University of Virginia Library

EIGHTH PERIOD

RESTORATION, 1895–1904

I. The Great Fire

If we should be permitted to compare small things with
great, we would venture to say that what the Great Fire
during Nero's reign was to Rome, or the Great Fire during
the reign of Charles The Second was to London, the
Great Fire of 1895 was to the University of Virginia.
It was an episode in the history of that institution so far
beyond the utmost sweep of the normal course of events;
it was so sudden, so unexpected, so startling in its occurrence;
so destructive in its physical consequences; so far
reaching in its moral influence,—that it can, with perfect
accuracy, be taken as a milestone to mark the close
of one period and the opening of another. The University,
after its complete restoration, was not the same
physical entity which it had been before this conflagration.
The Annex had vanished forever in flame and
smoke; the new Rotunda differed in several cardinal features
from the model of the old; and there was a noble
semicircle of new academic buildings,—in exquisite harmony
with the Jeffersonian scheme of edifices,—that shut
off the Lawn from further extention towards the south.
Nor was the University the same moral entity, for no
seat of learning can pass successfully through such a
plunge into calamity without emerging from the black
waters into the sunshine with a spirit purified and lifted
up by the experience of adversity. The catastrophe of

1895 was an appalling one; but the firm resolution with
which it was faced, the practical wisdom with which it was
redressed, the outburst of filial loyalty and affection which
it caused, left behind it the benison of a splendid tradition
of sagacity, courage, and devotion, which seemed, in
its moral influence at least, to be almost a full compensation
for the destructive physical consequences of
that dreadful day.

We have pointed out in our history of anterior periods,
back to the very start, that apprehension of a conflagration
in some one of the pavilions and dormitories, and
even in the Rotunda itself, had always lurked uneasily
in the minds of the officers, and also of the members of
the Faculty. It was as much for the purpose of securing
a supply of water with which to extinguish a possible fire
in these different groups of buildings, as for domestic
uses, that, decade after decade, various measures were
adopted to swell the contents of mountain reservoir, cistern,
and tank, by tapping new fountains and laying down
new and larger connection pipes. There had been many
times when the flames had burst out from dormitory roof
or flooring, or pavilion chimney, but they had been quickly
smothered, and no damage of a serious nature had been
inflicted. As fate as June 12, 1894, an address, signed by
the rector, Dr. W. C. N. Randolph, and the chairman,
Professor William M. Thornton, had been sent to the Society
of Alumni, in which attention was earnestly directed
to the fact that the Rotunda was not a fire-proof structure;
and that, should it be burned down, the collection of
books which it contained,—many of which were of unique
value for their rarity and could not be replaced,—would
inevitably be consumed along with it.

In the course of the first year that followed this farsighted
warning, a thin, wavering wreath of smoke was

descried issuing lazily from the mouth of the ventilator
situated in the cornice at the northwestern end of the
Annex. This was on the 27th of October; the day was
Sunday; and the hour was fifteen minutes after ten o'clock
in the morning. The weather was clear, and there was a
distinct suggestion of autumnal crispness in the air. A
student,—Foshee by name,—returning from a late
breakfast at a neighboring boarding-house, happened to
glance upward as he reached the corner, and at once detected
the smoke, although not yet voluminous enough to
rise skyward in a cloud. Startled and excited by the unexpected
sight, he hallooed to two young men,—Sloan
and Penton, by name,—who were lounging in view; and
when they had run up and seen the smoke, they hurried off
with him to inform Henry Martin, the janitor. Henry,
as usual, was not far from his bell-rope, and before the
almost breathless students could finish speaking, he had
seized it, and with an energy which he had never before
been required to put forth, rang the bell until the protracted
sound had alarmed the University community
from end to end. The first strokes, however, were taken
by all as simply an announcement of the hour for morning
services in the chapel; but the prolonged ringing, followed
by loud cries of fire, caused the young men to swarm out
of their dormitories and rush down the arcades and up
the Lawn to the Rotunda. At their head was Professor
William H. Echols, who, at this time, combined with the
duties of his chair, the general supervision of the buildings
and grounds.

On reaching the main entrance to the Annex, they
found that the door was locked; but quickly staving it in,
they crowded forward into the public hall. Smoke was
already gathering below the high ceiling of this large
apartment, and flame was to be seen playing around the

upper section of the curtain of the platform just at the
spring of the arch. It had eaten its way through the
floor of the engineering drawing-room, which was situated
immediately above the public hall. A flue rose from
a spot behind the great picture, the School of Athens, and
passed the second floor on its way to the roof. The
draught through this conduit had quickened the speed of
the downward advance of the flames. When the drawing-room
above the hall was entered, it was found to be
full of black smoke, although no flames were visible; but
when the door which gave admission to a small instrument-room
through the lath and plaster partition that ran
across the north end of the larger apartment, was broken
in, a dense wave of additional smoke poured out, and the
interior was discovered to be lapped in flames shooting
up between the planking of the ceiled arch that curved
over the stage beneath.

The fire had started in one of the three following areas:
(1) in the closed space between the ceiling of the public
hall and the floor of the instrument-room on the western
side; or (2) in the space,—also closed,—between the
lower and upper surfaces of the arch above the stage; or
(3) in the closed space lying between this arch and the
partition which shut off the eastern end of the west gallery.
The last fire that had been lighted in the public hall
had been extinguished two complete days before. This
fire had been in the stoves which were used to heat that
apartment, and there had been none in the basement flues
at any time during the previous eighteen hours. As the
instrument-room had been cleaned up from end to end
during the preceding summer, there was no tenable
ground for attributing the conflagration to spontaneous
combustion among rotting materials stored within its
walls. There had been noticed, not long before the fire

burst out, vagaries on the part of the electric light, and
it was afterwards conjectured that the origin of the conflagration
lay in some unaccountable disadjustment of the
wires.[1]

When the young men made the first rush from the
dormitories, some of them had the forethought to pull
along after them the college engine and reels. There
was a small pond or water-hole situated about fifty yards
to the west of the Annex; but no advantage could be taken
of it owing to the absence of a suction pipe. The hose,
having been quickly joined on to the nearest plug, was
dragged, by way of a pair of backstairs, up to the platform
of the public hall. Unfortunately for the salvation
of the building, the stream which the nozzle could
throw at that height above the water-mains did not exceed
four or five feet in length, which signified that it did not
have sufficient head to reach the ceiling. In the meanwhile,
an attempt to form a bucket-brigade in the drawing-room
above the public hall had been thwarted by the
massive cloud of smoke. While Professor Echols and his
equally brave and faithful assistants were vainly endeavoring
to check the spread of the flames southward along
the public hall ceiling, the lights and reflectors situated
just at the edge of the stage, fell, with a terrific crash,
to the floor. This had happened because the fire had
burned through the beam which held them up and left
them without support. Professor Echols, who was
standing upon a ladder close at hand, so as to raise the
hose, (which he had in his grasp), that much nearer to
the flames, only avoided being completely cut off by letting
himself down in a hurry, rung by rung, hand over
hand.

