University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XX

THE GENERAL LIBRARY.

Mr. Jefferson made early and liberal provision
for a library as an important part of the University.
It was to occupy the noblest room in the most imposing
edifice among his buildings, and he saw to
it that the selections for its shelves were made on a
plan carefully thought out. When Gilmer went
abroad to engage professors he had at command a
liberal sum to be expended for the proposed collection,
and the pressure of other needs for money was
never strong enough to give the library a secondary
place in Mr. Jefferson's plans.

It may be doubted whether any University or
other library in this country was planned with so
wise an understanding of its purposes as Mr. Jefferson's
catalogue, made in 1825, displays. Its
opening pages are an essay on classification, but its
authority has not controlled the librarians of the
University. It was too elaborate for a small beginning,
and the arrangement exhibited in the catalogue
printed in 1828 was very different and for a
small library far more serviceable as a working
plan. There were twenty-nine chapters, each representing
a group of books, thus: 1. Ancient languages;
2. Modern history; 3. Modern geography;

4. Modern philology and literature; 5.
Mathematics and natural philosophy; 6-9. Natural
history, agriculture, botany, zoology; 10.
Mineralogy and geology; 11. Chemistry; 12-22.
Medical topics; 23. Mental philosophy and
ethics; 24. Political economy; 25. Politics; 26.
Law; 27. Religion and ecclesiastical history; 28.
Architecture, etc.; 29. Poetry, rhetoric, education,
etc.

This classification was followed for seventy-five
years. Modern methods have since been introduced.

Mr. Jefferson's catalogue is of rare interest to
bibliothecaires. The general title of the manuscript
volume is "A Catalogue forming the Body of a
Library for the University of Virginia, to be afterwards
enlarged by annual additions: An explanations
of the views on which this catalogue has
been prepared." And these are the views—

"1. Great standard works of established reputation,
too voluminous and too expensive for private
libraries, should have a place in every public library,
for the free resort of individuals.

"2. Not merely the best books in their respective
branches of science should be selected, but such
also as were deemed good in their day, and which
consequently furnish a history of the advance of the
science.

"3. The opera omnia of writers on various subjects
are sometimes placed in that chapter of this
catalogue to which their principal work belongs, and
sometimes referred to the Polygraphical chapter.

"4. In some cases, besides the opera omnia, a detached
tract has been also placed in its proper chapter,
on account of editorial or other merit.

"5. Books in very rare languages are considered
here as specimens of language only, and are placed
in the chapter of Philology, without regard to their
subject.

"6. Of the classical authors, several editions are
often set down on account of some peculiar merit
in each.

"7. Translations are occasionally noted, on account
of their peculiar merit or of difficulties of
their originals.

"8. Indifferent books are sometimes inserted, because
none good are known on the same subject.

"9. Nothing of mere amusement should lumber
a public library.

"10. The 8vo form is generally preferred, for
the convenience with which it is handled, and the
compactness and symmetry of arrangement on the
shelves of the library.

"11. Some chapters are defective for the want of
a more familiar knowledge of their subject in the
compiler, others from schisms in the science they
relate to. In Medicine, e. g., the changes of theory
which have successively prevailed, from the age of
Hippocrates to the present day, have produced distinct
schools, acting on different hypotheses and
headed by respected names, such as Stahl, Boerhaave,
Sydenham, Hoffman, Cullen, and our own
good Dr. Rush, whose depletive and mercurial systems
have formed a school, or perhaps revived that
which arose on Harvey's discovery of the circulation
of the blood. In Religion, divided as it is into
multifarious creeds, differing in their bases, and
more or less in their superstructure, such moral
works have been chiefly selected as may be approved
by all, omitting what is controversial and merely

sectarian. Metaphysics have been incorporated
with Ethics, and little extension given to them. For,
while some attention may be usefully bestowed on
the operations of thought, prolonged investigations
of a faculty unamenable to the test of our senses, is
an expense of time too unprofitable to be worthy
of indulgence. Geology, too, has been merged in
Mineralogy, which may properly embrace what is
useful in this science, that is to say, a knowledge
of the general stratification, collocation and sequence
of the different species of rocks and other
mineral substances, while it takes no cognisance of
theories for the self-generation of the universe, or
the particular revolutions of our own globe by the
agency of water, fire, or other agent, subordinate to
the fiat of the Creator."

