University of Virginia Library

5. Chapter Fifth
The University of Virginia

I regret that I did not learn in what
year this University was founded — only that it
was the offspring of the brain of Thomas Jefferson
so it must have been very late in the 18th or early
in the 19th century. It is, I should say, about three
fourths of a mile from the centre of Charlottesville
on the Virginia Central R. R. near its junction
with the Orange & Alexandria R .R. The college
grounds are enclosed by the main buildings
at one end from the right and left sides of
which extend the dormitories of the students.
So many years have passed since I visited the
place that my recollections of it all are very
dim. I remember that the students had
formed themselves into two societies — the
Washington Society and the Jefferson Society. Each
Society had its own hall. In Jefferson hall
I think there was a fine copy of Raphaels
"School of Athens" each figure in the group being
life size. A fine statue of Jefferson was placed

in position during the years I was there. An
excellent whispering gallery was a feature of
one of the rooms of the building.

Jeffersons whole soul went into the planning
and making of this University, and he watched
its material progress with the closest scrutiny
and deepest anxiety. I am afraid he would
have found less satisfaction in the mental and
moral progress of the students had he come upon
the scene about a century later. This is only a
whisper however, and detracts nothing from the
moral value of his efforts to establish a model
University.

Young men from
all parts of the South and some parts of the
North came here as students. Any one living
near the University would soon become impressed
with the idea that it was a pretty wild and
reckless crowd judging from appearances
Probably the larger part were orderly and studious
but the disorderly and reckless elements are always
more in evidence from the very fact of their
disorderliness, and our experience of them as
neighbors did not tend to raise them in our

estimation as a whole. Woe to the unfortunate
individual, behe professor or citizen of the town
who in any way gained the ill will of one of
these students. With faces masked, and torches
made of brooms dipped in tar and lighted
they would march to his house to the music of
tin pans and tin horns, and surrounding
the building make night hideous as only yelling
demons can. The victim might not always
escape with only a Calithump. Injury to person
and property were not uncommon, and murder
not unknown.

As we lived about half way
between the town and the University we were
naturally objects of some interest to them, although
they never treated us to a Calithump. During the
first few years of our work there, they probably felt
that we were in a way under the protection of
the national government and in later years
they had become accustomed to our work
there so we were never seriously disturbed. I do not
mean by this that we were wholly ignored, for
they often paid us the compliment of threats, or
broke our windows or showed us some other delicate

attention of a similar nature. At one time they
had a habit of climbing upon the top of the cars of
the Va. Central trains that stopped at the University
station. With their pockets filled with stones, as the
train moved on they would throw these missiles
right and left as they pleased. The train passed
within a rod of our school building, and they
would sometimes make a target of our windows,
two or three times breaking every pane of glass in
a window. This was expensive as well as unpleasant
for us. One Saturday when I heard the train coming
I seated myself quietly at my open window facing
the track, book in hand. As the train drew near
I could see that every one had a stone ready. I
looked up from my book innocently as if it had never
occurred to me that they would do so brutal a
thing as to throw — and they didn't. Disgusted
with their conduct the railroad company refused
to allow the trains to stop at the University soafter that
when it was necessary for them to take the cars
they were compelled to go down town to do so.

On the night that the news was received
of the first election of Gen. Grant to the Presidency

I was roused from a sound sleep by the crashing of
stones through the window of my sitting room. A
party of students had been down town to get the
election returns, and, furious at learning of
the Republican success vented their spite in that
way, making the act energetic by a vigorous
accompaniment of oaths and imprecations — as if
we could have prevented the election of Grant had
we wished to do so — which we didn't. It was
fortunate for me that my bedroom was in the rear
of my sitting room. Had it been otherwise the
consequences might have been serious.

During the years when the Ku Klux were
causing so much disturbance in the South, they
once left a picture of a coffin with the
regulation mark K. K. K. upon it at our
door, and they made various efforts to annoy
us — perhaps with a view of frightening us away,
not considering perhaps, that had we been timid
and easily frightened we should not have gone in
the first place. I have mentioned these two or
three instances of their exhibition of ill will
toward us as Yankees, and toward our work of

educating the freed people, as specimens of some
of the annoyances to which we were occasionally
subjected, but it would lengthen this chapter
unnecessarily to recount them all, even if I
could remember them. They formed a
unique part of our experience there and I
have introduced enough to make the whole
easily comprehended.

On a few occasions some of the Professors
or students visited our schools. This we were
always glad to have them do, hoping in this
way to arouse an interest in our work there, and
we often had a good dealof satisfaction in hearing
through various sources, that they had been very
favorably impressed with what they had seen and
heard. One of the Professors even complimented
our work highly in an article published in
the local paper. Coming from such a source
it meant a good deal to us.

One day — late in the afternoon — I was
surprised by the entrance of two young men
who walked up to my platform, their faces beaming
with smiles and introduced themselves in this

wise. "We are students from the University. We
study Moral Philosophy under Prof. McGuffey, and
we are anxious to know something of the workings
of your school system." This was all so sudden,
and they were so breezy and so sunny, that I found
myself shaking hands with them without any
volition on my own part, and giving them a
smiling welcome, before I fully realized their
presence. I had seats placed for them and went on
with the lesson that was in progress when they
entered to which they listened with every appearance
of interest. I strongly suspected that the interest
was all on the surface, but if so they were good
actors and commended what they heard very
highly, and rising they bowed themselves out
saying they wished to visit the other rooms.
It was evident they had been drinking a little although
not what one could call the worse for liquor — only
excessively polite.