He soon perceived that all the chances pointed to the

sweeping destruction of the Annex. Could the Rotunda,
—which was joined on to that structure by a roof resting
upon strong supports,—be saved by blowing up this
connecting bridge? If so, it had to be done quickly, for
already the flames had spread as far along the surface
of the ceiling of the public hall as the south door. There
had been prevailing very dry weather during the preceding
three months, and the timbers of the building were
in a highly inflammable condition. While Professor Echols
was arranging for the destruction of the intervening
roof, his unresting assistants, the students, were removing
the volumes of the law library, which was stored on a
lower floor; and they also rescued most of the engineering
instruments, and a small number of those belonging to
the department of physics.

This feverish task had not been finished when the bombardment
of the threatened portico began. Professor
Echols, having got possession of one hundred pounds of
dynamite, with the necessary fuses and caps, and aided
by Finch, a medical student, and Brune and Bishop, University
employees, was successful in bringing down pellmell
a portion of the intervening pillars; but the firm
roof itself, still upheld at one end by the Annex, and at
the other, by the Rotunda, remained in its place undamaged.
Unless it could be shaken to pieces, the preservation
of the Rotunda was impracticable. The flames of
the burning Annex were already licking the bridge; the
wind was blowing violently southward; and in a brief
time, the fire would leap across the barrier. There was
now but one possible means of disrupting the roof,—it
must be assaulted with dynamite from the top of the Rotunda.
Dr. Gordon Wilson was hurried off to town to
procure an additional supply of explosives. He jumped
into the first buggy that he met on the road, and having

covered the intervening ground at racing speed, knocked
up a merchant at his home,—it being Sunday,—carried
him off to his store, and returned with two boxes of
dynamite. During his absence, Professor Echols and his
assistants had smashed in the door to the passageway
which led up through the walls of the Rotunda to the
dome. By this act of forethought, a secon exit was
secured, should the advancing flames bar their descent
through the library. Professor Echols pried open one of
the boxes with an ax, poured the entire contents into a
meal-bag, shouldered it, and followed by other persons,
mounted up by the secret passageway to the top of the
building.

While these rapid preparations for the abrupt destruction
of the connecting roof were underway, the lofty circular
apartment of the library had become a scene of extraordinary
tumult and confusion. In anticipation of the
successful leap of the fire, the students, assisted by hundreds
of other willing and indefatigable hands, were now
absorbed in removing the books from the shelves. No
time was lost in waiting for the keys of the cases to be
brought,—the glass was ruthlessly broken open with the
aid of the first instrument at hand, and the volumes
dragged out in tumbling and indiscriminate masses. The
arms of the young men were heaped up with the precious
books; and so were the skirts of the ladies of the University,
who, at that critical moment, rushed forward,
with the spirit of heroines, to aid in saving the beloved
library from the flames. Load after load was thus
rushed to the windows overlooking the south portico, and
there dumped in a torrent into the blankets and sheets
held up below to catch the volumes as they fell,—afterwards
to be borne away to a spot on the Lawn that lay
beyond the reach of further danger. All the portraits

were removed without injury. It is said that one sturdy
student, with a strength that appeared superhuman, carried
off the large bust of Professor Minor, without assistance,
and then hurried back for the pedestal.

Smoke had soon begun to creep into the apartment
from above, and this increased the appalling strangeness
of the scene. Such an unmistakable proof of approaching
flames only augmented the excitement. The shuffling
sound of darting feet and the uproar of shouts and commands
and cries of encouragement were again and again
broken by the loud reverberations of the exploding dynamite
without. The college-bell was ringing continuously
in order to bring the people of the town to the rescue.
Four of the ladies had, of their own motion, seized the
bell-rope; and they did not cease to pull so long as it remained
intact. The flames, leaping across the connecting
roof, first struck the Rotunda just over the little
room that was entered from the upper gallery. This
apartment was stored with files of newspapers, yellow
from age; with stacks of pamphlets, old catalogues, and
engravings, that had been laid aside to be assorted; and
with a part of the Bohn donation of books. It was a
heap of tinder, and the fire on reaching it, spread at once
into a mighty furnace of flames.

The conflagration, however, had not yet reached so
far when Professor Echols, accompanied by Bishop, came
out upon the dome. Indifferent to the imminent peril of
his position, he, from a commanding point, coolly hurled
a mass of dynamite, fifty pounds in weight, upon the connecting
roof; and so terrific was the explosion which followed
that it was said to have been heard fifteen miles
away. The Rotunda rocked under the concussion, the
plaster fell from the ceiling of the dome, and every pane
of glass, not already broken, was shattered. The crowd

of people within the library made a rush for the single
door, for all were for the moment convinced that the
building was about to topple in ruins to the ground. The
connecting roof, however, remained intact, and the roaring
flames continued to advance. The thrower of the
dynamite, with his companion, only succeeded in escaping
by beating a retreat to the door of the steps descending
from the dome.

A few minutes before the explosion occurred, the fine
marble figure of Jefferson by Galt had been lowered by
ropes to the level of a table hastily pushed forward to
catch it. So great was its weight that this support at
once gave way under it; but luckily the fall to the floor
did not damage the statue. Turned over on its face,
it was rapidly dragged to the door opening on the front
stairway, and just as there began the attempt to pull it
through this narrow exit, the explosion shook the whole
building. "The statue," says Morgan P. Robinson, in
his vivid description of the scene,[2] "was gotten out on the
staircase, and step by step, it was carried down the western
stairs feet foremost. As the base of the statue was
eased over each step, it would gather momentum, and
gaining speed, would tear off the top edge of the next step,
while, under the combined weight of the statue and twenty
to thirty of the students, the whole staircase would tremble.
It is conservatively estimated that it took from ten
to fifteen minutes only to remove the statue from the
library to the Lawn."

When the statue had been pushed through the door of
the library, Colonel Venable, taking his stand on the
landing, quietly refused to permit the students to brush

by him or to dive under his arms, in order to bring off
additional loads of books,—which now could only be
effected at the risk of their lives. So soon as he concluded
that the last attempt had been made to enter, he
placed a stick across the two wings of the door, and then
descended the west stair. But as he went down on that
side, a party of students ascended the east stair; and
hardly had they reached the platform at the head of the
steps in front of the door, when its two wings flew open
sucked in by the draught. "It was," says Mr. Robinson,
"a magnificent sight to look on that gigantic roaring
furnace as the fresh air rushed in and cleared away
the smoke; here the pedestal of the marble statue, there
the pillars in the gallery; here the old iron railing from
the statue; there some dusty books left to their fate on
the shelves in the library; here a broken bookcase on the
floor; and there a perfect volcano of flame pouring into
the Rotunda from the Annex, and in a minute a cloud
of smoke shutting off everything from view."

