University of Virginia Library

XVIII. The College Department

Having been enrolled in the roster of matriculates,
the academic student undertook either an undergraduate
course or a graduate course. Previous to the establishment
of the presidency, there existed what was known
as the academic department, divided into the college
or undergraduate section and the University or graduate
section. At that time, the schools embraced in this department
comprised the schools of ancient and modern
languages, literature, history, philosophy, and the
sciences. Each of them offered at least one undergraduate
course, which had to be traversed by every candidate
for the degree of bachelor of arts who had chosen
an elective in that school. This undergraduate course
was followed by a graduate course. Completion of
the two entitled the successful student to the diploma
of graduation.

During the existence of this system, the income of
the University was too small to justify the employment
of one professor for the undergraduate course and another
for the graduate, in each school. It was the universal
impression among scholars that the qualities required
of an instructor in the one course were different
from the qualities required of the instructor in the other,
for, in the one, he was called upon to be simply a teacher
of facts, and in the other, to be an independent investigator.
The proper scope of the undergraduate course
had already become a subject of general discussion. It
was the belief of many educators that much of this
work, in its primary stages, could be more successfully
prosecuted in a small college than in a university; and
in some of the institutions of the North, the suggestion
had already been advanced that the freshman and sophomore
years should be abolished.

Among the important steps taken at the instance of
President Alderman, during the first years of his administration,
was the formal division of the old academic
department into the college department and the graduate
department; the former senior classes were incorporated
in the graduate department; the former junior and
intermediate classes in the college department. This
division was correctly pronounced by him to be "a clear
and scientific definition and development of the college
and graduate school, and a necessary unity in the structure
of the University."

In 1908, it became necessary to reorganize the college
department, in harmony with the requirements of the
National Association of State Universities; but it was
not until the session of 1912–13 that the change was
fully completed. The position which that association
had taken was as follows: "The standard American
university, hereafter, shall, for an indefinite time, include,
as an important part of its organization, a standard
American college. This college shall offer a four-year
course, and it shall be so arranged that its first two
sessions shall be deemed to be a continuation and a supplement
of the secondary instruction given in the high
school, while its second two sessions shall keep in view
an advanced or university instruction, rising methodically
to the level of the work of the graduate school." Already,
in some of the great universities of the North,
there was to be observed a cleavage of the college into
the junior and senior college, in accord with the general
principle thus enunciated.

In June, 1910, a very able report of the committee
on rules and studies recommended that there should
be no alteration in the college courses of the University
of Virginia assigned to the first year; but that the

courses assigned to the last three years should be modified.
It is unnecessary to enter here into the full technical
details of the proposed changes. It is sufficient
to say that the plan of four or five courses each session
was substituted for the plan of three studies then in
vogue; that, from this time forward, each student in
the college department was required to accomplish a
minimum of fifteen hours of class attendance a week;
and that two hours in the laboratory were to be counted
as one hour of lecture. It is to be remembered that all
these important changes applied only to the college department.
It was the work of the old senior classes,
represented now by the graduate department, that had
given the University of Virginia its high reputation for
scholarship; and these were not to be affected by the
reorganization.

The advantages of reorganization may be summarized
in a few paragraphs.

From the time when the old junior and intermediate
classes were first established in each school, they were
taught by the professor who had charge of the senior
class; and he pursued the same method of instruction in
all his classes, whether junior, intermediate, or senior.
It followed that the University spirit was infused into
even the undergraduate courses from the very start;
and so continued until the new principle of sharp division
in spirit as well as in scope between courses was
brought into play. It was expected that, under the
operation of this principle, an ever increasing number
of the graduates of the high schools would be successful
in the pursuit of the undergraduate studies, for this had
been the experience of every State university which had
adopted it. "As the college of the University of Virginia
is now organized," said Dean Page, before the

change was made, "only the elect can triumph. Even
with our present enrolment of first-year students, there
ought to be one hundred successful candidates, each
session, for the baccalaureate degree, instead of only
twenty-five. The baccalaureate degree elsewhere stands
for liberal education, and not as an evidence that the
holder is a specialist in at least seven branches of learning.
Moreover, a crying need of our public school
system is that these schools shall be manned, at least
to a reasonable extent, with the graduates of the college
of the State University, but where only the elect can
graduate, their ambitions soar far above the position of
a teacher in a public school."

