University of Virginia Library

Bothered Students

One aspect of the changing
university still bothered the
students of the old university.
Many of the traditions of THE
University were dying off. "Why,"
they asked, "are some of the
students becoming socially and
politically active and why don't
they wear the uniforms that we
always wore?" The more intelligent
liberals and conservatives answered
their questions by explaining that
the new students would no longer
follow tradition for tradition's sake
but were now thinking for
themselves. And they said that the
political and social activity of the
new students, whether it be
conservative or liberal, only showed
that the students were finally
thinking about their society and
their environment. "Look," they
said, "don't you see the old, bad
traditions crumbling while the
students still hold aloft the good
traditions of THE University." And
they saw a good future for their
university.

But soon, the intelligent
students at THE University saw
that something was going wrong.
The progress of a few years before
was not continuing. And they
turned to the administrators of
THE University and asked for an
explanation of what had happened.
And the administrators explained
that a school must grow if it was to
keep up with the times and that
more students would have to be
admitted to THE University. The
administrators also said that the
state in which the school was
located had to pay taxes for the
institution and that the taxpayers
wanted to get more benefits from
THE University. Therefore, in-state
students would have to be allowed
to enter even if they did have lower
qualifications than in the past.