The Rotunda was, by this time, abandoned to its unavoidable
fate. The prospect of the first pavilion on
either side of the Lawn catching fire from sparks and
flying brands had now become imminent. As a preventive,
blankets, previously thoroughly wetted, were spread
over the surface of their north walls and over their
fronts; and these were kept continuously saturated by a
bucket brigade which passed the water from the ground
to the roofs. This water had been obtained from the
spigots and hydrants of the nearest pavilions, and was
brought by all sorts of people, in all kinds of vessels,
from a pitcher to a basin. There was hardly a person
belonging to the University or to Charlottesville who
failed to take an active part in one way or another, in the
endeavor to arrest the flames, or to assist those who were

frantically employed in beating them back. Many of
the wives of the professors,—and it was even said that
some of the grave professors themselves,—performed
their share by cooking meals to appease the hunger of the
fire-fighters. The pavilions and dormitories were, perhaps,
only saved from destruction by a turn in the wind.
At first, it had blown fiercely from the north; but as the
already enormous heat of the burning or burnt buildings
increased, the current, suddenly shifting, began to blow
equally violently from the south; and this, in some measure,
walled back the flames. Brands were carried by
the changed wind as far as the home of Dr. Lambeth,
beyond the new gymnasium; and they even set Dr. Chancellor's
stable, on the opposite side, on fire.

Professor Echols and Bishop, thwarted in their courageous
endeavor to destroy the connecting roof, started
at once to break down the two wings which joined the
Rotunda, on its south front, with East and West Lawn.
While in the act of blowing up these low-lying buildings
with dynamite, Professor Echols slipped through the
roof of the reading-room,—into which one of the wings
had been converted,—and seriously injured his left hand.
At one o'clock, the interior framework of the Rotunda
fell in, and as the burning mass crashed downward, it was
noticed that there were few dry eyes among those that
looked on at this closing event in the drama of the conflagration.
The mighty furnace of embers lying on the
floor of the basement, within the circular line of the still
standing walls, died down, after a few hours, to a blackened
heap, composed of the still smouldering ashes of
the interior timbers, bookcases, and books. From the
moment that roof and floor caved in, there was no immediate
danger of a further spread of the flames; but

it was not until half past two o'clock in the afternoon
that the last reason for apprehension was removed.

The time-piece of the University had stopped running
sharply at five minutes to twelve. During the following
night, the entire Lawn remained littered with nearly
twelve thousand volumes, and also with the different instruments
from the laboratories which had been saved,
and with a large quantity too of miscellaneous articles.
The statue of Jefferson lay at full length on the grass,
its delicate marble protected from the weather by a
canvas covering. "When the moon came out," says
Mr. Robinson, "as though to take a last look at the pride
of Jefferson's latter days, it was a ghastly and heart-rending
sight to see the blackened walls and hollow windows,
and the tall white pillars, with their marble capitals, all
smoked up, standing as silent sentinels on the old portico,
where had stood so many of the men of note of this
country beneath the shadow of the dome of the Rotunda."
The Rotunda was merely a begrimed shell.
One wall of the Annex had fallen; the other tottered upon
its base. The two wings at the south front of the Rotunda
had been left a mass of ruins by the dynamite used
to destroy them.

So soon as the fire began to make such progress that
the ability to arrest it was perceived to be doubtful,
Aubrey Bowers, a law student, suggested to Colonel
Venable that a telegram should be at once despatched
to the cities of Richmond, Lynchburg, and Staunton for
immediate assistance. Staunton promptly sent fifteen
men and a large quantity of hose to the University.
That city possessed no fire-engine. The authorities of
Lynchburg forwarded a special train loaded with a fire-engine,
firemen, and hose. The cars transporting an engine,

hose, and firemen from Richmond travelled at the
rate of sixty-five miles an hour. When the engineer was
signaled at Gordonsville to stop in order to be informed
that the flames were under control, so great was the
speed with which his train was moving that he only succeeded
in halting it after running several hundred yards
beyond the station.

It was not simply to the hearts of those who resided in
the shadow of the Rotunda that the destruction of that
imposing edifice carried a pang of unaffected sorrow and
sharp regret. The alumni of New York fully expressed
the sad emotions of every branch of the General Association,
however remote from the scene, when they said:
"In all our memories of student life and joyous youth,
those stately buildings (Rotunda and the Annex) stood
in the center of our associations of love and pride. Even
in their architectural forms, in the shaping and posing of
the columns, and in the curve of the dome,—lines and
elevation that stood in such exquisite relation with the
natural loveliness of the Piedmont landscape,—there
was something that seemed always to speak to us of the
amplitude and symmetry, of the grace and strength and
nobleness, of the mind of the great Virginian from which
our University system, the largest and most abiding work
of the American people in dealing with education, had
sprung into existence. And it was in the passing under
the dome, and through the colonnade into the great hall
itself, that the sweetest scenes of our young lives lived in
our memories,—the pressure on our arms of hands that
were very dear, the burst of youthful oratory from the
champions of the Washington and the Jefferson that we
loved, the solemn words of our old professors urging us
to the manly life, and the bestowal of those hard-earned
degrees that were to be our passport to the duties and the

honors of the world. To each of us the loss of those
buildings meant a personal sorrow that is perhaps never
to be consoled."

II. Action of the Faculty and Board

The fire was still burning, though now beginning to die
down for lack of new material to consume, when the
members of the Faculty assembled in the Chemical Hall
to discuss the means of carrying on the work of the
University without the interruption of a single hour.
It was at three o'clock in the afternoon of October 27,
1895, that this memorable meeting took place. Professor
Echols was absent, in consequence of the severe injury
to his hand received in the course of his determined fight
to balk the further spread of the flames. Professor
Stone also was not present, owing to an oversight in not
sending him notice of the appointed hour. The rector,
Dr. W. C. N. Randolph, and Armistead C. Gordon, a
member of the Board of Visitors, took part in the deliberations.
If a stranger had entered and attentively
followed the proceedings, he would have detected in the
words which quietly fell from the lips of the participants
no suggestion whatever of a feeling of discouragement
or of an emotion, even momentary, of despair. On the
contrary, the spirit of these men, calmly talking over
every side of the situation at one of the most critical
hours in the long and chequered annals of the institution,
was as sanguine as it was resolute. Like a professor
tranquilly engaged in teaching his class, the chairman
chalked off on a blackboard a diagram of lecture hours,
leaving certain vacant spaces to be filled in with the names
of the apartments in which the classes of the different
schools were to be directed to assemble. The places
soon assigned for this purpose were the Brooks Museum,

Jefferson Society Hall, Washington Society Hall, Temperance
Hall, the biological laboratory, and at a still
later date, a new frame building which had been quickly
erected on a site not far from West Range. A committee
of restoration was chosen, which comprised Professors
Echols, Smith, Mallet, Noah K. Davis, and Walter
D. Dabney; and a second committee was selected to
draft an address to the students.

