University of Virginia Library

OBJECTIONS TO THE CONTINUANCE OF THE ANNUITY CONSIDERED—
GENERAL AND ECONOMICAL EXPEDIENCY OF SUSTAINING THE INSTITUTION
BY THE CUSTOMARY APPROPRIATION.

We have now presented a brief but we trust sufficiently extended
view of the intellectual plan of the University, the practical workings
of its peculiar methods, and the general influence exerted by
it on the public mind. Other and less welcome topics now claim
our consideration.

We have already alluded to the rather imperfect numerical success
which has thus far rewarded its efforts, and indicated several
of the causes to which this result is to be ascribed. These injurious
influences springing from a misapprehension of the tendencies and
an ignorance of the aims of the university, have not been confined
in their effects to a mere withholding of students from its halls.
Perhaps no literary institution ever established in this country has
in the community to which it belongs been so little encouraged
amid the difficulties of its earlier career by a just appreciation of
its peculiar literary merits, and certainly none has ever been called
upon to contend against a stronger array of prejudice and misconception.
This fact, seemingly so inconsistent with the sympathy
and liberal intelligence characterizing the people of this commonwealth,
can only be explained by the extraordinary absence throughout
the state of correct information respecting the objects and
operations of the institution. Indeed it would seem that its remoteness
from the large towns, and the imperfect facilities of intercourse
which we as yet possess, as well as the domestic habits incident to
the prevailing pursuit of our citizens, have been in no small degree
instrumental in perpetuating the misconceptions which have obstructed
its progress. Its officers and friends too, from whose
stated or occasional publications such needful information was to
have been expected, confiding perhaps too implicitly in the sure
dissemination of truth, and fastidiously averse to the display of
pretensions justly measureable only by their effects, have we think
unwisely omitted the appropriate means of correcting the prevailing
misconceptions so unfavourable to a just appreciation of the
University. Without intending therefore to ascribe to indifference
or neglect of duty a silence which has been suggested by the modest
dignity of true scholarship, we cannot but believe that had due care
been used to disseminate from time to time interesting details relating
to the instruction and discipline of the university, prejudice and
misconception would long since have vanished, and the pre-eminent
merits of the institution would now every where throughout
the state be the subject of a patriotic congratulation.

So little however is the true character of the University understood
in many quarters of the commonwealth, that we hear annually
from patriotic and otherwise enlightened persons measures of hostility
sustained by an appeal to the strangest errors and misconceptions,
measures which we are sure could never have been suggested

had some systematic means been adopted by an annual visitation
and report of becoming personally informed concerning its plan
and operations.

As these unfriendly indications in the form in which they have
been recently displayed are in the opinion of many the token of
possible dangers threatened to the university, and as they must in
any event have the effect of confirming distrust and hostility in
minds not properly informed, we propose briefly to review the
several topics which make up the usual burden of complaint.

Of the alleged great expensiveness of Education at the University:
One of the objections most commonly urged against the
University is the great and unnecessary expense to which its students
are subjected. It is true that the cost of an academic education
is somewhat larger at this institution than at a number of the
colleges, especially in the northwestern and eastern states. But it
is surely no necessary inference from this that such an education
is purchased at a dearer rate, unless at the same time it can be
shown that the extent and thoroughness of the intellectual training
at the University does not keep pace with the increased expense.
Now among those who are most familiar with the plan and literary
administration of these institutions in other states, and who have
had opportunities of comparing their course of instruction, as
actually conducted, and not as set forth in print, with the extensive
system of the University, there is and can be no hesitation in affirming
that measured by the just standard of the intrinsic value as well
as the cost of education, the University is in reality a cheaper institution
than a majority of the colleges in the United States.

Looking to the ample and costly apparatus of instruction in
operation at the University, through its numerous corps of professors,
its extensive library, as well as to the high system of teaching
it pursues, and contrasting these with the opportunities of knowledge
which are held out by the so-called cheap colleges of the
country, it seems to us to be strangely unreasonable to make a
small difference of expense in the two cases, the basis of prejudice
and complaint. But comparing in this respect our University with
Harvard, the only institution in this country with which we think it
can in fairness be compared, we find this pretext for objection entirely
removed. By an estimate of the usual average of the year's
expenses of each student at that distinguished University, it will be
seen that the amount is about the same, and probably a little greater
there than with us. Besides it should be remembered that collegiate
education is necessarily in general more expensive in the
southern than the eastern and western states, so that while its cost
at the University does not largely exceed that at William and Mary,
it is even less than the expense at some of the better institutions in
the south and southwest.

Of the alleged Aristocratic character of the Institution.—But this
objection of expensiveness to the student is urged sometimes in a
different and still more hostile form, tending to foster very injurious

prejudices among a large and most important class of citizens.
According to this view, the University, though established and now
partly supported by the contributions of all, is essentially an aristocratic
institution, beneficial exclusively to the comparatively rich,
and a tax without an equivalent to the poor. It is indeed true, that
as a general rule, those only can avail themselves of its opportunities,
whose means enable them to defray the necessary expenses;
but it is far from being correct that a large majority of the students
are the children of wealthy and so called aristocratic families.
Much the greater number are derived from the middle ranks of
life, where a moderate competency, husbanded with care, affords
the means of completing their education at the University; and not
a few belong to that noble class of poor young men who bring with
them their well saved earnings as teachers, or in other walks, to
exchange for the literary distinction after which they aspire. Instances
also occur of indigent students of superior merit receiving
gratuitous instruction from the professors, and by a regulation of
the faculty, all students preparing for the ministry, are exempted
from the usual fees. In view of an extended philanthropy, it would
doubtless be desirable that all the youths of the country, competent
to profit by the higher kinds of instruction should enjoy the precious
advantages of a university education. But it must be remembered that
the opportunities of such instruction must from their very nature be
expensive, and there is no legerdemain either of individual schemers
or legislative bodies by which they can be secured to the poor without
being paid for either by a class or by the entire community.

While we admit, in common with the friends of liberal knowledge
at the University, as well as throughout the state, that important
public benefit would arise from any measure, which, without
impairing the general usefulness of the institution, would open its
halls to a deserving class of students, whom poverty now detains
at home, we feel it due to patriotism and truth, strongly to repel
the unjust and pernicious sentiment that the humbler portion of our
fellow-citizens, though contributors to its support, receive no benefits
in return.

He must indeed have observed to but little purpose who could
deliberately adopt an impression so entirely inconsistent with the
obvious workings of the social system of our state and country.
Who of experience has not marked the diffusive benefits with which
one well trained mind can brighten and bless an extensive neighbourhood?
Who has not seen its beneficent activity in promoting
the education of the poor by the fostering of good schools—increasing
their comfort and prosperity by agricultural improvements, or
protecting their rights and soothing their physical sufferings by the
skill and learning of the professions; and who does not feel that the
best interests of the poor no less than of the rich, resting on the
wisdom of the public councils, are therefore dependent upon the
large and accurate knowledge of the framers of our laws.

As further proof that the poor enjoy an important share in the

benefits of the institution, we need only recur to the illustrations
previously given of the valuable labours of the alumni, and their
well trained pupils, in advancing the education of this portion of
the intellect of the commonwealth.