Bigelow confined his instructions within the precincts to
the young ladies of the professors' and officers' families.
He had, however, been engaged in teaching the same art
to such students as were willing to learn in his home without
the bounds.

At the beginning of the session of 1831–2, Ferron
was authorized again to accept pupils in dancing. Its
most popular branch at this time was waltzing, and for
three months' instruction in it, he was paid a fee of six
dollars. A rival of Ferron arose, in 1833, in the person
of Louis Carusi, who asked to be granted the use of a
dormitory in giving his lessons. His charge for an entire
course was the modest sum of twelve dollars. Subsequently,
Carusi met his classes in the middle hotel on
West Range, the modern Jefferson Hall. His instructions,
unlike those of Ferron, were confined to dancing.

Ferron derived an income, not only from teaching the
combined arts of dancing, fencing, and boxing, but also,
through his wife, from needlework, since Madame Ferron,
probably a Frenchwoman, was a skillful and industrious
seamstress, and as such was constantly patronized
by the students when supplying themselves with underclothing.
Carusi failed to give full satisfaction, for, in
1834, many of his pupils, disappointed with his lessons,
applied to the Faculty for permission to engage a teacher
who would furnish the necessary music as well as correct
their movements at the weekly assembly which they were
then planning to hold. This permission was granted on
condition that each set of lessons should terminate at the
end of two hours.

In September, 1835, at the beginning of a new session,
three persons,—Xaupi, Carusi and Enoch C. Breeden,—
sent in their several petitions for the position of dancing-master
within the precincts. Carusi's was denied because
it was thought that his engagements in Charlottesville
were incompatible with the full performance of his duties
at the University. Breeden was appointed to the place;
but two years afterwards, Carusi came forward again as
a candidate, and the Faculty decided to license them both,
provided that they would consent to give lessons beyond
the bounds in private houses approved by the chairman.
Every student was left at liberty to attend the class of
whichever of the two he should prefer. Carusi was authorized
to give twenty-four lessons for the sum of ten
dollars. Breeden's term lasted eight weeks. A third
instructor also was licensed to teach at a private house at
this time. His fee was ten dollars for thirty-six lessons.
In 1840, Robert Williams was added to the number of
the dancing-masters at the University. All these instructors
gave, each session, what were known as practising

balls, which resembled the ordinary party, with the exception
that the young men present were all members of
the class of a particular teacher, and were unquestionably
less expert in the art of dancing than persons who had
enjoyed a longer experience on the floor. Each member
was privileged to invite a young lady, and there was the
usual provision for an abundant supply of spirits. Occasionally
too an obstreperous drunken student was present.
In 1833, such a one was guilty of uttering grossly
profane language in the hearing of the ladies who were
taking part in a ball of Carusi's pupils, and when Carusi
interposed, he received a blow which led to a scene of
great confusion.

The practising balls were not, in all their details, on an
equal footing with the balls so frequently given by the
boarders of the several University hotels. As early as
1828, these hotel balls had begun, and so heavy was the
expense entailed in supplying the wine, supper, and
musicians, that the chairman counseled the Faculty to impose
rules that would limit their cost, and this advice was
promptly adopted by that body. When, in October of
this year, permission was asked by the students who took
their meals at Mrs. Gray's to issue invitations to a party,
it was granted only on condition that the dancers should
disperse before midnight, and that the expense to each
student participating should not exceed one dollar and a
half. We obtain a glimpse of the scene at this ball
through a letter written, a few days after it occurred, by
Robert Hubard, of the distinguished family of that name
so long and so honorably associated with Buckingham
county. "The party," he says, "was given in one of
the hotels which was unoccupied. Mrs. Gray assisted
the committee of arrangements, and we had a very nice
supper for the ladies and gentlemen; music by Jesse

Scott and son. A great many ladies were invited, and it
was said that there were more ladies at our party than
ever were at any University party. I suppose that there
were thirty or thirty-five ladies, perhaps forty. Each
boarder invited one friend, and we had forty-five or fifty
men. There were two or three pretty girls present,—
Miss Miller, Miss Tucker, (the oldest of the three), and
Miss Eliza Gray. The great beauty, with her red head,
Mrs. Bonnycastle, was there, and Mrs. Blaettermann;
likewise, Mary Byrd Emmet. ... Nearly all the professors
were there,—Mr. Lomax, Mr. Bonnycastle, Dr.
Blaettermann, Dr. Patterson, the new professor, Dr.
Johnson, and Dr. Harrison; so you see we had the
collected wisdom of the institution. The party was
highly agreeable, all appearing to be enjoying themselves,
either in dancing or in conversation. The students were
under no restraint because the Faculty were present, as
they, the Faculty, gave themselves no airs. Dr. Emmet
was the only one of them who danced; he danced once or
twice and tolerably well to boot. Mary Byrd was
dressed elegantly and danced a good deal with the students.
I was introduced to her as I took it for granted
she had forgotten me. As we were standing up in a
reel, I had no opportunity to have any chat. I appeared
that night in my new olive coat and looked tolerable decent
for once in my life. Whatever you may say against
the colour, it is very much admired at this place. I
will have you understand that my own personal beauty
is sufficient to make my coat look well."

There were several details of particular interest comprised
in this letter: (1) during the first years at least,
the professors and their wives were present at the hotel
balls, although they seem to have, as a body, taken only
a conversational part in them; (2) the reel as well as the

waltz was danced; (3) the students were now permitted
to wear their most elegant suits in order to increase their
attractiveness in the eyes of the belles; and (4) the
musicians were two colored men, who continued to enjoy
for many years the patronage of local fashion.

XXXV. Diversions, continued

The Faculty must have decided that the party at Mrs.
Gray's was sufficient for thirty days, for on December 2
of the same year, they refused to permit the boarders of
Minor's hotel to repeat it. The entire body of students
united in giving a large ball on Christmas Eve of the
same year. It is not stated where this took place. Apparently,
the custom had not yet been introduced of holding
the University, as distinguished from the hotel, balls
in the noble circular room of the library,—an apartment
that would have lent splendor to any entertainment, however
imposing in itself. The middle hotels, as they were
called,—the two houses on West Range and East Range,
the one now used as the Jefferson Hall, and the other
formerly as the home of the proctor,—were hardly large
enough to allow free movement to so great throng as
two hundred and fifty or three hundred people, the number
quite certain to have attended a University ball in
those times. From January 1, 1829, down to 1842,
not a year went by that a dance was not given by the
boarders of each hotel, and in some instances, it took
place in the vacant middle building on West Range.
Such a party was given on October 14, 1829, by the
young men assigned to Mrs. Gray's tables, and on November
13, of the following year, by those assigned to
Colonel Rose's. The latter was held at Rose's hotel.
Only four days later, the boarders of Spotswood's hotel

obtained permission to invite their friends to a ball in
their turn. There were sixty students present on this
occasion, and as each was granted the privilege of inviting
a young lady, there was, with the escorts and members
of the professors' families, a large company in attendance.
Only one student appeared on the floor without
his uniform, and the entertainment was marked by
perfect decorum.[36]

Professor Harrison and his wife, just after their marriage,
were guests of honor at a ball at Conway's hotel
given by the members of the School of Ancient Languages,
a proof of the good will in which he was held
by those who attended his lectures. In the following
October, a ball was given at Wertenbaker's hotel. There
were ninety students present, with a proportionate number
of young ladies. Wertenbaker, as we have seen,
had become unpopular with many of the young men in
consequence of the vigilance and firmness which he had
shown as assistant to the proctor in the enforcement of
the police regulations; but this did not prevent them
from gathering under his roof in a great throng when
an opportunity for amusement was offered. A subscription
ball was held in this hotel twelve months afterwards.
The fee that was paid by each participant was four dollars.
When the chairman objected to this amount as too
large, the managers brought forward as an excuse the fact
that at least sixty students belonging to other hotels had

been present, and as the whole of the University was thus
really represented, it was as if one ball had been given
by the boarders of three hotels; or to describe it in their
own words, as if three balls had been given for a single
subscription. It was perhaps on the same ground that
the fee for a party at Conway's hotel was not long afterwards
put at a figure as high as five dollars. When this
was mentioned as a precedent for the ball at Mrs. Gray's
a few days later, the chairman refused to assent to its
propriety, and only with great reluctance finally agreed
to the amount being fixed at four dollars. By 1835, the
sum to be paid was ordered to be reduced to two. The
boarders at Colonel Ward's hotel complained of this
regulation because it would limit the liquid refreshments
to a weak sangaree, while a four dollar subscription
would enable them to buy at least sixteen gallons of wine.
It was the misuse of spirits, on these occasions, that
aroused the Faculty's opposition, and led them to debar
it in a measure by cutting down the sum to be expended in
its purchase. So much drunkenness disgraced the ball
given on the night of February 22, 1838, that the students
were refused permission to give a second one on
the night of April 13 of the same year.

The medical class invited Doctor Cabell to a large
party in honor of his appointment to his chair, and in his
turn, he, at the beginning of the next session, reciprocated
by feasting all its members. But it was not often that
the Faculty contributed to the students' recreation by
the like entertainments. This was perhaps to be explained
by those relations of friction which existed between
them as a body and the students, through so many
years. Had the professors been less aloof in their bearing,
the strain would have been less perceptible. They
must have sometimes acknowledged the truth of this in

their own breasts, for, in 1831, there seems to have been
at least a temporary disposition on their part to enter into
a more cordial' personal intercourse with their pupils.
There were two balls given by them in the month of
March of that year, and two, in addition, in October.
At one of the latter, several of the young men appeared
without uniform, an act so patently in the teeth of the
regulations that it had the aspect of an intentional affront
to their hosts. There was a fourth party in one of
the pavilions in November. Few records exist of other
entertainments by members of the Faculty in the years
that immediately followed; but it is probable that the
chairman gave an occasional party or reception.

It was only rarely that the students could obtain permission
either to give balls in the taverns of Charlottesville
or to accept invitations to balls given there by townsmen.
The reason for this refusal was, in general, a
sound one; liquor, owing to the existence of bar-rooms
in these inns, was so conveniently at hand that few of
the young men could resist the temptation to drink to
excess. In 1831, there were uncommonly deep potations
at a ball given at the Midway hotel, and in the same year,
at another given at the Central. It was their knowledge
of this discreditable indulgence that caused the Faculty
to decline to allow the boarders of Gray's and Conway's
hotels to hold a ball at the Midway in the following October,
and again in December. Many students, however,
attended a party given at Fitch's in January, 1832, and
it was so cold a night that some of them were detained
until next morning. There was a public ball given at
Midway's on the night of February 22; and on March 4,
a subscription ball at Fitch's to the young ladies of
Charlottesville. To the latter about fifteen students had
been invited to subscribe.

Fitch's hotel seems to have remained under a permanent
ban with the Faculty. Permission was usually refused
the students to hold balls there. The chairman,
however, consented to one at the Midway when told
by the pleading young men that it was to be "very genteel
and proper." "I thought," he said, "that it would
not be right to withhold my consent." "Indeed," he
added, "these parties at which ladies are present are the
least objectionable of all the indulgences that can be
granted to the students." The records reveal that the
collegians were sometimes very sly in their methods of
twisting around the Faculty's refusal to permit them to
hold a ball in an inn of Charlottesville. In January,
1833, the boarders of Col. Rose's hotel persuaded their
friends in town to become the patrons of an entertainment
at Ward's tavern, the cost of which the young men
promised to defray; they justified this furtiveness by asserting
that the dimensions of the University hotels
were too small to accommodate with comfort all the persons
whom they wished to invite. A very large public
ball was held at Boyd's tavern on April 12, 1833, and
no obstruction for once was placed in the way of the
students' attendance. The corresponding ball in 1835
was also celebrated with extraordinary distinction; on
this occasion the Faculty was scandalized by the arrival
of many of the young men in knee breeches and velvet
coats, ordered specially for the occasion; and these fine
clothes, by comparison, made the gray uniform worn by
the others appear drab and shabby. In the following
November, the students were permitted to give a dancing
party at the Mudwall boarding house[37] provided that the

only liquor to be served was a weak sangaree. Having
once obtained such permission in any case, they were often
disposed to push the privilege rather far. A ball in celebration
of Washington's birthday was held by them at the
Midway on the night of February 22, 1836. On the ensuing
day, the committee of eleven managers returned to
the hotel to settle the account, but before doing so,
summoned a number of their friends among the young
ladies of Charlottesville, and beginning at two o'clock in
the afternoon danced until nightfall. In explaining their
action to the chairman, they asserted that the night before
they had been so busy superintending the course of
the ball that they had been unable to take part in it on
the floor. They escaped with a reprimand.

Not all the balls attended by the collegians at this
time were given at the University or in Charlottesville.
On December 23, 1837, an entertainment of this kind
took place at Standardsville, in Orange county; and again
on December 27. Numerous students who had obtained
leave to visit their homes during the Christmas vacations
participated in these balls, which seem to have been given
by subscription. One of the party testified that it had
cost him six dollars; another, ten; and a third, fifteen.