There was no clock to mark the hour, no bell to summon
the various classes to lectures, when Monday morning
arrived, and yet the attendance in every instance was
as full and prompt as if no catastrophe had occurred to
upset the daily routine. In the evening, there was a
meeting of the professors, officers, and young men,—"a
joint gathering," remarked Professor Thornton, who
presided, "for mutual encouragement, and to make fit
acknowledgement of the heroic endeavors of the students."
Professor Harrison read aloud the manifesto
addressed to them, which had been drafted to express the
grateful emotions of the Faculty. "In this unspeakable
calamity," he said, "all that remains to us, except brave
hearts and unbroken spirits, is the memory of your gallant,
heroic conduct, without which nothing could have
been saved from the library and scientific halls in or near
the Rotunda. We feel the profoundest gratitude, and
the warmest praise, for your noble and admirable demeanor
on this trying occasion; for your intense sympathy
with us in our irreparable losses; and for your
manly and self-sacrificing cooperation to save something
from the wreck and rehabilitate this great institution."

The conviction which Professor Harrison voiced in
closing, that the young men "would stand by their alma
mater," was fully confirmed by the history of the remaining
months of the session. "That which seemed a great

calamity," the Faculty declared in their annual report to
the Board of Visitors in the following June, "showed
itself as, in one sense, a great blessing, kindling in the
hearts of the students a most intense patriotic devotion
to alma mater, cementing the relation between Faculty
and students by bonds of deep sympathy and kindly feeling,
and developing in the students themselves such powers
of self-restraint and appreciation of the crisis through
which the institution was passing, that it seems worthy of
permanent record in this place."

The recommendations which the Faculty, within a
few days after the last ember of the fire had ceased to
glow, drew up and sent off to the Board of Visitors, form,
from several points of view, the most remarkable document
that has ever been drafted by that body in the course
of its long history.[3] In its contents, we find the concrete
suggestion of nearly every measure which was afterwards
adopted to restore the Rotunda and its wings, and
to add new buildings to the existing group. These recommendations
had almost the weight of prescience from
the practical foresight which they exhibited for the permanent
guidance of the Board, with whom the ultimate
decision would rest. In the preamble, the Faculty paid
an emphatic tribute to the indefatigable exertions of the
students, officers, townspeople, and railway companies,
in combating the conflagration and in limiting its scope.
"We feel assured," they continued, "that your Board,
facing the emergency with like spirit, will unite with us
in the most active and earnest efforts, not simply to restore
the beauty and convenience of our establishment,
but to increase its usefulness by providing facilities more
ample and splendid than we have heretofore enjoyed for

our scholastic work." The Faculty were thinking, not
only of the present, but also of the future, with all its
possibilities of broad and noble public service. Their attitude,
confronted as they were by disheartening ruins,
which would have aroused in the hearts of most men
only a desire for the reestablishment of the old condition,
without one aspiration for the moment beyond it, indicated
a spirit that had something imperialistic in its grasp,
—a largeness of view, indeed, that was fully in harmony
with the grand outlook of the Father of the institution,
who would allow no material circumstance, however depressing
in itself, to chill or thwart his ambition for the
exaltation of his beloved seat of learning.

They counseled (1) that the dêbris of the Annex
should be removed, and the sunken site filled in, for, in
their opinion, the restoration of the vanished edifice
would only invite a second catastrophe; (2) that the
gymnasia, or south wings of the Rotunda, should be reconstructed
in their former shape, and temporarily employed,
—one for sheltering the rescued volumes of the
library, the other for accommodating the School of Natural
Philosophy; (3) that the Rotunda should be rebuilt
with scrupulous fidelity to the original proportions,—
except in one particular: that a portico should be joined
on to the north end, which should precisely resemble the
old portico attached to the south end, with an imposing
flight of steps descending to the esplanade, and with a second
flight of steps descending from the ramparts at the
edge of the esplanade, to the ground; (4) that the architect
to be chosen should draft the plans for the construction
of a new academical building, which should contain
a public hall arranged in the shape of a horse-shoe, with
two wings spacious enough to afford area for six lecture-rooms
suitable for large or small classes; (5) that additional

plans should be prepared for the erection of a physical
laboratory, to be located on a site so isolated as to
make possible the most delicate experiments; and also
for the erection of an engineering building; and of a third
building besides, to be used by the classes in the department
of law; and (6) that all these edifices should be
modelled upon classical types of architecture.

In stating their convictions on this last point, the Faculty
were particularly earnest in urging that the man who
should be employed to plan the new edifices, and supervise
their erection, should be one, not simply of local distinction,
but of a reputation coextensive with the nation.
"He should," they said, "be instructed to consider in
his design not only the convenience and the elegance of
the single structure, but also its effect as a member of the
general architectural system of the University; he should
submit to the Board a comprehensive scheme showing the
location both of the buildings recommended by the Faculty,
and of such other hospital structures, official quarters,
and the like, which the Board might have in mind.
And, besides, the character of the ground should be carefully
studied, with a view of solving the problem of the
form of landscape gardening to which they were best
adapted." In addition, the Faculty, wisely descending to
the smallest details, recommended that provision should
be made at once for the manufacture of bricks in the
vicinity of the University. "By choosing the brickfield
promptly, digging out the earth, raking it over and screening
it, and letting it weather through the cold season,"
they asserted, "we shall get a better brick than can be
purchased in the local market, and at a lower price."

In concluding their farsighted advice, which was at
once comprehensive and minute, the same body earnestly
counselled the Board to petition the General Assembly

boldly and frankly for an appropriation of two hundred
thousand dollars, to be laid out in buildings alone. They
expressed the hope that the alumni could be relied upon
to supply the money with which to purchase the equipment
that would be needed for these buildings; and in
order to obtain that body's immediate assistance they
issued an address to all the chapters. In this communication,
they calculated that the sum of $346,000 would
be required for the restoration and the additions proposed.
Towards the acquisition of this amount, there
could be counted on the insurance money payable for the
destroyed Rotunda and Annex, amounting to $25,000,
and the residue in hand of the Fayerweather Fund, estimated
at $23,000 more. There was a prospect of securing,
at an early date, $10,000 besides, under the provisions
of the Fayerweather and Shields bequests. From
these different sources approximately $58,000 was immediately
available, which reduced the total sum to be
collected to $288,000. A committee of the Faculty was
appointed to act in concert with the alumni in soliciting
as large a sum as should be obtainable by gift. This
committee was composed of William M. Thornton, the
chairman, Charles S. Venable, William E. Peters, W. M.
Lile, W. D. Dabney, Paul B. Barringer, and A. H. Buckmaster.

