University of Virginia Library

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.