XXXVI. Diversions, continued

The popular dinner of those times was the public dinner.
The anniversary of no supreme political event was
then ever allowed to pass without its celebration with a
banquet, when many quarts of spirits were drunk, and
many patriotic toasts offered and responded to. The

first great public dinner that took place at the University
occurred before all its buildings were completed and
even before a single student had matriculated; this was
given in honor of Lafayette's visit in 1824,—an incident
to be referred to here because it forms a very interesting
part of the social history of the institution.
The distinguished Frenchman arrived in Albemarle on
November 4, about four months before the lectures be
gan. After a public reception in entering the county,
he went straight to Monticello, accompanied by thousands
of enthusiastic people, who had assembled from the neighboring
valleys and mountains. The meeting of the two
venerable patriots has been often described,—how the
one greeted the other with, "God bless you, General,"
and the other the one with "God bless you, Jefferson,"
and how the two embraced each other, amid audible sobs
from the spectators of that moving scene.

On the 15th, Jefferson, Lafayette, and Madison set
out from Monticello in a landau for Charlottesville, with
a numerous escort of cavalrymen and citizens on horseback.
A reception was held in the town, and then the
procession started for the University; and only came to
a halt when it reached the foot of the Lawn. On the
verdant terraces, rising one above the other, had gathered
groups of gayly dressed ladies, who waved their
handkerchiefs when the French hero appeared, and then
rushed forward and formed a lane, along which he and
his companions, with many polite bows, passed from their
carriage to the Rotunda steps. William F. Gordon
there received them with an eloquent address of welcome.
A short interval of rest ensued, and then Lafayette, with
Jefferson and Madison on either side, returned to the
Lawn, and, with kindly urbanity, mingled with the assembled
people. The dinner was held in the great circular

room of the Rotunda, and there could not have been
found in America another apartment more imposing for
the purpose. The hour chosen was three o'clock in the
afternoon. The tables were arranged in three concentric
circles; Valentine W. Southall presided, with Lafayette
on his right, and beyond him, on the same side,
Jefferson and Madison; and with George Washington
Lafayette, a son of the General, with his suite, on the
left. The first toast was to the "American Revolution";
the second, to the "Father of his Country"; and
the third, to Lafayette himself. When he had responded,
he gave four toasts: "Charlottesville and the
University," "the Sages and Heroes of the Revolution,"
"the President of the United States," and "Jefferson
and the Declaration of Independence."

Jefferson's reply was read by Southall, and it contained
a pathetic allusion to the new seat of learning, and his
paternal hopes for its future career. "If, with the aid
of my younger and abler coadjutors," he said, "I can
still contribute anything to advance this institution, within
whose walls we are now mingling manifestations of affection
to this, our guest, it will be, as it has been, cheerfully
and zealously bestowed. And if I could see it
once enjoying the patronage and cherishment of our
public authorities with undivided voice, I should die
without a doubt of the future fortunes of my native
State, and in the consoling contemplation of the happy
influence of this institution on its character, its virtue, its
prosperity, and its safety." Seven regular toasts followed,
and many voluntary ones. Among the latter was
a toast by John Coles: "To the Future Students of the
University of Virginia,—may they equal General Lafayette
in love of Liberty and Political Consistency."
The day, according to the graphic report of the Central

Gazette which has survived, was characterized by
unbroken dignity and orderliness, universal enthusiasm,
and profound emotion.

The first public dinner given by the students was held
on the Fourth of July, 1826, and it was followed by an
oration in harmony with the patriotic nature of the occasion;
but it must have been accompanied by some disspation,
for when the request for permission to give a
public dinner on the next anniversary of the same date
was sent in by them, it was, at first, refused, although
they obtained at once the arid privilege of listening to
an address and to the reading of the Declaration. So
persistently, however, did they urge a reconsideration of
this decision that the Faculty reluctantly reversed it upon
receiving their promise that all present would conduct
themselves with "unexceptional propriety." As the
22nd of February, 1828, approached, they sought permission
to celebrate that day also with a public dinner;
and this was granted, doubtless because the pledge for
the preceding Fourth of July had been strictly observed.
But as if they feared that the occasion would be marred
by frivolous toasts, the Faculty proposed a number that
were of a highly suggestive historical flavor, but not very
appealing to the heated patriotism of the youthful orators;
such, for instance, as the "Effect of Climate on
National Character," the "Influence of Art on Painting,"
the "Study of the Classics," and the "Influence of
General History in Instructing by Example." To young
fellows fully charged to explode on the subjects of the
"Crossing of the Delaware" and the "Surrender of
Cornwallis at Yorktown," these utilitarian and didactic
themes, submitted probably in a sly spirit of humor, must
have appeared extraordinarily dull and inopportune.

From year to year, public dinners were given in town

to celebrate the 13th of April, and these were popular
occasions with the students. The transfer of the intermediate
examinations to February seemed to have discouraged
their celebration of the 22nd of that month, for
they were too much absorbed in the work of preparation
to amuse themselves with public dinners at that time.

In 1831, one of the buildings of Charlottesville was
converted into a public theatre, and we first learn of its
existence through the drunkenness which it encouraged
among the students. A Thespian society had already
been organized in the town; and it was perhaps due to
the influence of its members that a theatre was opened.
This establishment was under the management of a strolling
player named Richardson. Several students were
accused of joining the society, but they denied all personal
connection with it. At least one, however, John
Leitch, was known to have participated in a theatrical
performance that took place in the town; but this may
have been a drama staged by an obscure company in the
course of a tour. Such actors were frequent visitors
to Charlottesville. In 1834, Meredith Jones, the proprietor
of a University boarding house situated without
the precincts, asked permission of the Faculty to rent one
of his rooms for a few nights to such a band, but was refused.
Fairs were also held in town; and in 1835,—
and, no doubt, in other years,—there was a show of
wild beasts.

Many of the students cultivated a taste for music.
In 1825, a teacher was licensed to give lessons on the
violin. Perhaps, this was the citizen of Staunton, who,
crossing the Ridge, distributed many prospectuses among
the hotels with the view of obtaining a sufficient number
of pupils to make up a class. He offered to give three
or four lessons each day in the week. That the use of

musical instruments within the precincts was now constant
is disclosed by their interdiction by the Faculty during
the hours of lecture, and throughout Sunday. Bonnycastle
and Key declined to unite with their colleagues
in the adoption of this ordinance. The prohibition was
carried even further in 1831, for, in the code of that
year, all musical instruments were to be laid aside also
after two o'clock at night. It shows the determination
of the authorities, that, when, in the course of this year,
a student insisted upon his right to play on his violin
during the forbidden hours, he was promptly dismissed
for his obstinacy.

In 1832, the echoes of the arcades were awakened by
the music of a band composed entirely of students, and
the chairman was very pleasantly impressed by their
skill. This band, so long as it existed, always played
during the intervals of the exercises on the 13th of April
and the 4th of July. A serenade with stringed instruments,
accompanied by a drum, which took place in
March, 1833, called forth only delighted approval; but
when repeated, a short time afterwards, was condemned,
—doubtless because it had changed to an offensive character;
thus, in 1835, a disorderly party of performers
playing on fiddles and other instruments, and singing very
obscene corn-songs, raised a very discordant hubbub in
front of Mr. Wertenbaker's house, which was only discontinued
when the proctor came upon the ground. So
many flutes and violins were, during the following year,
in use in Mrs. Gray's district, and so often, and at such
inopportune hours, did their owners employ them, that
several of the young men asked the Faculty's permission
to remove their domicile to Mr. Conway's. It was reported,
indeed, that some of these concerts in the dormitories
were kept up until two o'clock in the morning;

and the effect finally grew to be so distracting that the
Faculty restricted all playing to the intervals between two
and three o'clock in the afternoon, and four in the afternoon
and eight in the evening. It was prohibited altogether
now, as formerly, on Sunday. Both rules were
constantly broken.

There were only a few amusements besides those
already mentioned to enliven the leisure moments of the
students. One of these was skating. The pond afforded
an excellent surface for this sport in the course of
the winter, while skates were easily procurable from
among the miscellaneous contents of the University shops.
The price of a pair, however, was not very low, for four
dollars seems to have been the figure. Pitching quoits
was also a frequent form of recreation; and in this both
the proctor and the professors sometimes joined. This
game too was prohibited on Sundays. Recourse was also
had to marbles. Marbles would be hardly expected to
offer an opportunity for creating a noise, and yet the students
were able, for that reason, to make it objectionable
on many occasions; a party playing before the door of a
member of the Faculty in 1837 used so much profanity
that they were reported to the chairman. "The disorder
consequent on marble playing," said he impatiently,
"is becoming so serious that it must be checked"; but
the only result of the effort to do so was to drive the
students to the yards behind the dormitories, where they
not only played on Sunday, but raised such a hullabaloo
at all hours that additional measures of repression had
to be adopted.

The young men were not permitted to keep either a
dog or a horse within the precincts. Riding on horseback
seems to have been disapproved even when the animal
was stabled in Charlottesville,—on the ground that

the diversion was very expensive, and that it wasted
valuable time. The consent of the chairman had to be
obtained if the rider was to relieve himself of the charge
of violating the law; and it was granted on the sole
excuse of bad health. It was only when the ordinary
student was compelled to use a horse to carry him from
his home in the country to the University, that this act
passed without censure. Races were held near Charlottesville,
during this early period, and the collegians
were not prohibited from being present, although it was
known that they usually went armed with pistols, and
that, not infrequently they became mixed up there in
serious affrays. In 1830, when certain students were
pointedly questioned by the chairman as to why they
carried pistols on their persons to the race-track, they
replied that they were afraid of being attacked by "citizens
of Charlottesville"; but this was probably a reason
which had little foundation beyond their own imaginary
apprehensions.

XXXVII. Athletics

Jefferson, in his famous Rockfish Gap Report, failed to
recommend that provision should be made for instruction
in gymnastics as one of the departments to be set
up in the projected University, and yet, in that report,
he candidly acknowledged that it was a "proper object
of attention" for every institution devoted to the education
of youth. The explanation of his omitting to advise
a course in physical culture was apparently the fact
that the prevailing system of athletics bore no direct relation
to the character of modern weapons, or to the modern
methods of warfare. In ancient times, the weapon
and the method alike called for athletic skill of the highest
order. Wellington, it will be remembered, expressed

the conviction that the Battle of Waterloo was really
won on the cricket field of Eton, by which he meant that
the soldierly qualities of his officers at least had received
their earliest training on that ground of physical and
moral endurance and competition. It was the indirect,
and not the direct, influence that he was thinking of most.
Jefferson declared himself in favor of lessons in manual
exercises, military manoeuvres, and tactics, in preference
to lessons in athletics, simply because the former, and not
the latter, would equip the students for the duty of
national defense; he seemed to take it for granted that
athletics were of no particular importance so far as they
afforded only an increase in the individual's power of
self-protection; and yet, as we know, two gymnasia
formed a conspicuous feature of his general scheme of
buildings. Why did he add them to his architectural
scheme? Because he thought that they would be useful
in strengthening the health of the students; and above all,
because he considered that they would be indispensable
when instruction came to be given in the military courses
of study.

In October, 1824, five months before the lecture-halls
were first used, these two apartments, which were situated
next to the basement of the Rotunda, on its south
front, and were known as the Eastern and Western gymnasiums,
were, at Jefferson's instance, dedicated to the
"gymnastic exercises and games" of the students. They
were long low structures covered with flat roofs that were
converted into a public walk. The flooring of both, at
first, consisted altogether of an uneven mass of red clay,
which even during the collegiate career of Professor John
B. Minor, were, as he said, "sometimes wet and always
filthy." The roofs had begun to leak after heavy rains
in the spring of 1827. In April of the previous year,

before this condition arose, the military tutor, Mr.
Matthews, had been permitted to use these apartments
in giving instruction in military science. The only other
purpose which they seemed to have served at this time
was of banqueting halls, for, here on July 4, 1826, the
students celebrated the anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence with a public dinner. It was plainly not
known at the time when this dinner was in progress, or
during the delivery of the ensuing oration, that Jefferson
was then dying, or even lay dead in his chamber at
Monticello. So empty did the gymnasia remain, so unserviceable
were they for at least the athletic exercises
which were expected to be held in them, that, in July,
1830, the Visitors decided to turn them into public halls;
and the Faculty was asked to submit a plan for their
alteration at the Board's annual meeting twelve months
afterwards. That body apparently reported then in
favor of converting one of the apartments into a large
lecture-room, and the other into two small rooms of the
same character; but as the cost of the proposed change
was found to be fifteen hundred dollars, the project was
abandoned. How useless for gymnastic exercises the two
were considered to be in 1835, was shown by the action
of one of the teachers of athletics at that time in petitioning
the Board to build an entirely new and independent
hall for his pupils' convenience; and this request was not
complied with only because there were no funds in the
University treasury which could be expended upon such
a structure.

As late as 1839, Cocke, in a letter to Cabell, refers,
with unrepressed impatience, to "the present worthless
gymnasia." As there was still an acute need for more
lecture-rooms, he urged that the two should be converted
into several apartments for this purpose. "The want

that has always existed," said he, "cannot be supplied
by any other plan that will not involve double, if not
treble, the expense. Last year (1838), this measure
was postponed for want of funds. The improvement,
according to Mr. Spooner's estimates, will cost five thousand
dollars."