The Faculty, only a few days after the catastrophe
of the fire, employed the firm of McDonald Brothers,
of Louisville, as consulting architects, in order, as they reported
to the Board, "to clear up their view upon the
state of the ruined buildings, and to estimate the cost of
improvements"; but they very properly refrained from
endeavoring to commit the University to the terms of a
permanent contract.

On November 4 (1895), the Board of Visitors convened

for the first time since the conflagration had occurred.
Their initial act was to adopt almost precisely
as drafted the recommendations of the Faculty already
quoted; and their second, to appoint a building committee.
This committee, upon whose practical judgment,
correct taste, and filial zeal, so much depended, was composed
of Dr. W. C. N. Randolph, the rector, W. Gordon
McCabe, and Armistead C. Gordon, with whom were
associated as a section of their own body, Professor W.
M. Thornton, the chairman of the Faculty, and Professor
William H. Echols, who, as already stated, combined
with the functions of his chair, the responsibilities of
superintendent of grounds and buildings. The first duty
to be performed by this thoroughly capable body was the
selection of an architect of distinction. This architect
was to be commissioned to draft plans for the construction
of the academic building suggested in the Faculty's
report. He was not to be restricted in the character of
these plans, except to the degree that they must receive
the approval of the building committee; and to this committee
was also confined the right of choosing the site.
Plans were to be drafted by the same architect for the
erection of the other edifices which the Faculty had
recommended in the same document. Professor Thornton
was named by the Board as the agent of the University
to collect subscriptions from the alumni, and from
all others who were interested in the prompt rehabilitation
of the institution. Professor Lile was selected to act as
the chairman of the Faculty during his absence, and Professor
Echols was instructed to perform the full duties
of the chair of applied mathematics. A committee was
also chosen to confer with the Governor of Virginia in
regard to an appropriation by the General Assembly for
the general purpose of rebuilding.

The appointment of these several committees did not
diminish the vigilant interest with which the Faculty as a
whole followed the successive stages of the construction.
That body,—with the exception of Professor Thornton,[4]
—was in favor of restoring the Rotunda, both inside and
outside, in a shape as near as possible to what it had been
before the occurrence of the fire. "We believe," they
declared at a meeting held on November 20th, "that it
would be extremely inadvisable to remove any of the interior
partition walls, or to fail to restore the floor of the
main library to the old level. The retention of the old
rooms will make the building more valuable and convenient
for practical use." The sole alterations which the
Faculty looked upon as expedient were: (1) the employment
of fire-proof material alone; (2) the omission of
the middle gallery of the library room; (3) the enlargement
of the skylight of the dome; and (4) the introduction
of lifts for the transfer of books from the lower
floors to the upper.

There were, at this critical hour, four important tasks
to be accomplished by the combined wisdom and energy of
the Board and Faculty: (1) the courses of instruction
in the several departments were to be maintained without
any falling off in earnestness and thoroughness; (2) new
buildings were to be erected, which should fully meet, by
their larger space for lecture-rooms and laboratories, all
those scholastic needs which had been growing more and
more acute with the passing years; and these structures
must be finished by the end of twelve months at the
furthest; (3) funds, to defray the cost of restoration and
addition, were to be collected as soon as practicable; and

(4) the books and scientific apparatus consumed by the
fire were to be replaced, and the quantity of both substantially
increased.

The spirit which prompted the Faculty to assemble
while the flames were still unextinguished within the forlorn
shell of the Rotunda, and designate places for the
meeting of the different classes on the following morning,
exhibited not the smallest slackening during the remainder
of the session. As war could not dampen the
pedagogic ardor of the Faculty of 1861–65, so fire, and
that subtle depression of mind which so often follows calamity,
could not paralyze the high sense of duty, the undaunted
resolution, the unremitting industry, the noble
optimism, of the Faculty of 1895–96. It was due, in no
small degree, to the determined, self-reliant attitude of
that body, in the continued performance of their functions
amid surroundings of so much discouragement, that
public sentiment, already aroused by the conflagration, responded
so quickly to the critical wants of the institution.
During the session of 1895–96, the General Assembly
authorized the Board to place a second mortgage of
$200,000 on all the property of the University; and the
State assumed the obligation of paying the interest on
this lien, which was expected to amount annually to ten
thousand dollars. The bonds were to mature at the end
of forty years after date; but they could be taken up at
the termination of the first decade. There was already a
first lien of $69,500 resting on the buildings, grounds,
books, and apparatus.[5] Prior to 1896, the subscriptions
obtained from the alumni had reached a total of seventy-five
thousand dollars.

III. The New Buildings

At the session of the building committee held on the
18th of January, 1896, Stanford White, of the firm of
McKim, Mead, and White, of New York, an architect
of original genius, who occupied a very distinguished position
in his profession, was chosen to draw the plans for
the erection of the new group of buildings called for in
the scheme of the Board and Faculty. The selection of
so great an expert in his art was the most important of
all those practical acts, which, in the end, was to change
the catastrophe of the fire from the calamity which it
was supposed, at the time, to be, into the blessing which
it was to prove to be in reality. If the shade of Jefferson
could, at that hour, have found an earthly voice, it
would have uttered words of the utmost approval and
satisfaction.

The McDonalds, who had been temporarily employed
by the Faculty, and permanently accepted by the Board of
Visitors, as soon as they first convened, now terminated
their part in the work of restoration, and White was authorized
to take it up and push it to a finish.[6] He generously

agreed to deduct from the fee which he was to receive,
the amount which the University had contracted to
pay his predecessors. The report subsequently submitted
by him provided for the completion of the reconstruction
of the Rotunda; the early erection of an academic building,
a physical building, and a mechanical building; the
ultimate erection of buildings for the departments of law
and languages, of an infirmary or hospital, and, finally,
of a hall for the use of the Board of Visitors. Two additional
edifices of a general character were included in
the general scheme,—which was so arranged as to admit
of expansion as the needs of the institution should call
for it, and the increase in its funds should allow.

The most important of all the buildings from an architectural
point of view, was the Rotunda. The design for
its restoration required that the exterior lines of the destroyed
edifice should be exactly reproduced, with wings
attached to the north front to correspond precisely with

those which had been attached to the south front, before
the two had been blown up to arrest the progress of the
flames. These quadruple wings were to be united, on
both the western and the eastern side, by a colonnade,
which would be the means of extending an open terrace or
walkway, on perfectly square lines, around the whole of
the Rotunda, with intervening courts on two sides, to be
planted in shrubs and trees. The esplanade on the north
front, reached by a pair of steps descending from the
north portico, was to spread as far as the ramparts; and
from the ramparts, was to fall to the level of the ground
by a second pair of steps.

