University of Virginia Library

XVII. Fees of the Professors

In July, 1865, the Board of Visitors decided that it
would not be advisable to limit the amount of the fees
which the professors were to receive for the discharge of
their respective duties. The maximum figure which had
been allowed before the war, and during its progress, was
not readopted. At this hour, the prospects of the University
were full of obscurity. There was no positive
reason to think that the number of students who would
matriculate in the following September would be sufficient
to create a fund ample enough to meet the current expenses
independently of the salaries. Common prudence
suggested that no fixed burdens should be assumed except
those that could not be avoided. The professors cheerfully
recognized the wisdom of this course, and made no
demur to the return to the system of remuneration which
had been established by Jefferson, and which, as we have
seen, they themselves had so earnestly advocated before
the close of the recent conflict. The Board had gone so
far in August (1865) as to say that a fixed salary was
not only inexpedient in itself, but unsound in principle;
but it was not many months before they had to admit that
they had given expression to this opinion while in a state
of complete misapprehension; and, therefore, as we shall
see, they did not hesitate to repudiate it.

But before this was done, there arose among some of
the professors the same inimical attitude of mind which
had been so conspicuous during the Fourth and Fifth Periods,
1825–1861, and the reappearance of which, after
the readoption of the fee system, could have been safely
predicted. Again was heard the old complaint that
there was a grave inequality in the amount of the respective
fees which were received by the members of the Faculty.
The justice of this statement is plainly demonstrated
by the following figures recorded at the time:

                   

	1865–6	1866–7		1865–6	1866–7
Peters	....	$3.820	McGuffey	$1.169	$1.825
Schele	$1.932	3.160	Holmes	745	1.370
Gildersleeve	2.492	1.905	Southall	....	4.195
Venable	2.569	4.065	Minor	4.528	4.195
Smith	839	2.475
Maupin	1.437	3.020
Howard	767	1.800
Cabell	767	1.800
Davis	792	1.915

A glance at this table discloses the higher profit accruing,
under the working of the fee system, to the professors
of law and mathematics, and also the hardship which it
imposed more especially upon the members of the medical
faculty. Such an individual among them as Cabell, for
instance, could, without presumption, have asked why
should he, who had served the institution longest, and
with a distinction admitted by all to be unsurpassed, be
paid only $767.00, whilst Professor Minor, his junior in
the point of tenure, and not his superior in the point of
reputation, should receive $4.528, six times as much as
himself, and Venable, who had been associated with the
University but one year, $2,569, three times as much.
The exercise of ability, and the expenditure of labor, on
the part of all three, had been precisely the same. If the

corporation of the University was simply a business partnership
between the institution and its teachers,—as several
of the professors with large and lucrative classes had
asserted before the war,—then it would have been improper
for Cabell, and the other members of the Faculty,
whose classes were small, to call for a more equitable
division of the fees. But quite naturally they did not
look upon the connection as an ordinary business partnership;
and still more naturally they refused to acknowledge
their inferiority to colleagues whose classes were swelled,
not so much by their own merits, as by the nature of the
subjects which they taught.

But there was now an additional reason why the former
system of maximum remuneration should be reintroduced.
If the University was to be brought fully abreast with the
increasing scientific demands of the hour,—if, indeed,
it was to continue to hold a position of scholastic equality
with her sister institutions,—then it was imperative
that at least two new professorships should be established
at once. It was characteristic of the noble frankness,
generous impulses, and broad vision of Charles S. Venable,
—who was one of the principal beneficiaries of the
fee system,—that he not only perceived the positive need
of a return to the maximum remuneration, but actually
proposed that this step should be taken without delay.
The emolument from his professorship, during the session
of 1866–7, assured him, independently of a house
exempted from rent, the sum of $5,065. This amount
was only exceeded,—and that by a small margin,—by
the respective incomes of Professors Minor and Southall
from their classes. At a meeting of the Faculty, held
in June, 1867, Venable submitted a resolution which declared
that "the best disposition which could be made by
the Board of Visitors of the fees accruing in the several

schools, would be, after setting aside an equal and ample
salary for each professor, to devote the surplus to the establishment
of additional professorships." The Faculty
reserved their decision for a few days. When the members
reconvened, Professor Minor, who had always, as
we have seen, insisted upon the professor's legal right to
the fees, under the authority of the original enactment,
submitted a second resolution, by the terms of which the
sum of two thousand dollars was to be annually paid for
the support of the projected chairs, during a period of
five years, by the pro rata assessment of the emoluments
accruing in the different schools. The principle for
which he had so persistently and almost fanatically contended,
was thus preserved for the time being by a wise
compromise on his part.