Books are addressed to the three faculties of

                                           

MEMORY.				REASON.				IMAGINATION.
To these belong respectively
HISTORY.				PHILOSOPHY.				FINE ARTS.
Civil.		Physical.		Mathematical.		Moral.
1	Ancient.	6	Physics, pure and mixed.	17	Arithmetic.	19	Ethics.	29	Architecture.
2	Modern, Foreign.			18	Geometry.	20	Religion.	30	Gardening.
3	Modern, British.	7	Agriculture.			21	Law—Nature and Nations.		Painting.
4	Modern, American.	8	Chemistry.						Sculpture.
5	Modern, Ecclesiastical.	9	Anatomy.			22	Law—Nature of Equity.		Music.
			Surgery.			23	Law—Nature Common.	31	Poetry, Epic.
		10	Medicine.			24	Law—Nature Merchant.	32	Poetry, Romance.
		11	Zoology.			25	Law—Nature Maritime.	33	Poetry, Pastoral.
		12	Botany.			26	Law—Nature Ecclesiastical.	34	Poetry, Didactic.
		13	Mineralogy.			27	Law—Nature Foreign.	35	Poetry, Tragedy.
		14	Technics.			28	Politics.	36	Poetry, Comedy.
		15	Astronomy.					37	Poetry, Dialogue and
		16	Geography.						Epistolary.
								38	Rhetoric.
								39	Criticism, Theory.
								40	Criticism, Bibliography.
								41	Criticism, Philology.
42 Polygraphical.

In this tabulation the numbers indicate the
division into chapters, of which there are forty-two,
representing as many groupings of the books. The
6,860 volumes named in the catalogue were estimated
to cost $24,076.50 (more than $3.50 each),
and the most of them were probably purchased.
The proctor's report a year later (September 30,
1826), proves the payment of $35,947.38 on "account
of library and apparatus." The apparatus,
doubtless, was for the schools of chemistry and
natural philosophy.

The books were first shelved in a room in
Pavilion VII, the fourth from the Rotunda on West
Lawn, and remained there until after Mr. Jefferson's
death. The handsome hall in the Rotunda
was nearly finished by October, 1826, and by the
7th of that month the books were put into it.

The larger part of Mr. Jefferson's library was
sold to Congress for $23,950, much less than it had
cost. The remainder he devised to the University
and expressed a wish that his bust by Caracchi with
its pedestal and truncated column should go with it.
His executor, his grandson, Col. Thomas Jefferson
Randolph, addressed to the Visitors this explanation:

"It has been my most earnest desire to comply
with all his wishes, and particularly with this; but
the deeply embarrassed state in which his affairs
were left renders it extremely doubtful whether his
property will be sufficient to meet claims upon it
of a higher dignity. Under these circumstances,
my duty as executor compels me to withhold the
payment of legacies until the debts are discharged.

"The breaking up his establishment, the sale of
his effects and the dispersion of his family will leave

the library exposed to injury. I must, therefore,
ask to be allowed to deposit it at the University, in
charge of your librarian, subject to my future order,
should it become necessary to expose it to sale for
the discharge of claims of a superior nature. The
bust, not being mentioned in the will, but being the
subject of an informal direction to his executor,
cannot be deemed a specific legacy; and, deeply
mortifying as it is, he is compelled to offer it for
sale with the residue of his property in discharge of
claims upon it.

"Feelings of the most affectionate devotion to my
grandfather's memory would induce me, as his executor,
to fulfil his wishes upon these points at all
risks but that of injustice to his creditors and the
fear that his memory might be stained with the
reproach of a failure to comply with any of his engagements.
An assurance is, therefore, given that
when his debts are discharged, however much his
family may be straitened in their circumstances, no
considerations of pecuniary interest or of their individual
distress will bar immediate compliance."