In spite of the difficulty of winning the baccalaureate
degree at the University of Virginia before the reorganization
actually took place, its possession only enabled
the recipient to obtain in the Northern and Eastern
institutions of learning a small fraction of the advanced
standing which he could rightly claim. Indeed, unless
the degree itself had been acquired, the New York
Board of Education positively refused to give any credit
at all for work done in the course. These Northern
educators declined to admit that the nine-hours-a-week
plan of the University of Virginia was as beneficial to
the student as their fifteen-hours-a-week plan; and there
was danger that the Association of State Universities
would refuse to accept that institution as a standard
American university, should it fail to meet their requirements.

Again, with the college reorganized, the existing awkwardness
of adjusting the advanced standing of candidates
from other seats of learning would be simplified,
and the migration of students from university to university
would be encouraged,—a condition which was to

prove distinctly advantageous to the University of Virginia.
Furthermore, reorganization would strengthen
the department of graduate studies. As the college
courses were formerly arranged, the student who was in
his fourth year need not be more advanced than the student
who was in his second year. He could win his
degree without having got even a foretaste of the higher
work of the graduate department. This could not occur
under the requirements for the college course laid down
in the scheme of reorganization. Another drawback of
the old nine-hours arrangement was that the student,
having but one lecture a day on three days of the week,
and two lectures on the alternate days, was inclined to
undertake additional tasks, which were certain to overburden
and overcrowd him. This disposition was most
conspicuous in the young men who had graduated in the
secondary school, where the rule of twenty or more
periods a week in the class-room prevailed.

The disadvantage of reorganization was confined to
the fact that the University of Virginia thereby abandoned
the unique position in the general province of
educational theory which it had held from the beginning.
An impression arose that, in adopting the standard
principle, the institution lowered its old tests of scholarship.
Apparently, this was incorrect, for the principle
was limited in its operation to the college courses, which
corresponded to the earlier junior and intermediate
classes. The graduate department, representing the
old senior classes,—which alone had given the University
its great reputation,—remained unmodified.

The recommendations of the academic faculty, as incorporated
in the report of the committee on rules and
courses, were adopted by the Board of Visitors, who, in
doing so, pointed out that, under the proposed plan, the

student would obtain twice as much instruction as under
the then existing plan; and would also have the various
stages of that instruction more precisely and logically
graded from start to finish. The Board thus epitomized
the practical results to be brought about by reorganization:
(1) the adjustment of the courses and methods of
the college department more strictly to the work of the
secondary schools, on the one hand, and to the work of
the graduate and professional departments of the University
itself, on the other; (2) the bestowal on all candidates
for the degree of bachelor of arts and bachelor of
science of the same amount of personal teaching in languages,
literature, history, philosophy, and mathematics.
as had always been given such candidates in the schools
of natural sciences in the University of Virginia, and on
all subjects in other American seats of learning of equally
high standing.

Five years after the reorganization of the college
department was completed, the particulars in which that
department most clearly demonstrated the substantial
progress which it had made can be enumerated as
follows: (1) the entrance requirements had been
advanced to fifteen units; (2) a course in physical training
had been established, which increased the number of
session-hours needed to win the baccalaureate degree;
(3) one graduate study, to which certain undergraduates
were admitted, was counted at three hours instead of at
six, as formerly; (4) the minimum grade to which the
student in the undergraduate department must attain
during his first term, in order to ensure his remaining,
had been materially raised; (5) additions to the teaching
staff of that department had allowed of more instruction
by men of professorial rank than was given by men of
that rank in most of the standard institutions.

One of the important features of the undergraduate
department was the provision which assigned each new
student to an official adviser. It was, however, optional
with the matriculate whether or not he should take
advantage of this arrangement. It was the duty of the
dean of the college, in 1908, to prepare, before the
session opened, a list of full professors and adjunct professors
who had expressed a willingness to serve in this
capacity. Ten students were tallied off to each adviser,
who must always be one of their teachers in the classroom.
If any member of this group, or the entire
number, became dissatisfied with an adviser by the end of
the first term of the session, it was permissible for him
or them to turn to a substitute who was likely to be more
popular in his counsel. Before the rule allowing the
employment of an adviser went into effect, there had
been an attempt to curb the right enjoyed by the first-year
student to make an unfettered choice of schools.
The committee of the Faculty which had charge of rules
and courses in 1906–07 recommended that such a student
should be required to confine his attention to a small
number of fundamental cultural subjects. "A free
elective system," said the dean of the college, Professor
Page, "is detrimental in the college course;" and he
was authorized to use the veto in every case of an
obviously unsuitable selection. It was, perhaps, to
afford him relief from this exacting duty that the plan
of naming advisers was adopted.