But even if this offer,—which, as we shall find, only
staved off temporarily the abolition of the fee system,—
should be acceptable to the Board, the Faculty foresaw
that it would still be necessary to raise an additional sum.
In the same report in which they consented to make the
contribution of two thousand dollars, they recommended
that the charges for board, rent, matriculation, and diplomas
should be materially increased. The purpose of
this proposal was to swell the amount rendered available
by the action of the Faculty for launching the new chairs
of applied science. The Board, however, wisely recognized
that the adoption of this advice would tend to injure
the prosperity of the institution by diminishing the
number of students, and for that reason, they were not
disposed to accept it. They were rather of the opinion
that the money needed should be obtained, as formerly, by
the appropriation of the surplus fees of the different
schools; and they, therefore, instructed the proctor to
report to them the amount in that form which each professor

was receiving from the enrolment of his chair.

But it was not until June, 1870, that the Board arrived
at a definite conclusion. In a resolution adopted
at that time, they declared that "the abolition of a
maximum income for the professors by resolution in
1865 had been made under a total misapprehension of
the state of affairs at the University"; and they announced
their intention of restoring the method of remuneration
which had prevailed during the normal years
anterior to the war. Beginning with the session of
1870–1, no member of the Faculty was to receive a larger
sum than three thousand dollars; but this amount, it
seems, was not to be guaranteed to the one whose fees
fell short of it. Should the fees, in any case, run ahead
of that figure, then the surplus was to be reserved for the
use of the University. Under this provision, the pro
rata assessment for the support of the new scientific professorships
was to be cancelled.

The Board soon perceived that this rather illiberal
arrangement was calculated to duplicate the injustice of
the fee system. In June, 1871, they decided to adopt a
rule that would bring about the equalization of the professors'
salaries, whether their fees fell below, or rose
above, the maximum figure. If the remuneration of anyone
turned out to be less than the maximum, because his
fees were insufficient to swell it to that figure, then he
was to be allowed one hundred dollars for every fifteen
students enrolled in his class who had been admitted
without any charge for tuition. If the number of students
who did not pay exceeded twenty, then he was to
receive one hundred and fifty dollars. In no instance,
however, was the salary of a professor to run beyond
three thousand.

The year 1873 was rendered a memorable one by a

disastrous panic in the money market, and the financial
condition of the University was seriously crippled by the
general depression which followed. When the Board
convened in June, its members were convinced that some
plan for readjusting the salaries, while the stringency
lasted, must be adopted. The rule now put in force fixed
the certain remuneration of eight of the professors at one
thousand dollars; of the professor of mathematics at four
hundred and fifty; of applied mathematics at eight hundred;
of natural philosophy at nine hundred; of chemistry
and pharmacy at five hundred and fifty; of international
and constitutional law at one hundred; and of common
and statute law at one hundred also.

How were these sums to be supplemented? In the
following manner. Each professor was to receive the
fees accruing to his chair subject to the provision that,
should the total amount of the fixed salary and the fees
fall below two thousand dollars, then he was to be paid,
out of the fund reserved for the tuition of the State students,
such a sum as would swell his remuneration to that
definite figure. This rule remained in force until June,
1876. At that time, the Board adopted the following
new provision: all the receipts of the University from
matriculation, rents, and the like, together with all the
tuition fees obtained from the several schools,—with
the exception of the professorships of law, and the chair
of analytical chemistry,—were to be thrown into one
fund, and from this fund was to be drawn: first, the sum
necessary to cover all the general expenses of the institution,
including the salaries which were allowed the administrative
officers; and secondly, the sum that would be
required to make up the maximum of two thousand dollars
for each professor in the medical and academic departments.

If any surplus should remain of the original
fund, after these two general payments, that surplus was
to be distributed equally among the incumbents of the
chairs in these two departments. They numbered thirteen
in all. Finally, the professors in the department of
law were to receive each a fixed salary of one hundred
dollars, and in addition, were to be permitted to divide
all the fees accruing from tuition in the two sections of
that department. Under the provisions of this plan, Professor
Minor and Professor Southall were remunerated
in harmony with the original regulation, to which the
former had clung so tenaciously, while their colleagues in
the other schools of the University were rewarded for
their services under the rule of the maximum salary.
This arrangement had been suggested by the Faculty, and
the unfairness of it was probably tolerated by the members
as a body only in order to secure concord in their
recommendation on the subject to the Board.