When they went to Miss Gardners
room it was quite late in P. M. and she had
already dismissed a class of boys, who had
stopped in the vicinity of the school house for
a game of ball. Soon after they left my room

it was time for me to close school, and some of
my boys told those of Miss Gardners who were outside
that two drunken students had gone into her
school-room, upon which six or seven of her larger
boys — grown young men — sent for her to come to the
door, and volunteered to remove the students
if she wished them to do so. She thanked the boys
but assured them that she was very glad to have
the young men visit the school, as they were perfectly
well behaved and exceptionally intelligent. She
took a good deal of pain to show them what her
pupils could do, and they confessed they were
much surprised as well as pleased.

After my
school was dismissed I remained in the room
while some of the girls put it in order for the
next day. I stood upon the platform with one
hand full of tiny flags which had been used in
an entertainment the night before, and which
I had gathered from the desks where they had been
left. When the students coming form Miss
Gardners room were about to pass my door,
seeing me they came in to tell how well
they had been entertained there. Then one

of them said, referring to the flags in my hand
"Shall we take one?" I replied "Certainly" when
each took a flag and stuck in the lapel of his coat
saying as they did so "We will wear them in
remembrance of you." As I knew that many
of the students had been Confederate soldiers I
embraced the opportunity for a little hit. "O no!"
said I "Wear them as an emblem of the Union."
"I don't know as we shall prize them much as an
emblem of the Union." was the reply "But we will
wear them in remembrance of you and your
school." and bowing politely they passed out.
We learned afterwards that they spoke in the
highest terms of the school,
and the proficiency of the colored pupils in their studies,
and we were also told that these two students were at the
head of the classes.

We were the recipients of
frequent notes from students expressing an
interest in our work and asking permission to
call on us. We invariable replied that we should
be pleased to receive them as visitors in our
school any day they chose to call. On a few
occasions some of them called at our rooms

without the formality of a not asking permission
— merely sending up a card at the door. At such times
Miss Gardner always insisted, spite of my protests, that
we should receive them. However I took care to throw the
burden of the conversation upon her, which I think
was much to her liking, as I knew she enjoyed subjecting
them to a moral and intellectual dissection.

More than once while we were in C. there were
quarrels among the students which ended fatally.
Knives and pistols would be drawn upon the slightest
provocation, but if a student were arrested and put
into the jail his fellow students would batter down
the doors and release him. In what was called
the "University Burying Ground" we were shown the
graves of two professors who were murdered by students.

The rougher element among them showed a
special spite toward any colored man or boy
who was neatly dressed, usually knocking him from
the sidewalk if nothing worse. Occasionally some high
spirited young colored man would resent such interference
when perhaps pistols would be drawn on both sides. Luckily
in every instance that came to my knowledge there were
cooler heads who used their influence with both parties and

prevented blood shed — and possibly a race war. As for
the young women and girls, many of whom were
nearly or quite white, and some of them remarkably
pretty — they were in constantdanger of insult and abusive
treatment, and the young colored men were frequently
warned of punishment that would be meted out
to them if they were rash enough to act as protectors
of these girls by escorting them when it was necessary
for them to go out in the evening. If a young
girl left unprotected in the evening reached
her destination unharmed, she could well
consider herself as cared for by a special Providence.

In these days when I hear so much of the
crimes committed by whitecolored men upon white
women, I hearken back to that time when I
knew that any colored woman was looked upon
by (shall I say) a majority of the white men of the
community as their rightful prey, and she was
in a sense helpless and unprotected by the law as
well as by public opinion. It seems a terrible
accusation to make, but nevertheless I believe that
at the time I was there, there was nothing else
in the locality that had so demoralizing an effect

upon the colored youth of both sexes as our
vicinity to the University of Virginia. Many of
the growing boys were employed asby students as servants
where they were pretty sure to receive an education of
a most undesirable and vicious nature. And
the girls — just released from slavery where their status
was about the same as that of the domestic animals —
is it any wonder that many of them were morally
weak while all were practically defenceless? And it
was a common and bitter experience with us to
have some girl of whom we had hoped to make a
bright particular star for the guidance and uplifting
of the race, disappoint our hopes in the cruelest way
through the temptations and influences emanating
from the University.

I have not written thus strongly in condemnation
of the University and its students, because of the
occasional annoyances we suffered through their
actions. On the contrary I have vainly endeavored
to recall something of which I can speak more
favorably but my utmost efforts to do so have
failed. I am sorry for I would like to say something
pleasant of this great work of Jefferson — this largest of Southern

universities. I have "set down naught in malice"
and heartily wish it might have been my good
fortune to have caught an occasional glimpse
of the "silver lining" behind the clouds I have
described. I firmly believe the "silver lining"
was there, but from our position only the
dark side was apparent. It would give me
great pleasure to learn that the unfortunate
conditions I have described no longer exist
and that this great college has attained to the
ideal of its founder.