The plan for the interior of the Rotunda was not in harmony
with the original recommendation of the Faculty,
which had also received the approval of the Board,—instead
of that plan providing for the restoration of the two
floors which had been laid down when the edifice was first
built, it reduced the number to one. This one was to separate
the great library room,—which was to rise to the
ceiling of the dome,—from two large apartments in the
basement, suitable for use as reference or reading rooms.
In counseling the adoption of this nobler plan, the architect
was, in reality, following the original wish of Jefferson,
who had been only led to split up the area within the
Rotunda by the imperative need of obtaining space for
laboratories and lecture-halls.

In the scheme submitted by White, the academic building
was to be erected at the foot of the Lawn, with the
physical building on one side in front, and the mechanical
building on the other, each in general extension of the line
of pavilions and dormitories of either East or West
Lawn. The sites of these new structures were to be at a
level so much lower than the sites of the original ones,
that, looked at from the south front of the Rotunda, they

would present the aspect of buildings of one story only;
and while they would close the quadrangle, they would
not shut out the wide expanse of the southern sky. In
their architectual design and physical composition, they
were to be in the closest harmony with the existing group.

On March 20th, 1896, this comprehensive and exquisitely
artistic scheme was laid by Stanford White before
the building committee. That committee had undergone
some changes in its membership,—it now comprised
W. C. N. Randolph, the rector, Armistead C. Gordon,
Leigh R. Watts, and Daniel Harmon, of the Board, and
W. H. Echols and W. M. Thornton, of the Faculty.
The general plan was approved by the Visitors during the
same month. Plans in full detail were submitted to the
committee on April 16, and, with some modification, were
finally adopted. About two weeks subsequently (May 2,
1896), the contracts for the erection of the buildings were
given out. By October 8, 1897, the Restoration Fund,
amounting to $328,624.54, had been exhausted, and it
then became necessary to draw upon the Fayerweather
Fund by warrant to the extent of $29,992. In his report
for June, 1905, Colonel Thomas H. Carter, the proctor,
stated that the total cost of the improvements from 1895
to 1897 had reached the sum of $450,000. At this time,
the value of the entire group of the University's buildings,
with their complete equipment, was appraised in excess of
one million and a half dollars.

The popular impression of the practical value and the
artistic beauty of the new buildings was expressed in the
resolution which the Board of Visitors adopted in March,
1898, in appreciation of the University's indebtedness to
Stanford White. They paid a very just tribute "to his
unceasing labors, his unreserved devotion of his signal
ability to the accomplishment of the best and noblest results

for the University's buildings, which have greatly increased
the efficiency and attractiveness of the University,
and made it a more splendid monument of its great
founder, Thomas Jefferson."

At the hour of inauguration, the new edifices which
confronted the delighted eyes of the spectator were the
restored Rotunda, the academic building, the physical
building, and the mechanical building. The changes proposed
in the Faculty's plan for reconstructing the Rotunda
have already been specified; and these had been
carried out with the strictest fidelity. The old library-room
was, perhaps, the handsomest apartment in the
State; but the new, with its greater height of circular
wall and dome, was still more imposing in its spacious dignity.
Besides the area reserved on the floor for books,
there were three galleries for additional storage; and to
increased beauty there was thus joined augmented utility.
The promenade along the flat roofs of the front and rear
wings and the lateral colonnades,—which made up a
continuous terrace around the classical main building,—
constituted a new feature of the extraordinary architectural
setting of the University; and it also opened up over
the Lawn and the adjacent ground, east and north and
west, a view of the most beautiful landscape and groupings
of trees to be discovered within the bounds of the
academic village. The new buildings at the foot of the
Lawn occupied the three sides of a court that was three
hundred feet broad, and two hundred feet deep, from
north to south.

The public hall in the academic building, which was
very appropriately named in honor of Joseph C. Cabell,
was designed along the most practical lines. The entire
area of the great apartment was spacious enough to seat

fifteen hundred auditors. It was so partitioned that six
hundred could be accommodated below the pillared railing;
if the audience should number as many as one thousand,
it could still find room back of the railing and next
to the wall; and if it exceeded that number, the overflow
could be seated in the gallery. However small the audience,
it would always present an aspect of more or less
compactness by occupying the compartment or compartments
exactly suited to its size. In addition to the public
hall, the academic building contained at either end
an upper and lower lecture-room. The pediment was
adorned with a fine group by Zolnay. On the eastern
side of the court was situated the physical building, which
was erected principally by means of the generous donation
of Charles Broadway Rouss, of New York, a native
of Virginia; and on the western side, was the mechanical
building.

The address at the inauguration ceremony, which occurred
in June, 1898, was delivered by James C. Carter, a
member of the New York bar, and a lawyer of extraordinary
ability and culture. It was singularly weighty in
thought, philosophical in spirit, and choice in diction.
The poem composed by Armistead C. Gordon for the
same notable hour, which took as its text the Greek motto
engraved upon the façade of the academic building, Ye
Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You
Free, was, in loftiness of sentiment, beauty and dignity of
expression, and fervor of patriotism, entitled to rank
among the very finest occasional poems that have sprung
from the mind and heart of a Southern author. In the
vision of the poet, the alma mater, risen from the ashes
of her great catastrophe, and surrounded by the shining
host of her devoted sons, is

To many of the alumni, the destruction of the impressive
canvas, the School of Athens, which had adorned the
public hall in the Annex, and been associated in the minds
of all with the brilliant commencement scenes that had
taken place there from session to session, during so many
years, was one of the most melancholy losses caused by
the conflagration; and a popular desire soon sprang up
to acquire for the University another replica. It was
due to the generosity of an alumnus that this feeling,—
which had its root in so many vivid memories of student
life,—was ultimately gratified. A copy of the original
was painted in Rome by G. W. Breck, and in April, 1902,
was presented to the University authorities, and soon
thereafter permanently placed upon the north wall of
Cabell Hall.

Another landmark, the destruction of which was regretted,
although it had often been a target for the shots
of hilarious students, was the college clock. This had
been consumed along with the other contents of the Rotunda.
A substitute, modelled upon the latest scientific
appliances, was given by Jefferson M. Levy, the owner of
Monticello. The system of this timepiece was so arranged
that all the clocks in the surrounding buildings,

—lecture-halls, and pavilions alike,—could be brought
on the same electrical current, and operated by the central
regulated mechanism.[7] There was another feature
of interest attached to this new clock,—the dial was
manufactured of a material so hard that it would resist
the impact of an ordinary bullet. The hands were
also protected from the force of the wind, and the oil
that lubricated the works, from the stiffening which formerly
always accompanied a very cold spell of weather.[8]

A new structure of large dimensions was the Randall
Hall. In June, 1898, the Board of Visitors received
a check for twenty thousand dollars from the trustees
of the J. W. and Belinda Randall Charities Corporation.
It was offered subject to the condition that it
should be either expended in the erection of a building to
be known by the name of the donors, or should be reserved
as a permanent fund for the establishment of
scholarships, or for such other uses as might be preferred
by the University authorities. A spacious building containing
forty-three dormitories was the form which the
gift ultimately assumed. Another gift of high utility
received at this time was the sum of ten thousand dollars,
which Mrs. Frances Branch Scott, of Richmond, presented
as a memorial of her son, John Scott, an alumnus.
This money was expended,—partly in equipping, and
partly in maintaining, a laboratory of electrical engineering.
By 1900, the General Assembly had appropriated

a large amount for erecting a thoroughly modern plant
for heating and lighting the premises of the University.
Major Green Peyton, who, as proctor, had, during thirty
sessions, successfully managed the financial affairs of the
institution in a period of extraordinary perplexity on account
of the South's impoverishment, died in 1897, and
was succeeded by Colonel Thomas H. Carter, one of the
most expert artillery officers of the Army of Northern
Virginia, and, during many years, associated, as commissioner,
with the railways of the South.