There were two reasons why the alteration suggested
by Cocke had been so long deferred,—one, the lack of
money, to which we have already alluded; the other, the
fear that the symmetrical beauty of the Rotunda, and its
immediate environment, would be seriously marred by
the proposed elevation of the roofs. When the money
was ultimately found, however, this apprehension was
put aside. In 1840, the executive committee was instructed
to report, at the next meeting of the Board, upon
the proper assignment of the lecture-rooms into which
they had decided to divide the gymnasia. A plan of alteration
had already been submitted by Cocke, which was
adopted in the form recommended by him. The work
began at once, and by the beginning of the session of
1841–2, the changes seem to have been completed. They
apparently embraced the addition of new roofs as well
as the reconstruction of the interior partitions. Thus
was permanently altered the original purpose for which
these two front wings of the Rotunda had been built, but
which, even while they remained in their first condition,
they had never subserved, except so far as to afford an
area for military exercises,—which too, in time, were discontinued.

Three branches of athletics,—boxing, fencing and single
stick,—were taught at the University almost from
the very start. In 1828, Ferron was granted a room in
Hotel D on East Range, which had been vacated by
Spotswood; and here he was soon employed in giving lessons

in the several arts in which he was so great an
expert. This room was named by him somewhat pretentiously
"salle d'armes." At one time, as we have
mentioned, he excited the Faculty's displeasure by drawing
away pupils from Blaettermann's classes to his own
private French school; but when this was stopped, they
offered no objection to his giving elementary courses in
the French and Latin tongues to the small boys of the
University community. He was required, however, to
vacate the room in Hotel D, as the entire building was
now assigned to Colonel Colonna, the tutor in modern
languages. Ferron rented instead a school-house situated
near East Range and on the Lynchburg Road; but
he continued to teach the arts of self-defense within the
precincts. A dormitory on West Range was reserved
for him and his pupils, and the noise made by them in
practising raised many complaints. His charges seem
to have been moderate,—the fees were eight dollars for
a course of boxing, fifteen for a course of fencing, and
twenty-five for a course of quarter-staff. His profits were
increased by the sale of gloves, swords, and masks; the
price of a pair of boxing gloves ranged from two dollars
and a half to three dollars, and a sword and mask from
five to six. In 1833, the Faculty, under provocation, decided
again to deprive him of the room in which he had
resumed his lessons; but they do not seem to have revoked
his license.

A rival to Ferron appeared, this year, in the person
of Alexander A. Penci, a Corsican by birth and a major
in rank. Penci was authorized to give lessons in boxing,
fencing and quarter-staff; and in addition, he conducted
a gymnasium, the subscription fee of which was
six dollars. This establishment, as the proctor's accounts
reveal, had a large number of patrons among the students.

The first apartment which he occupied for this
purpose was unsuitable, and, in 1834, he asked for more
ample accommodations. He told the Faculty that, during
the warm season, he could not teach gymnastics
properly unless he resided within the precincts,—perhaps,
because, during this part of the session, he gave his
lessons at night. A large room in the upper story of
Hotel F was assigned him as a domicile. He was now
known as the Instructor in Gymnastics and Fencing.
He seems to have given satisfaction professionally and
personally, for, in September, 1835, the whole of the
upper apartments of the southeast hotel were reserved
for the use of his family. He finally withdrew from the
University, in the hope of recovering his health, which
had been shattered by consumption. The esteem in which
he was held was clearly manifested by the contributions
of the professors and students in defrayment of the expense
of his journey to Havana, where he remained until
his death. His wife, who was afflicted with the same
disease, died soon after in the house which they had occupied
within the University precincts; their little daughter,
Beatrice, was adopted by Mrs. Fitch, the wife of
the proprietor of the hotel of that name in Charlottesville;
but at the age of seven returned to her kinsfolk in
Italy; and in time so entirely forgot the language of her
birthplace, that she was unable to converse with a citizen
of Albemarle, Mr. S. W. Ficklin, who visited her in
1849.

Penci was succeeded by Christopher Grimme, whose
series of lessons embraced quarter-staff, fencing, broadsword
sparring, and gymnastics. His terms for instruction
in the last were three dollars for an entire session.
Like Penci, he was granted the use of an apartment, which
was known as the Gymnasium. This room, no doubt,

was fully equipped with the more simple athletic appliances.

There is no evidence that athletics, in any form,
aroused, during the first seventeen sessions, any interest
except among a few students, embracing (1) those who
looked upon fencing and boxing as gentlemanly accomplishments;
and (2) those who turned to gymnastics as a
method of preserving health while following a sedentary
life within the college precincts.

XXXVIII. Publications

In the remote situation of the University, accessible
to the world at large, in these early times, only by a
sluggish and muddy stage, the arrival of the post must
have caused pleasurable excitement in the lives of the
students. There was then no daily mail to make the
letter pouch a familiar and commonplace object. From
some quarters of the compass, the mail coach came in
only twice a week, and while there must have been more
frequent deliveries from Richmond and the eastern
region, this was certainly not so until the railway had
been extended to Louisa county. Previous to the spring
of 1826, the student had to call at the post-office in
Charlottesville to obtain his letters; but after this date,
through the influence of William C. Rives, the representative
of the district in Congress, a branch of that office
was established at the University. A dormitory was reserved
as the place for the distribution of letters,[38] and

apparently the librarian, for the time being, served
as ex officio postmaster. William Wertenbaker, who
played several parts simultaneously, or in succession, in
the University community,—librarian, assistant proctor,
secretary of the Faculty, and hotel-keeper,—was also,
during many years, the postmaster of the institution.
In 1832, William Brockenbrough was the librarian, and
automatically upon him, during that year, also fell the
duties of the postmastership.

The stamp had not come into use. The charge for
posting letters was fixed by their weight. The ordinary
fee seems to have been twelve and a half cents for a moderate
distance; but to a point as far as New York, twenty-seven
and a half. The postage on a pamphlet of small
size ranged all the way from seven and a half cents to
fifteen. With prices for forwarding mail so excessive,
it is not probable that the students were much in the
habit of writing letters, however pleased to receive them.
There were numerous orders on the proctor, however, in
payment of bills for postage sent in by the postmaster.
The fact that there was a system of credit would seem to
indicate that this official was not too much burthened by
his duties.

Only a few of the students subscribed to newspapers.
This, no doubt, had the approval of the Faculty, who
deprecated, as we shall see, all heated political feeling
within the precincts of the University. The ledgers of
the shopkeepers show that there were many of the young
men who purchased books for their private reading.
These volumes faithfully reflected the predominant tastes
of the times. Byron was the most popular author of the
age, and not the less so with young men than with old.
The scornful spirit of revolt which inflamed that great
poet throughout life, the romantic incidents of his career,

his cynical citizenship of the world, his virility, audacity,
solitariness,—each so fresh in the public mind, because
he was still, or had been so recently, an actor upon the
stage,—cast a glamour over the susceptibilities of all
those who turned to his verses for recreation. Five
copies of this moody and fiery writer were bought at
the University for every one purchased of other authors
of equal or higher merit. Even Shakespeare and Milton
paled their ineffectual fires in the rays of his refulgent
sun. In comparison with him, Pope was in a state almost
of eclipse, although the Essay on Man and the Rape
of the Lock were sometimes obtained from the local
shopkeeper.

Second only to Byron in the eyes of these youthful
purchasers stood Thomas Campbell, and for the same
reason in part: his manly, vigorous, and martial poems
appealed with singular force to the young Southerner's
unbounded admiration for splendid deeds of bravery.
Then came Thomas Moore, whose love songs, in spite
of their artificial and fashionable glitter,—or, perhaps,
for that very reason,—were known to many of the students
by heart. Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Tom Jones,
—renowned masterpieces of manners and sentiment,—
were the favorite novels. It is astonishing to discover
that none of the stories of Scott are to be found in the
sales accounts; but Sterne had his group of worshippers:
many copies of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental
Journey, but not of the Sermons, were bought; so were
Thomson's Seasons, Rasselas, and the tales of Miss
Edgeworth. Such imposing works as Gibbon's Decline
and Fall and Plutarch's Lives are included in the lists
of sales; so was the Spectator, which retained in Virginia
down to the middle of the nineteenth century the

popularity which it had enjoyed in the Colonial Age.[39]

Two small purchases of books by students in 1833,
throw light on individual tastes at that time. The list
of J. J. Hill embraced Peregrine Pickle, Vivian Gray,
Robertson's Histories of Scotland and America, the
Essays of Locke, the Tatler and the Guardian; the list of
John W. Eppes, Roderick Random, the Poems of Garth,
Collins, and Gray, the works of Voltaire, and Cuvier's
Animal Kingdom. These volumes were bought, not for
study, but for transient entertainment only.

By 1840, several new literary planets had swum into
the collegiate ken. Bulwer, the man of the world, had
now become the popular novelist and playwright, and
copies of Night and Morning and The Lady of Lyons are
noted among the students' purchases; Marryat's seatales
too were favorites with the same youthful buyers;
and even attenuated Mrs. Hemans was not neglected
by them. Not infrequently, they are found turning away
from books like these,—which were valuable for amusement's
sake alone,—and taking up those possessing only
the merit of utility; such was the formidable collection
known as the Family Library published in twenty volumes;
and such too the ponderous Library of Useful
Knowledge. The purchase of a complete set of British
Poets disclosed less alienation from genuine literature.
As a rhyming dictionary was sometimes bought, it is to be

inferred that some of the young men diverted themselves
with experiments in versification.

The first periodical associated with the history of the
University was suggested by Dunglison, and was issued
under the patronage of the Faculty. It bore the pedantically
ambitious name of Virginia Literary Museum and
Journal of Belles-Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc. The
Etc. was perhaps intended to cover the remaining provinces
of knowledge, which were too numerous to be
specifically mentioned in a title. The periodical was
usually spoken of as the Museum; and this was a very
pertinent designation in the light of the extraordinary
variety of its contents. Its purpose was stated to be to
"communicate the truth of science to the miscellaneous
reader, and encourage a taste for polite literature"; but
it had also a subordinate and a more practical object:
"It will keep," wrote Dunglison to Madison in February,
1829, "the University of Virginia perpetually before the
public, and it will diminish the expenses of the institution
by printing in its pages matter that is now issued
in an independent form."

Dunglison, who seems to have been of a utilitarian turn
of mind, with little esteem for the quality of imagination,
favored the admission only of articles full of solid information.
"We had better discontinue the Museum,"
he solemnly said, "than suffer its pages to contain anything
which will detract from the reputation of the University
or its professors." When Tucker, a man of
humor and imagination as well as of facts, suggested
that a story would be occasionally needed to lighten those
pages up, Dunglison replied rather loftily that there was,
in the composition of tales, as a rule, none of the requisites
that equip a man to serve as a teacher in a literary
institution; but he modified this oracular expression so

far as to add that, "if the tale carried a useful lesson,
its objectionableness would be removed." Fortunately
for the literary character of the periodical, his ponderous
literary judgment was not the only one relied upon.
All the professors were looked to for contributions, and
the wide field which they were expected to cover indicates
the just confidence felt in their ability and learning
alike. All the branches of science were to be traversed,
but in such a skillful way as to make the articles of interest
to the popular mind. Local history was not to be
neglected: information about every State of the South,—
its origin, progress, laws, manners, and dialect,—was
to be gathered up for the enlightenment of the Museum's
readers. A separate department was to be reserved for
the University of Virginia, the transactions of its Visitors,
its ordinances, its courses of instruction, the distinctions
won by its young men in the examinations, its list of professors
and students. The Museum was to receive and
transmit hints on the subject of collegiate discipline and
government; but all discussions of partizan politics, theological
dogmas, or sectarian controversies, were to be
avoided with unfailing circumspection.

It was anticipated that the University's association
with Jefferson's principles would give the new periodical
a high standing from the earliest number. It had not
been issued so soon as the institution opened for several
reasons: (1) the instructors had been laboriously occupied,
during several years, in collecting and assorting information
for additional courses of lectures; and (2)
coming as they did from a distance, they were unable to
judge at first as to what would be acceptable to the public
taste in their new theatre of action, or be best adapted
to the public needs. It was expected that the Museum
would materially diminish the professors' sense of seclusion

from the world at large springing from their remote
situation; and that it would also create an engine for successfully
combating the vindictive hostility which was so
constantly assailing the University.

There was a combination of facts which led the Faculty
to decide finally in favor of a weekly rather than a
quarterly journal: (1) there were already three reviews
issued quarterly in the United States, and from the pages
of these all literary intelligence and all short articles
were excluded, because this type of periodical, it was said,
was established to appeal "to reflective persons, and not
to the young, the thoughtless, and the gay." In a weekly
publication, on the other hand, all sorts of contributions
could be consistently printed; miscellaneous facts, briefly
related; poetry, sketches, creations of the imagination,—
no matter what the character of the article, it could be
inserted without impropriety. Reason, Fancy, Feeling,
—there was room for them all in such a periodical. In
short, its pages were to be as open to the "sportive effusions
of fancy and wit as to the most erudite disquisitions
of scholarship, or the profoundest researches of philosophy."
Hammered into shape upon this anvil the
Museum was expected to partake at once of the character
of a magazine, of a newspaper, and of a review, and
all this compacted between the same two covers.
"Whether we fail or succeed in our main purpose," concluded
the editors, "we will at least add to the stock of
harmless pleasure."