The story of how Colonel Randolph assumed all
debts not discharged by the sale of the estate, and
paid them to the last dollar, is well known and need
not be repeated. Unhappily, the books and the bust
were lost to the University, and the only volumes
of his that reached the library were given in his
lifetime, with the single exception of D. Justiniani,
Sacratissimi Principis, Institutionum, sive Elementorum,
an Elzevir dated 1679, with the autograph
of "Richd Baldwin, E Coll. D. Jo. Bap. 1687."
The books he personally transferred were volume
2, new series, of the American Philosophical
Transactions, Josse's Spanish Grammar, which was

soon lost, Sale's Spanish Hive, and Charles Kelsall's
Phantasm of an University.

Previous to the civil war the Board of Visitors
made liberal provision each year, but since 1860 the
annual income available for the purchase of books
has been wholly inadequate, and if it had not been
for the liberality of friends of the institution the
library would be sadly deficient.

The first gift was from Mr. Bernard Carter in
1826. It consisted of a small but relatively valuable
collection of books. Mr. Christian Bohn, of
Richmond, a brother of the London publisher, bequeathed
books valued at about $500. They were
largely German periodicals and became available
in 1840.

Mr. Madison bequeathed his library to the University,
but long years elapsed before it was transferred
from Montpelier, and in the interim many of
the books were lost or otherwise rendered unavailable.
In the end some two thousand volumes were
placed on the shelves of the library.

Mr. Madison also gave $1,500, which, merged
with the gift of Mr. Douglas H. Gordon, of Baltimore
(1883), constitutes the Madison and Gordon
fund, the only source of income from a permanent
endowment fund available for the general purposes
of the library.

In the twenty years beginning with 1865 the
most considerable gift to the library was by Arthur
W. Austin, of Dedham, Massachusetts, whose
books, amounting to 5,000 volumes, especially valuable
for works on Southern literature, were willed
to the University and became available in 1884.
Other gifts in this period were $5,000 from the generous
friend of the University, W. W. Corcoran of

Washington; $1,000 from Mr. A. A. Low of
Brooklyn, New York; $500 from Mr. Robert H.
Gordon, a Scotch gentleman residing in New York
city, who had greatly enjoyed a visit to the University,
and some other smaller donations. Between
1885 and 1895 there were many gifts of books.

The great fire in the fall of the latter year reduced
the library from 56,733 volumes to 17,194, of
which 5,000 were law books. The books that were
saved were all on the first floor. In the upper gallery
were those of the Bohn collection, the Madison
gift and the Austin bequest, and others acquired
from various sources. All were lost except three
or four Austin books which were probably out of
the library at the time of the fire. In the middle
gallery were the medical books, the Madison pamphlets,
the files of literary reviews, and scientific
publications, including the Monumenta Germanica,
a collection of considerable value—all lost, except
some of the pamphlets.

While the library probably contains more books
now than before the fire, the loss has been repaired
only in part. A pressing need is an endowment of
at least $50,000, with no restraining conditions as
to the expenditure of the income beyond the provision
that it shall not be diverted. With such an
income at command the symmetry of the collection
could in some years be much improved by the
filling-in of unfortunate gaps inevitable in a library
constituted in large measure of private ones of
great individual worth but not strictly complementary
of each other nor forming a whole as
catholic as the bibliothecal needs of a university.

Immediately after the fire the work of rehabilitation
was begun. At about that time the classical

library of the learned Dr. Martin Hertz, of the University
of Breslau, collected during his active
career as student, docent and lecturer covering some
sixty years, was in reach—a fact known to Dr.
Thomas R. Price, then a professor at Columbia
University in New York, but formerly student and
professor in the University of Virginia. Dr.
Price leading, the New York Alumni acquired the
collection of books and pamphlets, some 12,000
valuable volumes, and forwarded it to the University.[1]

Former Governor Frederick W. M. Holliday of
Winchester, by will, left his fine library to the University.
It consisted of nearly five thousand
volumes, covering the field of general literature,
geography, and travel in a manner far more satisfactory
than usual in private libraries of like size.
The books reached the University in 1899, and
occupy specially prepared cases in the first gallery.