IV. Courses of Instruction—Academic

In June, 1897, the Faculty were requested by the Board
of Visitors to devise a scheme of entrance examinations
for the young men who should wish to join the academic
classes of the University. The following rules, recommended
at a later date, seem to have embodied the convictions
of that body on this important subject: (1) the
applicant should be required to demonstrate, either by a
certificate from another institution, or by actual examination,
that he was generally equipped to derive the utmost
advantage from the institution; (2) this having been
shown, he should be directed to obtain from the professors
of the schools in which he wished to enroll his name, an
acknowledgment of his fitness to become a student in those
schools through previous preparation. These recommendations
were ultimately adopted by the Board. If
successful in gaining admission, the former applicant was
permitted to take up at once after entrance the simpler
sides of the academic branches of instruction. These
lower classes were so arranged that they would meet with
precision the needs especially of the young men who had
received their primary training in the public schools. It
was the object of Board and Faculty alike, in laying down

the course that should precede admission and the one that
should follow it, to make the institution exactly what Jefferson
had wished it to be: the capstone of the entire
system of public education.

By the year 1902, there was a more complete undergraduate,
or bachelor of arts, course, and a more complete
graduate course also, offered in the schools devoted
to the study of the Greek, English, French, Italian, and
Spanish languages, English literature, history, economics,
moral philosophy, mathematics, applied mathematics, astronomy,
natural philosophy, natural history and biology,
and general chemistry. The course belonging to each of
these schools had been broadened and strengthened,—
particularly the graduate or university courses, which
were designed and conducted for the benefit of the students
who were candidates for the degrees of master of
arts and doctor of philosophy, or who had concentrated
their powers upon the acquisition of a special training in
some department of science or letters.

Taking up the separate academic schools, and making
a short reference to some of the salient features of each,
we find that in Latin, the course laid down for the degree
of bachelor of arts was divided between two years; that
the studies arranged for the first year were grouped in
class A, and for the second, in class B; and that these
classes were carefully graduated so as to ensure a logical
advance from the simpler aspects of the language to the
more complicated. The studies of class C were restricted
to the course prescribed for the degree of master
of arts. These were of a still higher tenor. The
doctorate of philosophy was designed for those students
who should wish to specialize in philology. At the beginning
of the session of 1902–3, Professor Thomas FitzHugh
became the incumbent of the chair of Latin so long

occupied by Colonel William E. Peters. He had been
elected in 1899, but was then given a leave of absence
with a view to his prosecuting his studies on the European
continent.

The division of the courses in the School of Greek
corresponded to those in the School of Latin. Here too
the ground to be traversed by the candidate for the baccalaureate
degree was arranged in graduated studies to
extend over a period of two years. It embraced (1) a
general survey; (2) a course in Attic prose; (3) a course
in the after drama; and (4) a course in Greek history.
During the session 1898–99, Professor Milton W. Humphreys
undertook to instruct in the Greek of the New
Testament for the benefit of those students who intended
to become ministers of the gospel. A course in Hebrew
was also begun under the tuition of Rev. Charles A.
Young; but this seems to have been discontinued after
June, 1900, by the action of the Board of Visitors. By
means of the John B. Cary endowment fund, provision
was made for outside undenominational instruction in the
text of the English Bible.

In 1896, the Schools of English, Romanic Languages,
and Teutonic Languages were reorganized as the School
of Modern Languages. Professor Harrison, who had
been giving instruction in the Romanic languages was now
assigned to the subdivision comprising the English,
French and Spanish tongues, and Professor Perkinson
to the subdivision embracing the German and Italian.
Before the end of the Eighth Period, 1896–1904, instruction
in the modern languages was given in three separate
schools, with a full professor at the head of each: (1)
the Linden Kent Memorial School of English Literature
and Rhetoric; (2) the School of Teutonic Languages,—
which offered courses in Anglo-Saxon, Middle English,

the history and philology of the English tongue, and the
language and literature of Germany; and (3) the School
of Romanic Languages. There was an assistant in each
school. In June, 1899, R. H. Wilson was appointed to
the associate professorship in the School of Romanic
Languages. In these different schools, there were embraced
the studies of the college, or undergraduate
course, of the university or graduate course, and of the
postgraduate course, with the customary division into the
three classes of subjects. In 1902, four prizes were offered
for the most meritorious dissertation and the
three best narrative, expository, and argumentative
essays.

During many years, the Schools of Mathematics and
Moral Philosophy continued to be the only ones of those
founded in the beginning which had not undergone some
alteration of character by subdivision. On the resignation
of Professor Venable in 1896, in consequence of impaired
health, Professor W. H. Echols was promoted to
the vacancy as the head of the school, with James M.
Page as adjunct. Page subsequently became an associate
professor, and ultimately a full professor. He had completed
his mathematical education in Germany, and was a
doctor of philosophy of the University of Leipsic. The
instruction in the undergraduate and graduate courses
was divided between the two teachers.

These courses, like those of the other academic schools,
were adapted to the nature of the several degrees. The
studies in the round for the degree of bachelor of arts
were designed, it was said, "to give an intelligent comprehension
of the fundamental principles of mathematics to
those who pursued it as a component part of a general
education; and as a preparation to those who desired a
working knowledge of the subject for use in subsequent

studies of physics, astronomy, and engineering." The
topics in the courses for the two higher degrees embraced
"the chief branches of higher mathematics exhibited in
the writings of the best authors"; and were intended to
encourage "a serious and thoughtful contemplation of
pure mathematics as an art, a science, and a branch of
philosophy." The work of the school was so arranged as
to spread over five years, two of which were to be spent
by the student in traversing the undergraduate course;
the other three in traversing the advanced courses leading
up to the degrees of master of arts and doctor of philosophy.
In the interval between 1896 and 1902, the
number of matriculates admitted to the school rose from
ninety-one to one hundred and thirty-three. In former
years, the original classes in this school were limited to
three, but by 1902, the number had grown to six. The
undergraduate classes were now so large that they had to
be divided and instructed in sections.