Did the numbers of the Museum, so far as they were
issued, accomplish the primary object of the magazine;
namely, the interpretation of the University? The periodical
undoubtedly succeeded in its literary purpose; its
pages were filled with an extraordinary variety of matter,
—reviews, fiction, poetry, accounts of travel,

scientific articles, notes of philology, and miscellaneous
odds and ends, all presented in such polished literary
form as to entertain the reader, whether the information
was solid or not. The tales by Bonnycastle, like the
Story of the Blue Ridge, the poems by Dabney Carr
Terrell, the friend of Gilmer and Ticknor, and the
former student of Geneva, and the translations from
the German,—these have a distinct literary excellence of
their own. The articles on scientific subjects are thoughtful
and learned; and there is a quaint flavor and a pungent
humor in very many of the less ambitious contributions.

A magazine edited by men who had come from other
parts of the world was not likely to possess much local
raciness, or reflect the natural bent of local genius. The
Museum, in spirit and contents, was as much a child of
Boston or London as of Virginia, but from a literary
point of view, it was all the more cosmopolitan for this
very detachment. The very universality of its appeal
was probably the main cause of its early death. There
was no elbow-room at this time for another purely literary
magazine like itself. As its course was confined to
the old channels, it lacked the saliency and the originality
necessary to win a large clientele of its own from the
ranks of its already flourishing rivals in Old England,
New York, and New England. With the issue of June
9, 1830, it was discontinued. The reasons given by the
editors for this abrupt ending, were: (1) that the professors'
articles were not supplemented by contributions
from independent pens, and that they were too overburdened
already to give up more of their hours to supply
this fatal deficiency; and (2) that no journal could expect
a wide circulation that refused to use the highly
flavoured sauce of politics in its pages.

The magazine had obtained subscribers enough to remove
all danger of personal loss, but not a sufficient number
to ensure a substantial margin of profit. There being
no duty on the importation of English periodicals,
the Museum, like all other American periodicals, found
it very arduous to compete successfully with them; and
moreover, the remoteness of the University was so great
that material which might have been copied into its pages
from new books had already been anticipated by Northern
magazines for the benefit of their readers. The editors
further asserted that they had to contend with a
grave difficulty in the fact that they resided a mile and
a half from their press, for this, they said, obliged them
to submit to the mortification of seeing every number, and
almost every page, deformed by false syntax and faulty
orthography, or by those far more annoying blunders
which alter the sense in a way not detected by the reader.
It is to be inferred from this complaint that the editors
thought themselves too busy to examine their proofs in
person, and that, in consequence, they relied upon their
printers for that indispensable but irksome labor. This
unhappy state of mind was aggravated by the frequency
with which the Museum was issued; had that periodical
been a monthly, the distance to Charlottesville would
hardly have justified their failure to correct the mistakes
in the printing; but even as a weekly, there was no reason
why the dispatch of the proofs to them could not
have been effected through a messenger with perfect
ease and regularity. This slim excuse for discontinuance
would seem to argue that the editors had begun to grow
tired of their rather complicated enterprise.

It was but natural that the young men should have
balked at accepting the Museum as the mouthpiece of
their own literary tastes and aspirations. As early as

1831, they issued the prospectus of a college magazine,
on which they had bestowed the poetical name of the
Chameleon. The mere suggestion of such a project had
excited nervous apprehension among members of the
Board, even before they had seen a copy of this preliminary
notice. Cabell wrote to his nephew, James L.
Cabell, now a student at the University, to inquire as to
the ulterior object of this proposed excursion into the
province of literature, and he seemed to look upon it as
at heart a new kind of rebellion. The boys had made a
rush in a novel quarter, and he was evidently timorous as
to its real significance. Dr Patterson, on the other hand,
outspokenly favored the venture, on the ground that it
would encourage those trials in English composition
which had always been so much neglected in the University.
The editors, who were among the most successful
and exemplary students in attendance, solemnly promised
that they would walk with such wariness between the pitfalls
of Religion and Politics as to tumble into neither;
and they also removed all fear of their burning too much
oil over the preparation of original articles by announcing
that they would obtain most of the contents of the
Chameleon from the pages of other magazines,—presumably
from those published in cultured Boston and
London.[40]

The first number appeared on April 22. "As it is
established," Patterson wrote in a soothing spirit to
Cabell the same month, "we must try to make the most

of it." He was of the opinion that this initial issue
was, from a literary point of view, very creditable to the
good taste of the students. Unfortunately, the editors,
in their prospectus, had stated that a restrained discussion
of the propriety of all new ordinances was one of
the purposes contemplated in its publication. This compelled
Patterson, even after the printing of the first number,
—which seems to have been free from criticism,—to
allay Cabell's apprehensions again by assuring him that
the committee of young men in charge could be relied
upon to shut out all papers that exhibited or even hinted
at insubordination.

The Collegian, a magazine projected by the students,
was issued for the first time in October, 1838. Its editors,
like those of the Chameleon, seemed to have been
confronted at the start by the opposition of the Faculty,
who thought that the periodical would "impede the
performance of duty and the purposes of a liberal education."
The editors, on the other hand, were convinced
that it "would chasten the taste of the students; increase
their knowledge; develope the resources of their minds;
divert them from the excesses of dissipation; foster a vigorous
literary spirit; promote skill in literary composition;
and enlist the dormant talent of the University."
It is debatable whether the Collegian rose to so high a
platform as this, however loyally and assiduously the
ideal may have been kept in view. The contents range
from the trivial moralizing essay to the ambitious disquisition
on science or literature; from light amatory
verses, in rather halting measures, to elaborate tales
of affrighting incidents,—the whole interspersed with
sensible, informing articles, in excellent literary shape.
This magazine survived to 1842. It terminated with its
fourth volume, thus adding a third suspension to the two

that had preceded it. There was less justification for its
failure to survive than there was for the Museum's, for
it did not pretend to appeal to any readers beyond the
University precincts, and, therefore, had more claim on
local support. As we shall see, it was soon succeeded by
a periodical of the same character.

XXXIX. Debating Societies

Among the intellectual diversions of a large section of
the students were the debates in the literary societies.
These societies reflected a side of their lives more congenial
to their tastes than the successive periodicals that
had languished and died within the same precincts. Oratory
has been an art that has always aroused an extraordinary
degree of enthusiasm among the Southern people,
and this feeling was never stronger than during these
times, which were still lighted up with the after-glow of
the Revolutionary Era. Traditions of the eloquence of
the Fathers were kept in full flame by the survival down
to 1826 of one of the greatest of them all,—John Adams.
Twenty-five years after Henry's death, the story
of his triumphs was told with as much fervor as if he were
yet alive to repeat them, and his name was still as much
the synonym of the orator as the name of Demosthenes,
and far more so than that of Chatham or Mirabeau.

When the first debating society was canvassed at the
University of Virginia, it is probable that no other designation
was suggested for it except the "Patrick Henry
Society," the one that was adopted; but there was no
side of the institution, beyond an abstract love of free
dom and loyalty to the Commowealth, that was identified
with the principles of this great Revolutionary leader
or remindful of his fame as a statesman. Indeed, there

were no principles which Jefferson more heartily detested
than those which had guided Henry towards the end of
his life, for he was then a friend of Adams and the supporter
and advocate of the Federalist Administration in
some of its supposed iniquities. It seemed to be almost
an offense to Jefferson to associate Henry's name with
any branch of activity in the University which he had
founded; but if he harbored any disposition to protest,—
of which there is no evidence,—he sank it in recollection
of the popular reverence for the memory of the supreme
orator of the Revolution. The action of the projectors
of the Society was a tacit acknowledgment that, however
high the distinction which Jefferson possessed, it was
not won, even partially, by achievements as a speaker.
It was Henry, not himself, who was first thought of by
the youthful aspirants for forensic fame.

In the beginning, the Society perhaps met in a dormitory,
for the main floor of pavilion VII, where it convened
at a later date, was, for some time, used as a
library. Wherever it may have assembled, the apartment
was known as the "debating room," which had been
fitted up for its purpose by important alterations, for,
in December, 1825, the builder, Crawford, was paid for
lumber which he had provided for these changes. As he
also received a separate amount for the bench, thirty
feet in length, which he supplied on the same occasion, the
members of the Patrick Henry Society must have been in
the habit of listening to the debate on very hard seats.
The Society, during the rest of its brief period of life,
possessed no regular place of meeting. It seems to have
come together at one time in those rooms of pavilion
VII which had previously sheltered the library; at another,
in an apartment in Dr. Johnson's pavilion; and at
still another, in one belonging to the pavilion afterwards

occupied by Dr. Emmet. Later yet, it obtained permission
to hold its sessions in a vacant hotel. It is probable
that the bench which had been purchased for it in the
beginning followed it in these different wanderings.

During the first months of its existence, the Patrick
Henry Society was free from the disturbing presence of
a rival, but this, so far from increasing its prosperity,
seems to have diminished it. It is said that its "universality"
caused its popularity to dwindle. A spirit of
discontent arose in its ranks, and in July, 1825, sixteen
members withdrew with the intention of organizing another
body. The leaders in this secession,—which was
to be lasting in it consequences, unlike the other similar
movements of that day,—were Robert Saunders, J. W.
Brockenbrough, Thomas Barclay, Edgar Mason, R. A.
Thompson, W. S. Minor, J. H. Lee and M. A. Page.
It is recorded that the birthplace of the new organization
was No. 7 West Lawn; the "Jefferson Society"
was adopted as its name, and a constitution drafted for
its government. Contrary to the example set by the
Patrick Henry, all strangers were denied admission to
the room when the Jefferson was in session. There was
always a scene of tumult at the meetings of the former,
owing to the presence of curious outsiders, and the rival
body, to escape from this unhappy condition, closed its
doors to all but its own members. It assembled at first
once a week, but afterwards altered this rule to once a
fortnight.

Jefferson was soon elected an honorary member. The
reply accompanying his refusal to accept this invitation
reveals a nice sense of public duty possibly carried so far
as to appear too refined. "I could decline no distinction
conferred by them (the Society)," he wrote on August
12, "no service I could render them, but on reasons of

still higher importance to themselves. On maturely
weighing the general relation in which the law of the
University and the appointment of the Visitors have
placed me as to every member of the institution, I believe
that it is my duty to make no change in those relations by
entering into additional or different ties with different associations
of its members. The duties with which I am
charged require that, in all cases which may arise, I should
stand in an equal position as to every person concerned,
not only that I may preserve the inestimable consciousness
of impartiality to all, but the equally inestimable exemption
from all suspicion of partialities."

This letter gives us a very clear impression of the
solemn view which Jefferson took of the importance of
his university, from the most conspicuous department
down to the smallest and most obscure. There was not
one, in his opinion, so inconsiderable in itself,—not one
so exalted over the rest,—as to call for any real difference
in his relations with it. So far as his fostering
supervision was concerned, each one, big or little, great
or insignificant, was entitled to it, on a footing of perfect
equality. On the other hand, neither Madison nor
Monroe strained at the honor. When elected to complimentary
membership in the same society, they allowed
their names to be enrolled without one conscientious protest.
In such enthusiastic respect, indeed, was Monroe
held by the Jefferson Society that it declined to bestow
the same distinction on John Randolph, because he had
been an opponent of that statesman, and had even dared
to speak of the sacred Jefferson himself with a sneer as
St. Thomas of Cantingbury.

As avid a taste for constitutional discussions was shown
by the members of the Jefferson as their fathers had exhibited
in the Revolutionary conventions; but they do

not seem to have been quite so conservative, for such a
thirst for change in their organic law did they display,
that it was found necessary at last to impose a fine of
a dollar upon every one who offered an amendment to it.
In seeking a dwelling-place, the Jefferson was as much
knocked about as the Patrick Henry. It too found a
temporary domicile in pavilion VII,—which enjoys the
distinction of having sheltered more wandering houseless
associations, from libraries and societies to clubs, than
any of the buildings on the ground.

