University of Virginia Library

MATRICULATION.

To be admitted as a student of the University, the applicant must
be at least sixteen years of age; but the Faculty may dispense with
this requirement in favor of one who has a brother of the requisite
age entering at the same time.

If the applicant for admission has been a student at any other incorporated
seminary, he must produce a certificate from such seminary,
or other satisfactory evidence of general good conduct.

In this institution there is no curriculum or prescribed course of
study, to be pursued by every student, whatever his previous preparation
or special objects. In establishing the University of Virginia.
Mr. Jefferson, for the first time in America, threw open the doors of
a University in the true sense of the name, providing, as amply as the
available means would permit, for thorough instruction in independent
schools in all the chief branches of learning, assuming that the
opportunities for study thus presented were privileges to be voluntarily
and eagerly sought, and allowing students to select for themselves
the departments to which they were led by their special tastes and
proposed pursuits in life to devote themselves.

The wisdom of this plan has been amply vindicated by time and
experience, and within the last few years many of the institutions of
higher culture in the United States have to a greater or less extent
remodelled their method of study in accordance with the example
here set. This elective system commends itself especially to those
who desire to make professional attainments in any department of
knowledge. At the same time the courses of academic study are so
arranged as to provide for the systematic prosecution of a complete
plan of general education.

While every student may thus select the schools he will attend, in
the academic department he is required as a rule to attend at least
three, unless upon the written request of his parent or guardian, or
for good cause shown, the Faculty shall allow him to attend less than
three.

The session commences on the first of October, and continues,
without interruption, until the Thursday before the fourth day of
July.

The mode of instruction is by lectures and text-books accompanied
by daily examinations.