University of Virginia Library

XXXIX. Alumni Chapters

One of the few depredations committed by the Federal
troops during General Sheridan's halt in Charlottesville
was the abstraction of the papers of the Alumni Association
from the desk of its secretary, and their destruction
on the spot, or removal to some unknown place
in the North. It is possible that the Federal authorities
expected to find in these curt, dry, and innocent documents,

clauses that would throw light on the political
sentiment then prevailing in the governing circles of the
moribund Confederacy. As the papers were not recovered,
the association was left without a copy of its
own constitution, by-laws, and list of members; but luckily
this loss was not altogether irretrievable, for an able
and experienced committee, composed of N. H. Massie,
Green Peyton, S. V. Southall, Eugene Davis, and William
J. Robertson, soon drafted a new constitution and a
new set of by-laws, which remained in force until 1896.

During the interval between 1865 and 1871, new
chapters were organized in succession in St. Louis, Petersburg,
Richmond, Alexandria, Winchester, Lynchburg,
Abingdon, Baltimore, New York, and New Orleans; and
the years that immediately followed witnessed additions
to this number in Staunton, Charlottesville, Columbia,
(Tenn.), Fredericksburg, San Francisco, and Louisville.
By 1893, there were twenty-six local branches. While
some were more active and more zealous in their interest
in the University than others, yet in all there must have
been aroused a concern for its advancement such as had
never been known to exist among the alumni as mere individuals.
These separate groups certainly had a tendency
to raise up for its benefit something of that warm
sentimental loyalty which is the most beautiful fruit of
the curriculum system. The alumni, scattered about
among the cities of the South and the East, held reunions
of their respective chapters, and recalled at their several
banquets the memories of the arcades and the class-rooms.
As sons of the same institution, all felt, for the time being
at least, drawn as closely together as if they were celebrating
some recurring class anniversary that quickened
every fibre of the heart. It was early foreseen that, if
every chapter of the organization could be filled permanently

with a spirit of active fidelity, the centre of that
organization, the University itself, would occupy a more
influential position as constituting the guiding force for
all. During many years to come, however, the chapters
were not to be sufficiently unified for this purely sentimental
interest to take a practical concerted form.

In 1872, the general association was chartered, with
Charlottesville as its principal office, and with the majority
of the incorporators prominent and esteemed citizens
of that town. Among these incorporators were A. R.
Blakey, the editor of an excellent local newspaper, N. H.
Massie, a banker, W. C. N. Randolph, a physician,
Horace W. Jones, a headmaster, and Colonel R. T. W.
Duke, a lawyer. These men were the principal representatives
of a large proportion of the important interests
of the community. The charter was obtained in the
name of the "Society of the Alumni of the University of
Virginia." The dominant object, from a practical point
of view, which the Society was expected to accomplish,
was to collect for the institution a fund of at least five
hundred thousand dollars. It was empowered to receive
gifts and legacies, to dispose of scholarships, to adopt bylaws,
to appoint agents for soliciting endowments for professorships,
and to employ every other available means to
increase the efficiency and prosperity of the University.
It was hoped by the Society that enough money would
be donated to it to build a handsome hall near the precincts
for the use of its committees and members.

We have already seen how effective was the assistance
afforded by some of the chapters of the general association
towards securing the large sum needed for the support
of the McCormick Observatory. It was anticipated
by both the Board of Visitors and the professors,
that the association, now that it was chartered would, as

time advanced, be directly instrumental in gathering up
funds for the endowment of other chairs; but this hope
was not at once realized. There seems to have been,
indeed, during the first years after 1872, some reason for
dissatisfaction with the practical energy exhibited by the
numerous chapters considered in the mass. There were
members of the Faculty who thought that this energy
was, on the whole, less resolute and continuous than the
institution had a right to expect; and that some means
should be devised of increasing the interest of the alumni
as a body. Professor R. H. Dabney was one of these.
Among the arguments which he advanced in favor of the
adoption of the degree of bachelor of arts as the badge of
the collegiate or undergraduate section of studies as distinguished
from the university or graduate section, was
that it would bring about some of those practical filial
results, which the Northern seats of learning had, with
so much profit to themselves, derived from their curriculum
system.