During the first years of its existence, the Jefferson
Society apparently elected no public orator, although the
recurrence of April 13, must have offered an itching
temptation to do so. In 1832, however, it asked the
Faculty's permission to choose among its members one
to make an address on this anniversary. Their consent
having been obtained, Merritt Robinson was selected,
and he was instructed to send a copy of his speech to the
chairman before its delivery. Promptly submitted, it
was read and approved by that official. At this time,
there had sprung up in Virginia a very persistent demand
for the abolition of slavery, but this demand was encountering
a stubborn opposition. The controversy had
already grown to be an embittered one. Mr. Robinson
strongly favored emancipation, and quoted very pertinently
in support of his own convictions, opinions which
had been expressed by Washington and Jefferson and
other founders of the Republic. To the chairman, the
sentiments of the youthful orator,—who, it turned out,
had more foresight than most of his elders,—appeared
to be incontestable moral truths; but the Faculty, after
listening to the address, considered it to be highly indiscreet,
because it brought up a public question abbut which
the minds of men were then hotly at variance. The University,

they said, was supported with equal fidelity by
all parties, and it was unwise to introduce there any topic
that was causing dangerous antagonisms among the influential
people of the Commonwealth. They issued a general
notice that thereafter no oration was to be delivered
on any distracting question of state or national policy;
and although no point in sectarian controversy had been
broached by Mr. Robinson, they went further and reiterated
their determination that no theological dispute
should, in the future, be touched upon in any address,—
a fulmination that, so far as the Jefferson Society was
concerned, must have seemed rather wide of the mark,
unless the youths of those times were more interested
than the youths of our own are in the dogmas of the
Church. Possibly, the raw sensitiveness of the Faculty
on this subject may, on some recorded occasion, have
tempted a mischievous young orator to express his green
convictions on the doctrines of Athanasius or of Dr.
Pusey, when he should have been confining his remarks
to abstract principles, too axiomatic to allow of any room
for a difference of opinion.

Not at all daunted by the Faculty's dissatisfaction with
Mr. Robinson's speech, the Society requested that body
to assent to the appointment of an orator for the ensuing
Fourth of July; and this was complied with on condition
that his address should receive the approval of the
entire Faculty before it was spoken. Confidence in the
chairman's judgment alone seems to have been, at least
temporarily, shaken by his endorsement of the oration
which had caused so much agitation on the previous
thirteenth of April. When this latter date rolled around
in 1833, the Society was not permitted to celebrate the
event with a speech in the imposing circular apartment
of the library; but no objection was offered to its delivery

in Charlottesville, provided that a tavern was not chosen
as the scene.

In 1837, the Jefferson Society was granted the possession
of the large room in Hotel C; an adjacent room in
addition was soon thrown open to its use; and four years
later, it was authorized to make important alterations
in the shape of these apartments.

In March, 1833, there was an Academic Society in
existence. Convening in the basement story of the
Rotunda, its object seems to have been limited to general
intellectual improvement. But its membership was large
enough, in the following July, to justify it in asking the
Board of Visitors for the use of a room in a vacant hotel.
According to Leiper Patterson, who left the University
in 1835, with his father, the Washington Society had been
organized by this time, and held its sessions in the middle
hotel of West Range; but in November of this year, it
applied for the use of the former library-room in pavilion
VII. This must have been unsuccessful, for a second
application was submitted in 1837, two years afterwards.
By this time, the members of this Society had begun to
celebrate the twenty-second of February, the anniversary
of the birth of its patronymic. The increase in the number
of imprudent young orators, brought about by the
organization of another debating society, seems to have
been so irksome to the patience of the Visitors that, in
1838, they positively refused to consent to the delivery of
public speeches. The reason given for action so summary
was that the elections were accompanied by such
turbulence as to degrade the reputation of the University;
and that, in addition, they created dangerous personal
feuds and diverted the members' attention from their
normal studies. A committee of the Washington Society
denied with emphasis the correctness of these charges.

"We meet together," they said, "not as a body of students,
not as persons desirous of elevating a personal or
political friend, but as a band of brothers, all having the
good of the Society at heart, and anxious to choose him,
who, they think, can best advance its interests. The
elections are conducted in a friendly manner, there being
no electioneering as among the whole body of students.
No time is lost. Our minds are not abstracted
from our studies, nor our feelings excited. ... In conclusion,
we cannot refrain from saying that we think the
societies have heretofore been too much overlooked, and
we would most earnestly and affectionately invite your
serious attention to them."

The Visitors proved themselves to be deaf to this dignified
and feeling statement, but their obduracy did not
discourage the two societies from making a determined
effort to bring about the restoration of the custom of delivering
addresses on the occasion of anniversaries at
least. As this also was coldly received by the authorities,
the Collegian expressed the indignant sentiment of the
students when it said with pardonable bombast: "We
are forbidden to speak; the tongue falters, the lips are
closed, and the voice of vivid eloquence must ring through
our Corinthian columns no more. It will prostrate our
debating societies; taste for classical literature will be
diminished ... and a meagre sheepskin will be held up
as the sole incentive to intellectual exertion." A year
later, the Collegian reiterated this complaint, but it
acknowledged that the students themselves were partially
responsible for the languishing condition of the two
societies. They were reproached for their failure to
support these "nurseries of genius." This lamentable
want of interest was due in part, said the Collegian, to
the fact that the standard of admission to the University

was extremely low. There were young men who were
discouraged from becoming members, simply because
they had entered with such inadequate preparation for
their studies, that, in the necessary effort to keep up with
their classes, they found that they had no leisure to
equip themselves for participation in debate.

There were small associations of a social character in
the University from the start, but the first Greek letter
fellowship was the Gamma Pi Delta. This brotherhood
seems to have been smitten with the prevailing oratorical
fever, for, on February 16, 1836, the address which its
speaker was to deliver on the following February 22, was
submitted to the critical judgment of the Faculty for approval.
In the course of the same year, the medical
students organized a class society which held its meetings
in the Anatomical Hall.

XL. Religious Exercises

Before the Great Reformation, the general system of
education in England was organized and controlled by
the Catholic clergy; and during the first centuries following
Protestant ascendancy, all the colleges there persisted,
—some to a greater, and some to a lesser degree,—
in maintaining the original bond of wedlock with the
Church. This was discernible even in America, although
it was settled to such a large extent by men who
had sought its remote forests in order to escape from
ecclesiastical restraints and persecutions. Of one hundred
and nineteen of the higher seats of learning that
were earliest established on the soil lying within the
present boundaries of the United States, one hundred
and four had their roots mainly in a religious motive.
Harvard College was founded to supply a continuous

succession of educated ministers for the pulpits of Massachusetts
when the living incumbents, who had been
trained in English schools, should have passed away; and
it was not until 1886 that every formal shackle inherited
from the Puritan past was struck from the religious limbs
of that institution. The College of William and Mary
obtained its charter for the specific purpose of providing
the Established Church in Virginia with clergymen, and
spreading the Christian faith among the barbarous Indians.
One of the central aims which the College of
Yale kept fixedly in view from the hour when its lecture
halls were first thrown open, was to qualify young men
of a religious bent for a career in the ministry. As late
as 1784, prayers were held at the College of Hampden-Sidney
at six o'clock every morning, and five o'clock
every afternoon; and each student was subject to a severe
penalty should he fail to attend, or attending, forget to
deport himself with "gravity and decency."

When the University of Virginia was incorporated in
1819, the opinion was still general that the dignity of
every important seat of learning required that either a
bishop or a doctor of divinity should preside over its
temporal and religious affairs. Neither the French nor
the American Revolution, destructive as both were of
ecclesiastical and political inheritances of all sorts, had
been able to undermine this scholastic tradition. But
there was an ever growing number of persons who had
no sympathy with it whatever; and the most conspicuous
among these iconoclastic spirits was Jefferson. We have
seen that it was principally through his determined initiative
that the bonds between Church and State in Virginia
were disrupted. While he made no pretension to
being an orthodox Christian,—indeed, he was a deist or
unitarian in faith,—he never failed to exhibit reverence

for religion; but, with equal consistency, he never omitted
to show his detestation of sectarianism; for sectarianism,
in his opinion, was the deformed foster-mother of intolerance,
bigotry, hatred, and selfishness even when every
denomination was compelled by law to stand on a footing
of equality with its fellows.

Had he, like some of the modern philanthropists, been
able to found a great seat of learning by his own gifts
and endowments, he would still have seen to it that
every branch of this malignity was barred from its
threshold. As the institution which he did establish was
a State institution, dependent upon all classes and all
denominations for support, it would have been the climax
of presumption as well as of folly in him to propose that
the authority of any single Church should predominate in
its government. Had he been an Episcopal bishop himself,
with the longest and whitest of lawn sleeves, he still
would not have ventured to make such a suggestion as
this to the General Assembly, or slyly, and on his own
responsibility alone, have plotted to encourage the growth
of but one ecclesiastical influence in the University after
it had been founded. "Education and sectarianism
must be divorced," was an iteration as characteristic of
him as "Carthage must be destroyed" was of Cato.
He did not mean a divorce between education and religion;
certainly not religion so far as it denoted a great
system of morals. There could be no religious freedom,
he thought, in any seat of learning in which an atmosphere
of pestilential sectarianism existed, for religious
freedom consisted of the absolute possession by every one
of the unbounded right to follow the dictates of his own
spiritual cravings whithersoever they might lead. How
could this be made practicable within the precincts of a
university with a doctor of divinity pulling its scholastic

strings? Put such a dignitary over the University of
Virginia,—nay, more, fill the chairs with professors of
the same denominations, whether it were the Episcopal,
Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian, and in Jefferson's
opinion, it would be the first step towards the re-establishment
of a State Church. And even should those chairs
be divided among ministers of the gospel of different tenets,
that policy would still have a tendency to introduce
ecclesiastical influence into the heart of the environing
civic life, with all its demoralizing train of consequences
to the political and religious welfare of the people. To
persons in our own times, accustomed as they are to
tolerance and liberality of view in the relations of the
sects, these apprehensions seem exaggerated, if not
groundless, but it must be recalled that Jefferson had
grown up under the colonial system, which was indisputably
accompanied by many serious abuses.

It would have been presumed that the exclusion of all
forms of sectarianism from the University of Virginia
would have been satisfactory to every denomination because
preference was given to none. All of them must
have acknowledged that such preference, had it been
shown, would have been out of harmony with the character
of a State institution; and yet no citizens of the
community were more active than some of the apostles
of the several churches in spreading abroad the report
that the new seat of learning had been really founded to
disseminate the principles of infidelity. It was to be
the seed-plant in America of Parisian atheism and
Genevan rationalism, while the European professors had
been imported to fill its chairs, not because they had been
cultivated at Oxford and Cambridge to the ripest scholarship,
but because they were deeply tainted with the impiety
of Hume and Voltaire. As a matter of fact,

Tucker, Long, Key, Dunglison, and Bonnycastle had been
reared strictly in the tenets of the Anglican Church; Emmet
of the Catholic; and Blaettermann of the Lutheran;
and there is no reason to suppose that there was a single
scoffer among them.

Even if Jefferson had been an ardent disciple of Tom
Paine rather than of Doctor Priestley, he was still too
shrewd to imagine that the foundations of his infant
University could rest safely upon a corner-stone that
discarded all moral teachings in the larger sense. "The
relations which existed between man and his Maker, and
the duties resulting from these relations," said he, "are
the most interesting and important to every human being,
and the most incumbent on his study and imitation."
Policy and principle alike dictated to him irresistibly that
religion, in some form or other, direct or indirect, should
be recognized in his new institution. How could this be
done without countenancing this or that branch of sectarianism?
The methods which he adopted at first to
accomplish his purpose, could only have been satisfactory
to a moralist interested in the purely historical
aspects of the subject. These methods were, (1) instruction
in the Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages,
which would enable the students to read the "earliest
and most respected" authorities of the Christian Faith;
and (2),—which was more pertinent in a general way,—
instruction, through the professor of moral philosophy,
in those abstract principles of virtue, in which all sects
believe and which all endeavor to practise. "The proof
of the being of a God," said he, "the Creator, Preserver,
and Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the author of all the
relations of morality, and the laws and obligations which
these infer, will be in the province of the professor of
ethics." And to supplement these purely scholarly lessons

in natural piety, a large number of volumes, embracing
the most learned commentaries on the Evidences
of Christianity, were purchased for the library to assist
the inquiring student in his search after religious truth.

Rationally enough, Virginians of a very fervent religious
temperament found little satisfaction in these very
vague provisions, for they seemed to place the University
of Virginia on the platform of an institution that
did equal honor to Christ, Confucius, and Buddha, and
the other great exemplars of general morality. "Why
was no chair of Divinity created?" they asked. In reality,
Jefferson did not object to the establishment of a
purely historical chair. But apart from the expense of
this additional professorship, who could probably fill it
but a clergyman, and how could a clergyman be obtained
without going to one of the denominations, and thus upsetting
the equilibrium which he considered to be so indispensable?
He candidly acknowledged that "the want
of instruction in the various creeds of religious faith
among our citizens was a chasm" in his new seat of
learning; and in admitting this, he confessed that his
critics were correct in asserting that the teachings of
Professor Harrison and Professor Tucker, in their respective
courses, were a very impoverished substitute for
the teaching of a professor of Historical Divinity. Such
a chair, under a different name, has been erected in recent
years, and has been found perfectly consistent with that
religious toleration which he guarded with such jealous
fidelity.