But the Visitors must have balked somewhat at the
absence of unity and equality in this plan so far as the
department of law was affected by it, for they decided to
adopt it only as a temporary expedient. It was not a
flourishing period, since the depressing influences of the
financial earthquake of 1873 had not yet passed over.
The Board, solicitous to bring some ease to the professors
with the fixed salaries, were compelled to appropriate
for their benefit the interest coming in from a
part of the University endowment. Notwithstanding
the aid thus granted, the Faculty, at one of these meetings,
discussed the question whether or not each of their
number should be authorized to receive eight boarders
at his table in order to eke out the poverty of his income.
But no decisive vote in favor of this proposal was

reached, doubtless because there was an apprehension that
the withdrawal of so many young men from the hotels
would result in closing their doors.

By June, 1877, the Board had come to the definite
conclusion that it was an injustice to the other members
of the Faculty to permit the instructors in the School of
Law to continue to appropriate to their own use all the
fees accruing in their two departments. "Many considerations,"
they remarked very pertinently, "other than
the reputation of the teacher, and also beyond his control,
aid in determining the popularity of a chair."
"And to teach a large chair," they added, "is little more
laborious than to teach a small one." It seems that
the General Assembly had, during the winter of 1875–6,
conferred on the Board the power to equalize the salaries
of all the professors,—a step that had become necessary,
in consequence of the act passed at the same term, which
provided that every academic student from Virginia
should be educated at the University without any charge
for tuition. It was under the authority of these laws that
the Board decided to adopt the rule that the fees from
all the schools, academic and professional alike, should
be thrown into a common fund for the payment of the
professors' salaries in equal proportion. In every instance
in which the fees of a single school would exceed
three thousand dollars, the surplus above that figure
should be expended in repairs and improvements. The
sum of three thousand dollars itself was to be the permanent
limit of remuneration in the case of each instructor.

In June, 1889, more than a decade later, the Board determined
to put a different rule in force, and this was to
apply to all the incumbents of all the academic and professional
chairs, with the exception of those which possessed

an endowment of their own. Under the terms of
the new ordinance, each professor was to receive,—besides
a house free of rent, or a commutation of three hundred
dollars,—the sum of two thousand dollars and all
the fees of his school, provided that the two united should
not be more than three thousand dollars. To this rule,
there might arise an exception of importance: if the number
of students in the University should run beyond four
hundred and thirty, and the fees thus acquired by any professor
should, with his fixed salary, make up more than
three thousand dollars, then he was to be allowed fifty
dollars,—in addition to the sum of three thousand,—
for every ten students above the four hundred and thirty
who had matriculated. The adjunct professors in the
Schools of Modern Languages and Historical Science,
whose fixed salary was fifteen hundred dollars, were to
receive two thousand dollars, should the number of students
in the first school be more than ninety, and in the
second, more than thirty-six; and they too were to be entitled
to fifty dollars additional for every ten students in
the University beyond the basic number of four hundred
and thirty. As no fees were any longer paid by the students
from Virginia in the Schools of Latin, Greek, Mathematics,
Modern Languages, Moral Philosophy, Natural
Philosophy, General and Industrial Chemistry (outside
the laboratory), Historical Science, and English Literature
and Language, the salaries of the incumbents of
these chairs were to be drawn out of the general treasury
of the University.

This new scheme of rewarding their services aroused
discontent among the members of the Faculty, and the
majority petitioned the Board, in anticipation of the
annual meeting of that body in June, 1890, to restore the
rule which had been suspended; namely, that the fees of

every school should be combined with the view of equalizing
the salaries of all the instructors within the limit of
three thousand dollars, while the surplus remaining after
such a payment, should be used in repairs and improvements.
"Not only has this rule," they said, "been accepted
as satisfactory, but it has not caused, as some
feared it would do, a relaxation of effort on the part of
the professors in the discharge of their duties."
"Never," they added, "has better work been done in the
University by student and professor. Each professor,
relieved of all anxiety about his emolument, is able to
devote his whole power and thought to his own progress
and that of his class. He has also been able to give advice
to students seeking it in regard to their studies, not
only without actual bias, but with a candor hardly allowed
to one who has a pecuniary interest in the decision."
"As to the Board's scheme," they continued, "the number
of students in a school is no trustworthy measure
either of the amount of labor of the professor or the
value of the labor. Some subjects will necessarily have
limited attendance, and yet they must be provided for,
and that not by cheap professors. Under the proposed
scheme, the professor of analytical chemistry would get
only $2,330, and of engineering, $2,150, though either
chair requires ability of a high order. The endowed
chairs, (with their fixed salary of three thousand dollars),
would erect a privileged set of teachers in painful
contrast as to compensation with other professors whose
classes are small. This does not exist under the rule
now prevailing."

This petition, so just in its statements, and so reasonable
in its spirit, seems to have been successful, for, in
1895, the system of allowing a fixed salary of three thousand
dollars to each professor was still in force.