"When a number of young men sit side by side in the
same lecture-rooms for four years," said he, "and when
they strive for class supremacy through class football and
baseball teams and class boat-crews, they acquire, by the
end of that time, a unity and cohesion that are altogether
unknown among the students of the University of
Virginia. Each class has its president, its secretary, orators,
historian, and poet. Nor does this unity and cohesion
end when the diplomas have been received, and the
members of the class have dispersed, to engage in the
business of life. At fixed intervals, the class reassembles
within the walls of alma mater. Members experience
the delight of talking over old times and renewing
their youth, while the class historian recounts the
achievements of the class. Different classes vie with each

other in generosity to the institution where their intellect
was trained, their characters formed, their friendships
fixed. Numbers of these alumni accumulate wealth and
do well. Everyone can contribute something towards a
class gift for their college,—endow a chair, establish a
scholarship, erect a gymnasium, and bestow some other
valuable gift. But how different it is with us! Comparatively
few of our students, after completing their college
career, ever return to their alma mater at all, while those
who do return, straggle in as individuals uncertain
whether by chance they will meet old friends or be oppressed
by the sight of a multitude of unknown faces.
It happens that many a man who once loved the University
dearly drifts gradually away from her influence
and loses interest in her welfare. It is true that much
has been done of late years to revive interest by the annual
banquets of the alumni society in such cities as Richmond,
Louisville, Washington, and New York. A
keener college spirit too has been aroused by the development
of athletic sports. Under the new system (of college,
university, and doctorate divisions of studies), far
more men will take the degree of master of arts; but
much more important still, the degree of bachelor of arts,
will, in time, become an object of attainment by nearly
all the academic students."

In Professor Dabney's opinion at that time, the exclusive
dependence for the creation of a more brisk alumni
spirit ought not to be staked upon the more general acquisition
of the degree of bachelor of arts. He suggested
that all the candidates for this degree during the
session of 1892–3 should organize themselves into a class,
—the class of 1893,—and agree to hold a reunion at intervals
of three, six, ten, thirty, forty and fifty years; and
he proposed that each graduating class in the departments

of professional study should form the like association,
and promise to come together at the end of stated periods.
Unfortunately for the prosperity of this suggestion
so far as it applied to these latter departments, the cohesive
spirit of vocational groups at college has never,
even before their dispersal, turned out to be very strong,
—possibly because the social side of these groups has
always remained more or less dwarfed, in consequence of
the more concentrated attention which the members, in
anticipation of their life-work, have given to their textbooks.
As to the production of a class spirit by increasing
the list of bachelor of arts, there were persons
at that time who considered this anticipation unlikely
unless the whole body of young men, numbering several
hundred, enrolled in the collegiate classes, should, as a
matter of course, be required, as in a curriculum college,
to become candidates for the degree, and in the end,
should succeed in obtaining it.

In May, 1893, there was an attempt to come together
on a somewhat broader platform than the one which Professor
Dabney had counselled: the class of that year was
organized as an association by sixty students, and a constitution
was drafted and adopted by them. This document
provided that the class should be composed of the
following members: all candidates for the degrees of
bachelor of arts and master of arts; all post-graduate students;
all students of the professional schools who had
previously won academic degrees; and finally,—and this
was the most significant item in the list,—all students
who had no intention of returning to the University for
the ensuing session. The object of the association was
stated to be (1) the preservation of friendships, ripened
in dormitory and lecture-hall; and (2) the promotion of
all the general interests of the institution. The example

set by the class of 1893 was not imitated with an equal degree
of energy and fidelity by the students of the session
that followed. The explanation lay quite probably in
the inherent difficulty,—perhaps, it may even be said, the
inherent impossibility,—of nurturing the genial social
spirit of the curriculum in the cold shadow of the elective
system.