Jefferson was determined that the University should
be neutral; and in its original shape, he made no real
concession to religious feeling beyond providing a room in
the Rotunda, as we shall see, for religious worship. The

religious sentiment of Virginia, however, demanded more,
and this demand he met by putting forward a proposal
that was, on its face at least, as practical as it was ingenious.
This proposal,—which is stated in one of his
reports to have been suggested to him by "some pious
individual,"—provided that each of the principal denominations
should establish its own theological school
just without the confines of the institution. By this
means, its pupils would obtain prompt and convenient
access to the lectures delivered by the different professors
and enjoy all the benefits of the library. In their turn,
the students of the University would be able to attend
religious services, each under the clergyman of his own
particular sect; and their exercises might be held, either
in the Rotunda,—in the room set apart there for religious
worship,—or in the neighboring chapels of the
different seminaries.[41] Jefferson, as the spokesman of
the Visitors, expressed their readiness to assure to the
young men who would enter these theological schools
every facility for improvement which the University could
extend. The only reservation would be that each school
of theology should be independent of the University and
of the other denominational schools in its vicinity. In
this way, the constitutional freedom of religion, "the
most invaluable and sacred of all human rights," he said,
"would be preserved inviolate."

The apparent cordiality with which Jefferson assented
to this memorable proposal is a further proof that his attitude
towards religious exercises at the University was
not one of fixed hostility, provided that there was an
equality in the relation to it of all the sects. No one,
after the publication of this report, could justly accuse
him of a desire to place the institution in permanent antagonism
to the Christian Faith; nor was it his fault that
the several denominations declined to accept an offer that
would have conferred the highest scientific advantages on
their students. Indeed, there would have been an element
of grandeur in the situation of these great schools,
had they been, not dispersed, as they are at present, at
different spots in the State, but planted in the form of a
splendid girdle around Jefferson's central institution, receiving
scientific light from it, and in their turn, radiating
religious light back to it,—a light reflected, not from the
doctrines of one sect, but from the combined doctrines of
all the principal sects.

The Presbyterian Church alone exhibited a disposition
to transfer its seminary to the vicinity of the University,
but not until Jefferson had been dead for a generation.
A committee was appointed in 1859 to ascertain the terms
on which its students would be admitted to the lectures
and the library; but temporary obstructions to the progress
of negotiations soon arose, and as the shadow of war

was already falling over the land, all further steps were,
in 1860, postponed.[42]

Jefferson has been criticized for not foreseeing and
adopting the system which was afterwards introduced;
namely, the annual appointment of chaplains belonging
to the four great Protestant denominations in succession,
and their support by the voluntary contributions of the
students, professors, and Visitors. Such a system was
entirely in harmony with that principle of religious freedom
which he had always advocated, and which was so
essential to the character of a State institution; and at
the same time, it directly subserved the spiritual needs of
each set of young men, by supplying them in turn with a
minister of the gospel of their own religious doctrines.
It was the only practical solution of a very embarrassing
problem, and it was one that has proved eminently happy
and satisfactory in its operation. As a matter of fact,
Jefferson had, by his action, at least suggested this solution
when he accepted, with so much cordiality, the proposal
that the University should surround itself with an
enciente of independent theological schools whose clergymen
would be called upon, one after the other, to preach
within the precincts. Whether he anticipated it or not,
he had, independently of these schools, provided for this
very solution by furnishing an apartment for religious
worship in the projected Rotunda, for, in that apartment,
religious exercises could, in the future, be held by ministers
of the different sects invited in turn from Sunday to
Sunday to conduct them.

If Jefferson failed to give more distinct form than this
to the plan that was afterwards adopted, Madison, his

successor in the rectorship, could not justly be accused of
the like neglect. "I have indulged the hope," he wrote
Chapman Johnson, in 1828, "that provision for religious
instruction and observance among the students would be
made by themselves or their parents and guardians, each
contributing to a fund to be applied in remunerating the
services of clergymen of denominations corresponding
with the preference of the contributors. Being altogether
voluntary, it would interfere neither with the
characteristic peculiarity of the University, the consecrated
principle of the law, nor the spirit of the country."

The proposal to encompass the University with theological
seminaries having failed to obtain an affirmative
response from the several denominations, and the room
reserved for religious worship remaining too often silent
and empty on Sunday, the only course left open was to
adopt the plan suggested by Madison. This, however,
was not done at once. In the meanwhile, the want of
some steady rule for holding religious exercises within
the precincts continued to be taken by many as a confirmation
of the charge of infidelity which was still so loudly
raised against the institution. When the epidemic of
typhoid fever broke out there in 1829, fanatical persons
looked upon it as a punitive visitation from God; and this
idea found reflection, as already pointed out, in the sermon
delivered at this time before the students and Faculty
by Rev. William Meade, of the Episcopal Church,
afterwards a very distinguished Bishop of Virginia. He
eloquently and forcibly maintained the doctrine of a conscious
and overruling Providence in all the multitudinous
affairs of men, as opposed to the unpiloted action of unconscious
chance. Institutions as well as men, he said
in substance, should be governed by Christian influences
and principles,—otherwise they must fall under the ban

of reproach for atheism, and sink into temporal decay
and collegiate futility.

This discourse was heard with undisguised indignation
by the congregation, for it was considered to be a covert
attack on the University, the Visitors, the Faculty, and
the memory of Jefferson. The furtive injustice of it was
probably most deeply felt by the Faculty because they had,
but the year before, turned to the only means at their
disposal then to establish a permanent course of religious
services, for, in their private capacity, they had invited
the Rev. F. W. Hatch, the Episcopal clergyman of Charlottesville,
and the Rev. Mr. Bowman, the Presbyterian
minister of the same town, to preach on alternate Sunday
afternoons in the apartment in the Rotunda reserved
for religious worship. No additional salary was guaranteed
them for this pastoral task. The arrangement
was voluntary on both sides, and might be discontinued
on seven days' notice. Previous to the delivery of these
sermons, the young men of a devout temper had no recourse
but to attend the morning services in Charlottesville.
"I have been three or four times," wrote Robert
Hubard, of Buckingham county, to his sister, "and
would go more often, but it is so long a walk, and the dust
all the way has become so disagreeable, that I could not
undertake the journey." The same element, quite probably,
was an equal impediment to many of his companions.

XLI. The Chaplains

Rev. Mr. Hatch, who inaugurated the religious services
at the University, rises first to view in association
with two scenes of an antipodal nature. He was the
clergyman who visited Francis Walker Gilmer during
the last days which that young Virginian passed on earth,

and it must have been a melancholy sight for him to witness
the rapid wasting of a spirit gifted with so much
talent and learning. In the second scene in which Mr.
Hatch is earliest discovered, he was engaged in marrying
a couple in a cabin on the mountain-side.[43] When the ceremony
ended, the bridegroom, with great embarrassment,
told him that he was too poor to pay the expected fee.
It happened that the clergyman, as he entered the room,
had noticed hanging against the wall a bunch of large
gourds, then in common use as light and fragrant water-dippers.
Pointing to them, he said, "I will be satisfied
with some of those gourds." The bridegroom, very
much relieved, not only, with alacrity, took them all down
from the wall, but assisted the clergyman in festooning
his horse's neck with them as his only available means of
carrying them off to town. And so Mr. Hatch cheerfully
departed, the gourds dangling and clattering in
front of him, while his own thoughts probably wandered
so far away as to be oblivious of the ludicrous spectacle
which he presented as he rode forward along the public
road. As he began to descend Vinegar Hill, in Charlottesville,
his horse suddenly took fright, and dashed
down the street at the top of his speed, with the clergyman
clinging desperately to his neck, and the gourds
bouncing and clashing in the rush of air. Not since John
Gilpin ran his "famous rig," had there been a more frantic
horse or a more helpless rider. A great commotion
was aroused among the astonished bystanders as he flew
by, and not until the horse stopped at the door of the
rectory stable did the wild race come to an end.
Whether the gourds survived the pounding is not mentioned
in the record of the event, but the clergyman fortunately
escaped without personal injury, to continue his
faithful services among his widely dispersed parishioners.

The arrangement with Mr. Hatch and Mr. Bowman
was not protracted beyond twelve months. It could
never have been convenient to these clergymen, since it
required them to traverse a considerable distance before
they could reach the precincts; and it also interrupted the
performance of the full duty which they owed to their
respective flocks in town; nor could afternoon services
alone at the University itself have brought contentment
to those professors and students who were, by nature and
training, interested in religious exercises.

The first regular chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Smith, of
Philadelphia, was appointed in 1829. He was a Presbyterian
in doctrine. The term was now limited to a
single session. During the sessions of 1830–1831 and
1831–1832, the chaplaincy was in abeyance. This was,
perhaps, to be laid at the door of the smallness of the
voluntary contributions made for its support, a condition
all the more to be deprecated because the chaplain, at
this time, was constrained to secure a living-room at his
own expense beyond the precincts. During the brief
period of suspension, there was no recurrence to the clergymen
in Charlottesville, but, in their stead, the chairman
invited pastors of the different Protestant sects to
preach at the University in turn. These accepted with
out any expectation of a fee. Rev. Mr. Armstrong, of
Richmond, Rev. Calvin Catlin, of New York, Rev. Benjamin
Rice and other men of distinction in their calling,
delivered, in succession, moving and edifying sermons in
the apartment in the Rotunda reserved for religious
services.

It was the students, and not the Faculty, who took the
initiatory step for the restoration of the chaplaincy.

At the beginning of the session of 1832, a committee, composed
of McClurg Wickham and three other prominent
collegians, informed the chairman that a large number
of the young men had entered into a mutual pledge to
contribute such a sum as would make certain the celebration
of divine services within the precincts on every Sunday.
Thirty-three signatures were appended to this
honorable list, and among them were to be found the
names of several men who won distinction in after life,
—John W. Stevenson, John A. Meredith, John B.
Young, Frank S. Ruffin, and David H. Tucker. The
professors as well as the visitors swelled the fund by their
relatively large subscriptions of twenty dollars respectively.

During the winter of 1833, Rev. Mr. Ragland, who
had been attending a course of lectures, preached with
regularity in the Rotunda; but before the close of the
following spring, Rev. Mr. Hammet was formally appointed
chaplain, at a salary of three hundred dollars per
annum, which was guaranteed to him by an agreement between
the students, on the one hand, and the professors
and Visitors, in their private capacity, on the other. The
salary was retroactive from the first day of the previous
January. Hammet possessed an uncommon gift as a
pulpit orator, and soon secured a firm hold on the attention,
respect, and affection of the students. Indeed, his
influence with them was so strong, that, when, during
his chaplaincy, they resented the closing of their assembly
hall by the Faculty, they sent him, as their sympathetic
ambassador, to warn that body of the bad consequence
of showing an unconciliatory spirit in the settlement of
the dispute. The chaplaincy was still limited to a term
of one year. When Rev. Mr. Hammet retired in accord
with this rule, the Episcopal Convention,—which met

in May, 1834, and which was granted the privilege of
nominating his successor,—designated Rev. N. H. Cobbs
for the post. Cobbs was a youthful clergyman of remarkable
talents, who was then the rector of a rural
parish in Virginia. The formal invitation to become
the chaplain at the University was received by him in
June, and it was with reluctance that his vestry released
him from his charge, because, they said, the salary of
six hundred dollars offered was insufficient for his support.
Cobbs was justly of the same opinion. "This
sum," he wrote, "would not cover my expenses; but by
extending my labors of an evening to the church in
Charlottesville, I may be enabled, with rigid economy,
to avoid the painful evils of debt."

No clergyman with a known itching for disputation
was permitted to preach within the precincts even after
the presence of regular chaplains, representing, in succession,
the several Protestant denominations, had ensured
the institution's reputation for religious equality.
When one of the pastors of the Charlottesville churches,
in 1835, requested that Dr. Thomas, of Richmond,
should be invited to deliver a sermon in the Rotunda,
the reply was a refusal, on the ground that he was a
Campbellite Baptist, said to be ambitious of making converts
to his creed, which would be attempted at the University
only by a series of controversial arguments certain
to arouse a spirit of antagonism in the hearts of his
auditors. The chairman, in announcing the refusal,
restated the rule which he had been instructed to follow;
namely, that no one but the chaplain and himself
should have the right to ask foreign clergymen to fill
the University pulpit on occasion; and that only sermons
free from controversial taint were to be tolerated.
The reply that was made to Dr. Thomas, the disciple,

was repeated when the like application was received from
Dr. Campbell, the founder of this new branch of Baptists.
Campbell promised to avoid the subject of sectarianism
in his discourse, and to restrict his remarks to
the evidences of Christianity. When this conservative
pledge on his part became known, the chairman was made
a target of censure; a large body of students expressed
their disapproval of his extreme position; but an equally
large body sustained it. This incident reveals the jealousy
with which the religious services at the University
were guarded,—a jealousy that sometimes, as, in this
instance, verged on intolerance.

