VII. Election of President
However regrettable may have been the publicity
which had been aroused by the incident we have just
related, it is indisputable that it had the beneficial result
of directing a closer scrutiny to the practical advantages
of establishing the office of President. "It stirred
things up," remarked the editors of the College Topics,
"set the Board and alumni to thinking, and made them
see plainly our great need of an executive head,—a
real one and a fit one,—and made them immediately
active in what otherwise might have been postponed
indefinitely."
The Faculty itself perceived more clearly than ever
that the welfare of the University would be promoted
by an alteration in the general character of the administration;
but they still very stoutly denied that this
change was called for by the presumption that the institution
was drying up in its financial resources. "Why
was a President needed?" asked Professor James M.
Page. "Not because of some alarming decadent or
atrophied condition which had disclosed itself in the
University in late years. On the contrary, the opinion
of the Faculty, and, I suppose, to some extent, that of
the Visitors,—that this University needs a President,
—was based, in large measure, upon the fact that the
administrative affairs of the institution have grown both
in scope and complexity within the last decade and a
half. The form of government practicable when the
constitution was younger, had proved too cumbersome
to meet the altered conditions. The University has not
been the victim of arrested development, for, as a
matter of fact, the number of students matriculated
has more than doubled within the last fifteen years.
Financial conditions have been improving and are better
today than ever before."
After the failure of the Board of Visitors in June,
1903, to elect Colonel Miles to the newly authorized
office of President, that body deferred action for
another twelve months. In the meanwhile, several
persons of high qualifications for the post were considered,
—among whom were Bishop Collins Denny,
Professor W. M. Lile, Professor James M. Page, John
H. McBryde, and Charles W. Dabney. Sixteen of
the twenty-five members of the Faculty attached their
signatures to a paper advocating the election of Professor
Francis P. Venable, of the University of North
Carolina. But on June 14, 1904, the Board, by a
unanimous vote chose as the first President of the
University of Virginia, Edwin Anderson Alderman, at
that time President of Tulane University, in New
Orleans. He accepted, and in September, began to discharge
the duties of his new office. There had preceded
him seventeen incumbents of the chairmanship of the
Faculty, with an average length of service of five years.