In the same year the valuable library of Professor
George Frederick Holmes was acquired by purchase.
It is rich in classical literature, and nearly every
volume of the 3,000 has been made more than intrinsically
valuable by annotation at the hands of
the great scholar. Nothing seemed to be beyond the
range of his scholarship or the powers of his intellect.

A short time after the death of Professor Thomas
Randolph Price steps were taken by friends of the
University to acquire that scholar's very valuable
private library, but his widow and daughter put an

end to it at once by offering the books to the University
as a gift. This collection makes very desirable
additions to the library's resources in works
on philology, belles lettres, and biography.

The Shipp library, chiefly books on travel and the
early history of America, reached the University in
December, 1903. They were 5,000 in number, and
were the gift of the recluse scholar and author,
Barnard Shipp, who died in 1904 at an advanced
age. Mr. Shipp was a native of Mississippi, and
there he died, but he had spent many years of his
life in Louisville, where his library was collected.

From scores of sources small collections have
reached the University since the fire. Mr. Ballard
Bruce's books were given by his daughter, Dr.
Bruner's modern language library was purchased,
Dr. James Bolton's medical collection came to the
University through his son, Major Channing M.
Bolton, while every year a large number of volumes,
valuable for their contents and valuable by reason
of their excellent manufacture, reach the library
from the Rev. Hazlett McKim, a native of Maryland
resident in New York.

Immediately after the destruction of the library
books were tendered the University in generous
numbers by the leading publishers of this country
and by several American universities and colleges,
and by Oxford and Cambridge in England. The
promptness of this giving made the benefactions
of double value.

Mrs. Margaret Paul, widow of D'Arcy Paul of
Baltimore, has contributed $1,000 which has been
used as a nucleus of a fund to provide periodicals
in the field of modern languages, while the estate of
Alfred H. Byrd, who died in 1899, amounting to

$10,000, was given to the University to establish
a fund for the purchase of Virginiana. A very
valuable collection is being gradually assembled—
the most recent acquisition being the Virginiana attached
to the estate of the late Joseph A. Johnston
of Richmond, Virginia.

Two handsome cabinets of dark wood, valuable
in themselves and for their contents, were given by
Dr. and Mrs. James A. Harrison; one contains an
autographed collection of books by Southern
authors, and the other a number of editions of Poe's
works and Poe literature. A third cabinet, also of
rich wood and fine workmanship, is the gift of Mr.
John L. Williams of Richmond. It is filled with
works of his selection—all of them standard, and
from the best editions.

Besides its books the University has placed other
of its treasures in the Rotunda. In 1854 the legislature
of Virginia appropriated $10,000, and later
added $500, for a life-size figure of Jefferson in
marble. Alexander Galt, a young sculptor of Norfolk,
Virginia, was engaged, and the figure and
pedestal reached the University at the beginning
of the civil war, but was not unveiled until June,
1868, when the Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby made
the address. Mr. Galt had died in the mean time.
The statue occupies a commanding position in the
library. Near it is the bust of Poe, in bronze,
by George Julian Zolnay, the Hungarian sculptor.
It is an idealized likeness of the poet,
the features expressing strikingly the gloom of
the sensitive soul of the author of the Raven.
Few visitors leave the University without seeing
this memorial of its chief poet. The bust was
provided by the Poe Memorial Association, which

was composed of students and several professors,
and was unveiled on the 7th of October, 1899, the
fiftieth anniversary of Poe's death.[2] There are four
other busts, among them a marble one of Professor
Minor, by Valentine, and one of Lafayette in Sevres
China, by Houdon, a gift of the French Republic in
recognition of the courtesies extended to Ambassador
J. J. Jusserand in 1904. Among the portraits,
probably the most interesting is a small oil of
Frances Walker Gilmer, the first law professor.
His pale face and lusterless eyes tell the story of
failing health as eloquently as the solicitous letters
of William Wirt have done. Mrs. Lucy A. Minor
willed the portrait to the University, and it was
transferred to its care upon her death in 1881.