Rev. Robert Ryland, a Baptist, succeeded Mr. Cobbs.
Diffident by temperament, he made no pretension to oratory.
Col. Pendleton described him as a plain, sensible,
and pious man, of decided force of character, but mild
in his deportment and pleasant in his manners. A Presbyterian,
the Rev. Mr. Tustin, followed Ryland. During
the session of 1827–8, Rev. J. P. B. Wilmer was the
incumbent; and at intervals of one year, down to the end
of the session of 1841–2, the duties of the chaplaincy fell
in turn upon Rev. D. L. Doggett, a Methodist, Jas. B.
Taylor, a Baptist, W. S. White, a Presbyterian, and
W. M. Jackson, an Episcopalian. The delicate balance
of the ecclesiastic scales was never shaken. All these
men were young, full of energy, and full of talent, and
with hardly an exception, rose to eminence in their calling
in after-life. Hammet,—apparently without abandoning
his sacred profession,—was elected to a seat in
the National House of Representatives. Cobbs was advanced
to the Episcopal prelacy of Alabama, and Wilmer
to that of Louisana. Doggett was long the eloquent
Bishop of the Methodist diocese of Virginia, and Ryland,
the respected President of Richmond College. Taylor,

during many years, occupied a position of unique influence
among the Protestants who resided in the shadow of
the Vatican. Jackson was chosen to a pulpit in Norfolk,
and enjoyed a wide reputation for his saintly life in
that community, while White was called to a pastorate in
Staunton, and until his death, was a beloved minister of
his denomination.

We have, in the course of our previous narrative, mentioned
that a room in the Rotunda was explicitly reserved
by Jefferson himself for religious exercises. This apartment
having become too small, by 1835, to accommodate
with comfort the group of students and professors who
appeared at the door on Sunday morning, the members
of the Faculty formed themselves into a committee for
the purpose of collecting funds enough for the erection of
a spacious church edifice within the precincts of the University.
They chose, as the tentative site, the ground
that lay south of the Lawn and opposite the Rotunda;
and from an architect of high reputation, they procured
the plan of a structure in the Gothic style, which would
hold not less than eight hundred persons. It was calculated
that the cost of this building would amount to
twenty thousand dollars. An address to the public was
drawn up, and Mr. Cobbs, the chaplain, was the first to
be appointed to solicit and receive subscriptions. The
members of the Board, at that time, approved of this
scheme in every detail but one: they ordered the postponement
of the choice of a site.

Four years passed, and it would appear that the efforts
to raise the required fund had either proved fruitless,
or some objection to the plans was offered by the
new set of Visitors, for the chapel remained unconstructed.
When they assembled in August, 1839, the
only one among them who urged its erection, was William

C. Rives; but as there were several absentees, including
Cocke and Cabell, who shared his favorable attitude,
he induced the members of the Board to put off
their decision. It seems that two of those present were
hostile to the project because they were apprehensive lest
the Unitarians should claim the privilege of being represented
in the chaplaincy, in their turn,—which these two
Visitors asserted, with acute solicitude, would be "a gross
abuse of the principles of religious freedom and toleration."
Mr. Cobbs and General Cocke, now his assistant,
were still under a pledge to solicit public subscriptions;
and both were convinced that there would be no
grave difficulty in raising the amount needed just so soon
as they should be able to announce that the Board's approval
had been got; but this apparently could not be
obtained from that body by the votes of the required
majority. The eastern gymnasium, having, by 1841,
been reconstructed, so as to create room for a larger
audience, permission was granted by the Visitors for its
use for religious exercises on Sunday.

If the Board shrank from allowing a separate church
building to be erected on the grounds, they showed equal
timidity in offering a home to the chaplain within the precincts.
To do so would, in their opinion, be giving him,
as a clergyman, the equivalent of his pecuniary support by
the University; and for the institution to aid a man of
his cloth, even in this indirect way, was tantamount to
the State doing so; and for the State to do it, was to violate
the statute for the preservation of religious freedom;
and to violate that statute was to bring down on the
heads of the officials guilty of it the hot censure of the
people. It was by some obscure process of logic resembling
this that the Board of Visitors declined to grant
Rev. Mr. Hammet the right to shelter his head under

the roof of pavilion VII, which had offered an asylum to
so many houseless societies and libraries, and even to the
wandering and perplexed Board itself, when the doors of
Monticello were finally closed. "No room there could
be assigned him," said the Visitors, "because he did not
come within the scope of a general or special Act."[44] However, he was at liberty to obtain an apartment in the
pavilion of some professor, or in a hotel, should one become
vacant; but if this was impracticable, then he was
to seek for a room in a boarding-house beyond the precincts
for the rest of the session; after which, should he
continue at the University, it was possible that an apartment
might be found for him somewhere within the
bounds.

It might be inferred from the account that has been
given of the disorder which prevailed among students
between 1825 and 1842 that the fires of religious feeling
burnt rather low among them during that interval. This
would be an erroneous conclusion if it should be presumed
to be applicable to the entire body. McClurg
Wickham, a student who won great respect for his active
part in the religious work of that period, asked permission
in February, 1833, to establish a Sunday school
within the precincts and to hold its sessions in the Rotunda;
but his petition was denied in the latter particular

at least, on the ground that the apartment desired in
that building was reserved for the delivery of lectures
and sermons. It is possible that the spectre of the
statute for the preservation of religious freedom, which
so often shook the professorial soul in those times, had
again flitted across the chairman's path, for he seemed
to think that sermons had been legalized at the University
by the clause in the Act of Incorporation allowing
religious worship, but not Sunday schools. The Board of
Visitors exhibited a more liberal spirit of interpretation:
in July, 1833, they instructed him to assign a room to the
projected Sunday school in whichever building he should
consider the best adapted to its meetings.

When this school was reorganized at the beginning of
the session of 1834, as many as sixty students joined it.
Mr. Cobbs was now the chaplain, and his personal popularity
to some degree explains this large attendance. A
Bible class was also in existence at the University in 1841.
There was, however, observed a recession in religious
feeling among the students after 1835; and this palpable
fact was boldly commented upon by a prominent religious
journal,—which even went so far as to reproach the innocent
Visitors for impiety, because they had filled one
chair by the appointment of Kraitser, a Roman Catholic,
and another, by the appointment of Sylvester, a Jew.

XLII. Care of the Buildings

It required the passage of but a few years to show
that the extraordinary area of flat roofs, created by long
lines of one story dormitories, would add very sensibly
to the expense of keeping the University buildings in repair.
There was at least one advantage which the tall
barracks, so much abhorred by Jefferson, would have possessed

over these low structures; a roof would have been
necessary only for the sleeping apartments at the top of
the house. The passage of water into the dormitories
increased in proportion as their covering steadily rusted
or rotted. It began as early as 1827. "There is hardly
a room or a house in the University," wrote John Tayloe
Lomax, the chairman, to the proctor, "that does not
leak." By 1831, this unwholesome inconvenience had
reached such a height that the Board was compelled to
announce that a permanent fund would be reserved against
it so soon as the income at their disposal would permit
of such a diversion; and in the meanwhile, the executive
committee was instructed to take steps to scotch the evil,
—temporarily at least.

The proctor's mind, at this time, must have been very
much harassed by the growls which the professors were
pouring into his ears. "Will you be so kind as to call
in and examine our house," wrote Dunglison, "as we
were up nearly all of last night in consequence of the
rain soaking through on the floor and bed." And at
the beginning of 1831, he again wrote, "Every part of
the roof of my pavilion admits water like a sieve"; and
the third time he wrote, "I don't know that you can
help us, but we are likely to be in a dreadful situation
from this thaw. Wherever the boards have been removed
from the terraces on the housetops, the water is
pouring through." Emmet could not repress his exasperation
under the same annoyance. "Every member
of my family, with the exception of the infant," he wrote
in the spring of 1832, "is at present seriously indisposed
by violent cold and fever taken immediately after
the late rain. The room occupied by Mrs. Emmet
dripped incessantly. I slept in the chamber with the
children and felt the drops falling steadily on my pillow.

I positively state to you my conviction that the complete
prostration of my family is dependent on the leaking
condition of the roof." "The roofs of all the dormitories
and some of the pavilions," reported Colonel Pendleton,
the proctor, in December, 1833, "either from imperfect
construction originally, or the lapse of time, require
now thorough repair. All are now exposed to
rapid decay." He thought that not less than twenty
thousand dollars would be required for the complete restoration
of the University buildings; nor was this figure
really wide of the mark if the Faculty's statement in November
of the following year, can be taken as strictly correct:
they asserted then that the pavilions, dormitories,
and hotels were literally "inundated by the rains."

A large quantity of tin sheeting was purchased in December;
but Cocke, who had become an expert more or
less in every branch of building, counseled that it should
not be put on at that season, owing to its liability to crack
when under the influence of an icy spell of weather. "A
few more mistakes in the management of our buildings,"
he said, "and the expense of wear and tear will become
insupportable." "From this cause alone," he added,
"we are obliged to keep the price of a University education
so high as to exclude the sons of one half of the
independent farmers of the State. The cause will be
seen sooner or later, and if we do not provide against it,
our raree show of architecture will be abandoned, and
the public funds bestowed where students can live in more
comfort, and obtain equal instruction at less expense."[45] It was quite probably due to Cocke's practical advice
that the covering for the roofs, after a certain area had

been laid in this unsatisfactory material, was restricted to
slate. By August, 1835, the contractor for supplying
the raw slate, E. W. Sims, had transported to the University
a sufficient quantity to overspread the roofs of
numerous dormitories. "I shall be glad to hear," wrote
Cocke, in September, "how the slaters and carpenters
are getting on." Spooner,—who was regularly employed
in carpentry for the different buildings,—had
charge of the wood-work necessary for the slating; and
Colonel Pendleton reported, in reply to Cocke's letter,
that the recovering of the roofs of all the dormitories on
the Lawn would be finished by the advent of the first day
of December. But the substitution of slate for tin
throughout the precincts was still in progress in November,
1837, two years later; but this is probably explainable
by the occurrence of intermissions in the work.

Colonel Woodley followed Colonel Pendleton in the
proctorship, and it was to him that Sims, the contractor,
sent word, in November of that year, that he had one
hundred squares of slate piled up on the banks of the
James near Columbia, which he intended to bring up to
Milton by batteau so soon as the water in the Rivanna
should rise. This cargo had reached Columbia in
August, and, during the interval, had remained there
waiting for a break in the drought. The charge for
wagonage was too heavy to permit of its transportation
overland. This slate was probably designed for the
roofs of East and West Ranges. It would seem that it
was not until June, 1838,—two years after the use of
slate had begun,—that the protracted task of recovering
all the dormitories was finished. In September of the
same year, the substitution of slate for tin on the roofs
of the pavilions was in progress. How necessary this
improvement had become is revealed in a letter of the

proctor to Cocke: "I fear that some of the professors,"
he wrote, "will be forced to abandon their homes
if we do not succeed in securing their roofs before the
winter."[46]

With the buildings constructed for the most part
of starkly inflammable materials, there was always a
lurking apprehension of an outburst of fire, which, from
the defective preventives, might soon grow into an
all-consuming conflagration. There were more than two
hundred hearths within the precincts in constant use in
the winter. As Lawn and Range formed practically a
single structure, either by actual contact or by proximity,
a fire starting at any point was likely to sweep over the
entire area, unless arrested before much headway had
been won. Such a fire might spring up at any moment,
either through accident or through incendiarism. A student
who would not scruple to shoot down a professor
would probably not balk at the sly application of a candle's
flame. This fear was persistently in the minds of
the Faculty when an insurrectionary spirit flared up
among the young men: and it is creditable to the latter's
sense of discretion, that, in the midst of their most impetuous
mutinies, recourse was never had to such an act
of desperation,—all the more alluring because its perpetrator
could easily cloak his identity.

As early as 1826, the Faculty began to perceive the
need of a fire-engine, and of a more copious supply of
water for its effective use. Sellers and Pennock, of Philadelphia,

were now advertising an engine of sixteen manpower,
that carried eight hundred to one thousand feet
of hose. One of these, known as a hydraulion, was
bought, and successfully tested; but there was no occasion
to demonstrate its real value before 1831, when a fire
broke out in the terrace situated between Dr. Patterson's
pavilion and pavilion VII. A blustering wind was blowing,
but fortunately it was in the early afternoon when
persons were walking about in all parts of the precincts.
Professor Tucker said publicly afterwards, that, had the
fire started at a late hour at night, the whole row of
buildings on West Lawn would have been consumed, and
that, not improbably, the conflagration, in the end, would
have leaped across the first gymnasium to the Rotunda
and thence by the second gymnasium to East Lawn. As
it was, the flame,—which, it seems, had been caused by
ignition of rotten wood on the roof by a spark from a
chimney,—was quickly extinguished. There were two
threatening fires during 1831. In one of these cases, a
glowing log on the andirons of a dormitory rolled on
the floor in the absence of the occupant, and set the
planks ablaze; and in the other, a log, in the like state, set
fire to the timbers below the hearth. The very natural
nervousness felt by the entire community when an alarm
of this kind was sounded was shown by the excitement
caused by the burning of soot in one of the chimneys of
Dr. Emmet's pavilion during the same winter. There
was a very high wind abroad at the time, and the flames
from the chimney top leaped up in lofty tongues, and were
tossed about so angrily from side to side, that the roof
itself appeared to be in flames.

Very strict and clearly defined rules were adopted, in
1834, to guide the persons who should be called upon to
put out a fire within the precincts: (1) the chairman was

to be in supreme command; (2) the proctor, assisted by
the janitor was to have control of the engine; (3) a
committee of two members was to have charge of the lines
that should be made up to pass backwards and forwards
the full and empty buckets of water; (4) a second committee
of the same number was to indicate the precise
spots to be flooded, and give the word when the time
had arrived to inundate the adjacent dormitories or to
tear off their roofs; (5) a third committee was to be responsible
for the removal of the furniture and the other
portable contents of a burning apartment. The students
not in authority were instructed to obey silently and
promptly all the orders that should be called out to them
in the struggle to quench the flames.

The success of this prearranged plan, when the actual
test came up, would depend principally upon an abundant
supply of water. This was perceived from the beginning.
The pipes that had been laid down had soon begun to
rot, and for a time, the wells within the precincts had been
the sole reliance even for drinking water. In the summer
of 1826, many of these, owing to the drought, went entirely
dry. Brockenbrough, the proctor, reporting the
fact, suggested the boring of Artesian wells. The Board,
in the course of August, 1827, were disposed to erect a
large cistern in the centre of the Lawn, but so constructed
that it would not be visible above the surface. A second
cistern, to be excavated near the proctor's house, presumably
on Monroe Hill, was also contemplated. From
these reservoirs, the water, in case of a fire, might, it was
expected, be propelled, by means of a hose, to any part of
the precincts; but this supposition was disputed by the
proctor, who pointed out that the distance of the hotels,
A, B, E, and F,—which stood on the corners of the
East and West Ranges,—was at least six hundred feet

from the cistern on the Lawn, the nearest of the two,
whilst the available hose was not longer than four hundred
feet. He suggested that several cisterns should be built,
—one near his own house; a second in the vicinity of the
Rotunda, in order to catch the water from its roof; and
others in different areas of the precincts.

In July, 1833, the Board instructed the proctor to repair
the wooden pipes that tapped the main reservoir,
and also to complete the cistern which had been begun in
the vicinity of Professor Tucker's pavilion, while all the
cisterns nearest to the lawn were to be linked up with
the roofs by means of iron pipes, that would carry off the
rainwater. Apparently, the regular flow from the reservoir
entered the cistern not far from the proctor's
house, and from that receptacle was distributed to the
other cisterns. By 1835, the repaired wooden pipes had
again rotted so much that it was necessary to find some
substitute for them if there was to be a supply of water,
which, in case of fire, could be relied upon with confidence.
During several years, it would seem, most of the water in
use was hoarded from the roofs, and this fact led to an
increase in the number, and an enlargement in the size,
of the cisterns. But this was a precarious dependence,
for, in the course of droughts, the contents of these cisterns
always subsided to a very low level. In 1839, the
Board appointed Professors Rogers, Davis, and Bonnycastle,
as a committee, to report upon the feasibility of
obtaining, by iron pipes, an abundance of water from additional
springs that bubbled up on the University lands.

We have seen that Jefferson's skill in landscape gardening
was as excellent in its refinement as his skill in architecture.
It was due to the surviving inspiration of his
taste, that, after his death, the adornment of the University
precincts with graceful and stately trees was undertaken;

the proctor, as early as 1826, was instructed to
plant numerous specimens of several varieties about the
different buildings; and in July, 1827, an elaborate scheme
was also adopted for laying off a park on soil lying south
and southwest of the Lawn and West Range. The purpose
in view was stated to be to create a broad plat of
pleasure ground where the sauntering professors and students
would be able to obtain the exercise necessary to
their health. The stone-wall already enclosing a section
of this area, was to be repaired; a new fence was to be
raised along the line of the public road which formed the
southern boundary; while the residue of the space was to
be shut in by means of a post-fence. The surface was to
be laid off in walks, and diversified with trees in clumps
and avenues. Provision was made, by an annual appropriation,
for the maintenance of this park. It was directly
for the purpose of ornamenting it, that, in the
following October, Cocke advised the proctor to procure
from Monticello a large number of Lombard poplars
and Otaheite mulberries, the original stock of which
had been brought in by Jefferson.

In 1830, a plan was matured for the laying off of gardens
on the eastern and western sides of the University
grounds; and between these gardens and the Ranges,
rows of shade trees were to be planted. The trees were,
no doubt, planted at once; but it was announced that the
erection of the gardens would depend upon the amount
of funds on hand; and, perhaps, this part of the scheme
proved to be too expensive to be carried out. The small
area of sloping ground lying between the Anatomical
Hall and the Dead House was changed into a lawn, and
planted in rare trees, with a view to its becoming a beautiful
section of the Botanical Garden, which was then again
in contemplation.

The original plan was to light the precincts after dark
with the murky primitive lantern, which had been in use
in American and English towns at night for so long a
period; but Jefferson postponed the adoption of this unsatisfactory
method until he could decide upon the practicability
of employing gas. The constant presence of five
servants was now necessary for the preservation of the
library, lecture-rooms, and grounds even in a moderate
condition of order and cleanliness; and a patrol, too, was
kept up to warn off the straggling negroes who infested
the precincts at night and on Sundays. Hogs and cows,
belonging to the professors and hotel-keepers, were in
the habit of rooting and browsing about in unblocked freedom,
until the damage which they caused became so extensive
that a fence was put up at the foot of the southern
terrace to shut them off, at least from the greensward
of the Lawn; but an indignant petition of the students in
1833 brings out the fact that these criminals frequently
broke through this barrier. Our earliest view of Professor
John B. Minor, who was to be associated with the
institution with so much distinction in the future, was
when he protested to the authorities against the squealing
of the numerous pigs that gathered under his dormitory
window, and thus interrupted the philosophic tranquility
of his studies.

XLIII. Martin Dawson

The year 1835 will always be marked with a white
stone in the history of the University of Virginia as the
date of the first gift of importance[47] which was made to
it by one of that class of noble-minded and public-spirited
benefactors, who were rarer in those times of small fortunes

than they are in our own of stupendous ones.[48] The
fourteenth paragraph in the will of Martin Dawson,—
who died very much lamented in the course of that year,
after a long life of private and public virtue,—was expressed
as follows: "I give my tract of land, called College
Estate, lying within three miles of the University of
Virginia on Biscuit Run, containing upwards of five hundred
acres, to the Rector and Visitors of the University
of Virginia, and their successors in office, for the use of
fuel for the University forever."

In this brief provision, the temper of the man is disclosed
in a broad light, for it unveils, not only his veneration
for learning, and his desire to advance it, but also
that quality of character which was one of his most conspicuous
traits,—his homely modesty. Now, it was
completely within his power to order the sale of his
valuable farm and the conversion of the money accruing
from that sale into an endowment fund, to be designated
by his name, and to be perpetually associated with the
purely intellectual activities of the institution. But he
did not do this. He was aware that the authorities were
irked by the annual inconvenience and expense of buying
its fuel of surrounding landowners. It was a recurring
annoyance, not the less irritating because an obscure one.
There was no real distinction to himself in removing that
annoyance by his will, but it would be practically useful in
him to do so, and that was sufficient to decide him. It
was this unassuming and retiring spirit of beneficence
which made Dawson a true disciple of Abou Ben Adhem.
Indeed, within the narrow compass of his provincial fortune,
he showed that he was as genuine a lover of his fellow-men

as the greatest of the princely philanthropists
of our own age; and perhaps he was more genuine than
most of them, for he must have known that his gift
was necessarily too small to raise up a cloud of incense to
his memory.

He had the good fortune to be born in a great age, the
age of great measures and equally great men. The
American Revolution had vigorously touched every civic
and patriotic chord; it had created a new spirit of democratic
helpfulness and of humanitarian sympathy. The
chief figures of Virginia, Washington, Henry, Jefferson,
Marshall, and Madison, stood for public service,—for
the use of individual virtues, talents and acquirements,
not for purposes of self-advancement, but for the benefit
of the whole community. In 1783, Dawson was only
eleven years old, and he grew up under the influence of
this noble principle, which had been so splendidly illustrated
in the war then recently terminated, and which
continued to live, in another form, long after that epochal
series of military and political events had come to an end.
Across his own doorway, as it were, during his youth and
early manhood, fell the shadow of the last, and from
some points of view, the most inspiring, exemplar of this
unselfish public spirit which had descended from the Revolution,
—Thomas Jefferson. Dawson was born in Nelson
county within a short horse-back ride of Monticello;
the career of the proprietor of that famous mansion had
been known to him from childhood; and after his removal
to Albemarle, he must have been brought into
intercourse with the statesman on many occasions. Although
the association was perhaps only casual, owing
to the difference in age, he may have learned something
from Jefferson in person about schemes of public education.
In a practical, benevolent, and disinterested mind

like Dawson's, those schemes must have aroused a quiet
enthusiasm as the wisest that could be devised for the improvement
of the community; and they undoubtedly left a
controlling impression on his own plans for the disposition
of his modest fortune.

The first view that we obtain of Dawson discloses the
confidence reposed by the University in his integrity and
business competency. From 1822 to 1834, the year
that preceded his death, he was annually called upon to
examine the books of the proctor and the bursar; and in
this responsible labor he had, throughout that time,
neither assistant nor competitor. He was, towards the
end of his term of service, always spoken of as commissioner
of accounts. On at least one occasion, he was employed
in posting ledgers and striking off balances, during
a period of three months. When, in 1834, a discrepancy
of $134.09 was discovered in the University books, and
the cause of the error could not be traced, it was he
who was asked to unravel the perplexing tangle. In
1823, he was appointed, at Jefferson's request, to examine
the accounts; and at other times, he was sent for for the
same task by either Cocke or Cabell, two men fully
capable of correctly judging his trustworthiness and
ability.

Dawson, when barely more than seventeen years of
age, had settled in the little adjoining town of Milton,
which was situated at the foot of the wooded Monticello
slopes, on the banks of the Rivanna, at the shallows that
blocked up the further navigation of the stream northward.
As we have noted in the history of the University's
building, this town formed the nearest port of entry for all
freight carried up to this region by water; and it was
also the port of shipment for a large share of the miscellaneous
loads which the canvas-covered wagons brought

across the Blue Ridge by the numerous gaps that debouched
from the Valley. Grain, tobacco, and flour,
transported by this laborious means to its wharves, were
thence sent down to Richmond by batteaux; and here were
landed the building materials, the hogsheads of bacon,
the sacks of salt, and the like ponderous articles, which
could only be conveyed from the distant lower country
by boat. The business transacted was that of forwarding
agents and commission merchants, and in the course
of it, many very respectable fortunes were slowly piled up.

Dawson was the owner of lots in the town itself, and
of a considerable area of land close to it; and he had
also purchased a fertile farm known as Bel Air, which
lay in the southern part of the county; and to this
tranquil spot he withdrew, near his end, in the possession
of a moderate fortune, every dollar of which had
been earned by the clean-handed strokes of his own untiring
industry. But he had not allowed his mercantile
calling to impoverish his civil services to his own community.
In that quiet way that characterized all his conduct,
he had a useful share in the public affairs of the
county. It is quite possible that, being of a modest and
unobtrusive disposition, he was first drawn into this new
channel by the solicitations of his neighbors, who had the
firmest confidence in the inflexibility of his probity and
the soundness of his judgment. In 1806, he was chosen
a magistrate, and very often filled a seat on the county
court bench, which was made up of judges appointed from
the circle of the county justices. "The magistrates who
compose these courts," said the great Chief-Justice Marshall,
in the Convention of 1829–30, "consist in general
of the best men in their respective counties."

With the exception of the short interval of 1811–15,
Dawson occupied this honorable office from 1806 down

to 1835, a period of twenty-four years altogether,—an
indication of the high esteem in which he continued to be
held until the close of his life. The earliest proof which
we have of his practical interest in public education was
his willingness to serve as a commissioner under the
State law that assigned a definite fund to each county for
the rudimentary instruction of children whose parents
were unable to stand up under the expense of sending
them to a private school. The duties of this office were
obscure yet arduous; but this only made him the more
conscientious in their performance. It was, perhaps, the
insight into the imperative demand for public education
which this office gave, in fortification of his independent
conclusions, that led him to provide by will for three
seminaries of learning to be located in the counties of
Nelson and Albemarle. This testamentary clause was
not upheld by the courts, as it was decided to be too
vague in its terms; but an alternative which he inserted
in the same document, was favorably passed upon, and
the fund reserved for it has, during many years, contributed
to the usefulness of the public schools of the two
counties, the objects of his philanthropy.

The farm which Dawson devised to the University
fell into its possession without dispute. It was at first
rented, and in 1846, the tenant was William Dunkum,
probably the partner in the firm of Farish and Dunkum,
who sold the students annually a large quantity of their
clothing. The income from the land in time began to
wane; two hundred and forty dollars in 1840, it had
dwindled to one hundred and five in 1846; and it continued
to shrink, until, finally, the Board of Visitors concluded
to sell the estate. An act to authorize this was
obtained from the General Assembly in 1858, and the

farm was then disposed of in two shares. The total
amount accruing from the sale was $19,433.50.

A characteristic which Dawson shared with most of
the enlightened men of his day who were interested in
public education, was his sympathy with the policy of
gradually emancipating the slaves,—the failure to carry
out which was to precipitate the terrific calamities of War.
He directed in his will that his bondsmen should be sent
to Liberia; but should the law block this benevolent provision,
they were to be assisted to live in comfort, in
the altered circumstances, which, he knew, would follow
his death.