Many gatherings, banquets, and other "routs"
have taken place in the Rotunda, but perhaps the
most notable was the dinner to General Lafayette,
November 5, 1824. The procession approached the
University in this order: Chief marshal with two
aids; president of the day; General Lafayette; Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Madison in a landau drawn by
four gray horses; the General's son and staff in a
carriage with two cream-colored horses; Visitors
of the University in a carriage; standing committee,
magistrates, cavalry, junior volunteers, citizens
on horse-back, citizens on foot. It passed along
East Range to the bottom of the Lawn, dismounted,
and proceeded on foot to the Rotunda, over which
floated three flags—probably those of France, the
United States, and Virginia. In replying to an address

General Lafayette paid Mr. Jefferson a compliment
which won the warm approval of the enthusiastic
multitude. "Nor do I," he said, in turning
a handsome period, "in anything more cordially
sympathize with you, than in the mention you have
made of the venerable friend, whom, if there was
but one university in the world, the enlightened men
of both hemispheres would, in common, elect to preside
over universal information."

The banquet took place in the upper room of the
Rotunda, the table arranged in three concentric
circles. Over the place assigned to Lafayette was
an arch of laurel supported by two of the columns
that sustained the gallery. Valentine W. Southall
presided. First on his right sat the guest of the day,
then Jefferson and Madison; on his left, George
W. Lafayette and his suite. When the cloth was
removed regular toasts were proposed to the guest,
to Madison and Jefferson, and a great number were
volunteered in addition. What proved to be one of
the chief sentiments was "Thomas Jefferson and
the Declaration of Independence—alike identified
with the cause of Liberty." The object of this compliment
handed to Mr. Southall the following response,
which he read effectively:

"I will avail myself of this occasion, my beloved
neighbors and friends, to thank you for the kindness
which now, and at all times, I have received at
your hands. Born and bred among your fathers,
led by their partiality into the line of public life, I
labored, in fellowship with them, through the arduous
struggle which, freeing us from foreign bondage,
established us in the rights of self-government;
rights which have blessed ourselves, and will bless,
in their sequence, all the nations of the earth. In

this contest, all did our utmost, and as none could
do more, none had pretensions to superior merit.

"I joy, my friends, in your joy, inspired by the
visit of this, our ancient and distinguished leader
and benefactor. His deeds in the war of independence
you have read and heard. They are known to
you, and embalmed in your memories, and in the
pages of faithful history. His deeds in the peace
that followed that war are, perhaps, not known to
you, but I can attest them. When I was stationed
in his country for the purpose of cementing its
friendship with ours, and of advancing our mutual
interests, this friend of both was my most powerful
auxiliary and advocate. He made our cause his
own, as in truth it was that of his native country
also. His influence and connections there were
great. All doors of all departments were open to
him at all times. In truth, I only held the nail, he
drove it. Honor him, then, as your benefactor in
peace as well as in war.

"My friends, I am old; long in the disuse of
making speeches, and without voice to utter them.
In this feeble state, the exhausted powers of life
leave little within my competence for your service.
If with the aid of my younger and abler coadjutors
I can still contribute anything to advance the institution
within whose walls we are now mingling
manifestations to this our guest, it will be, as it has
ever been, cheerfully and zealously bestowed. And
could I live to see it once enjoy the patronage and
cherishment of our public authorities with undivided
voice, I should die without a doubt of the
future fortunes of my native State, and in the consoling
contemplation of the happy influence of this

institution on its character, its virtue, its prosperity
and safety.

"To these effusions for the cradle and land of my
birth, I add, for our nation at large, the aspirations
of a heart warm with the love of country; whose
invocations to heaven for its indissoluble union will
be fervent and unremitting while the pulse of life
continues to beat, and when that ceases, it will expire
in prayers for the eternal duration of its freedom
and prosperity."

A contemporary account says that the toast to
Lafayette was received with enthusiastic cheering
which "rolled in billowy volumes around the
spacious hall, and sank in the stillness of enthusiasm;"
that when Mr. Jefferson's speech was read,
the General was moved to tears; he grasped the
hand of the venerable friend who penned it and
sobbed aloud.