During the first decades that followed the opening of
the University, history, as we have seen, was taught by
the professors of ancient and modern languages. Then,
after the erection of a separate chair, the lectures on this
subject were delivered along with the lectures on English
literature and rhetoric. Subsequently, history was divorced
from literature and rhetoric, and joined on to a
course in economics. The course in economics in its turn
underwent an almost equal number of shiftings: it was at
first linked up with the chair of moral philosophy and
then with the chair of history; afterwards it was reassociated
with the first of these chairs, and then with the
second. The School of History now embraced the
courses in history, political science, and sociology. By
the session of 1898–99, it had received the name of the
Corcoran School of Historical and Economical Science.

Professor Holmes was now dead, and Adjunct Professor
Dabney had become the full professor.

The school comprised two distinct divisions of study:
(1) history; and (2) economics. General history
formed a part of the undergraduate course assigned to
the degree of bachelor of arts, and English and American
history a part of the graduate course assigned to
the degree of master of arts. In the School of Natural
Philosophy, experimental physics were reserved for the
undergraduate course, and advanced physics and electricity
for the graduate. In the School of Practical Astronomy,
the subjects for the corresponding courses were
respectively general astronomy and advanced astronomy.
In all the schools mentioned, a special course of graduate
studies was laid down for the degree of doctor of philosophy.
No alterations of importance were made during
the Eighth Period, 1896–1904, in the subjects embraced
in the Schools of Natural History and Geology, Chemistry,
Analytical Chemistry, and Biology.

V. Courses of Instruction—Professional

During the session of 1903–4, Professor Kent delivered
a series of lectures on the general subject of journalism.
Only those aspects of it were discussed which
were necessary for the proper equipment of students who
intended to become members of the press,—such as the
collection of news; what constituted news; how to obtain
and how to record interviews with accuracy; how to prepare
the facts or supposed facts, gathered up by the reporter,
for the printed column; how to organize the staff
of a journal; and how to allot to each member his proportion
of the daily recurring task. No attempt was made
beyond mere word of mouth to impart to the student a
practical knowledge of this profession. Whatever information

was derived from the lectures was admitted to be
purely theoretical in its nature.

The corps of professors associated with the School of
Law at the beginning of the Eighth Period, 1896–1904,
comprised James H. Gilmore, W. M. Lile and W. D.
Dabney, with R. C. Minor as adjunct professor. Dabney
died in March, 1899,[9] and on the 28th of the same
month, Charles A. Graves was appointed to succeed him.
Graves was at this time a member of the Faculty of Washington
and Lee University, with which institution he had
been identified in the capacity of teacher from the time of
his graduation, and where he had acquired a very high
reputation as a professor of law. James B. Green, although
handicapped by blindness, had been serving as
licentiate in the school since the beginning of the session
of 1896–97. Adjunct Professor Minor was subsequently
promoted to a full professorship.

By the session of 1895–6, the courses in the law department

had been so divided as to require the study of two
years to traverse them all. To the first year were assigned
the law of pleading and practice in civil cases,
constitutional and international law, law of contracts,
torts and carriers, and the law of personal relations, personal
property, partnership, probate and administration;
to the second, the law of real property, evidence and
equity, corporations, mercantile law and criminal law.
These subjects occupied the time of eight classes, four of
which were employed with the studies of the first year,
and four with those of the second. The students of the
second year were not called upon to pass successful examinations
upon any subject in the first year course of which
their knowledge had already been satisfactorily tested.
There was still no bar to prevent a matriculate who had
been well drilled before entering the school from winning
the degree of bachelor of law at the end of a single
session; but so extensive was the double course that it was
not often that one was enrolled who could carry off that
honor by the industrious application of his faculties during
nine months. Those whose time or means were limited
were permitted to pursue a special line of study carefully
laid off in harmony with their preferences.

In June, 1896, the Board concluded that, in the interest
of economy, the law department should be reorganized
by the elimination of one of the professorships.
During the session of 1896–97, the number of classes was
increased from eight to ten, but, as before, they were
equally divided between the two years embraced in the
course. During the first year, seven lectures were delivered
weekly; during the second, eight. In April, 1897,
the Faculty recommended that, after the session of 1897–
98, an attendance during two sessions should be made obligatory
upon the candidate for the degree, unless he

could show a certificate of one year's study in some
other approved law school, and should, before his admission
to the University School of Law, also have submitted
satisfactory examination papers on the various
subjects assigned to the first year. The Board appears
to have balked at this suggestion. A resolution of the
Faculty in December, 1897, asked permission to state
their reasons for offering the recommendation. But it
was not until the session of 1901–1902 that graduation
after two years' study was required.[10] The thoroughness
of the instruction now imparted was indicated by the
fact that, of the eight successful candidates for admission
to the Virginia bar in March, 1897, seven had graduated
in the University's department of law. The attendance
was annually growing,—which was an additional proof
that the reputation of that department had not declined
in consequence of the death of Professor John B. Minor.
The number of students was one hundred and thirty-eight
during the session of 1898–99. It had been but one hundred
and ten during the session of 1895–96.

In April, 1897, Professor Echols offered a resolution
at a meeting of the Faculty calling the Visitors' attention
to the need of a new building for the department of law,
and proposing that the sum of twenty thousand dollars
should be expended in its erection. During the first year
that followed the fire, the members of the law classes
assembled for lectures in the hall of the Washington Society;
but so soon as the Rotunda was entirely restored,
an apartment in one of the wings of that building was reserved
for their use, and also space in the basement for
the storage of their library. This area, owing to the
growth in the attendance, ultimately proved to be too
restricted.

The general moot court at this time found a meeting
place under the same roof. The Minor Law Debating
Society composed of first year men only, was also now
in existence (1899–1900). A question touching upon
some phase of law was selected by the law faculty for argument,
and one of the members of that faculty acted as
the presiding officer. Two attorneys were appointed for
each side. There was a bench of five judges known as
the supreme bench, but the right of appeal lay to the
whole body of the society. Students in their second year,
it seems, were honorary members of this association; but
they were permitted to speak in voluntary argument, and
vote as members of the court of appeal.

During several years, it was customary to grant to
every law student of the first year who had fallen slightly
below the standard required in his examinations, an opportunity,
at the beginning of his second session, to pass a
special examination on the same course, instead of compelling
him to devote another session to that course, and
thus delaying for another twelve months, his acquisition
of his degree. In 1899, the law faculty were authorized
by the Board to deny this privilege altogether, or to subject
it to such conditions as they should decide to be expedient.
That faculty had, for some time, been also dissatisfied
with the rule which permitted a student who had
passed a course of study in another school of law to enter
(after a satisfactory examination before the law faculty
on such subjects as he desired credit for) the advanced
classes of the University's law department. This
rule they wished to be empowered to abolish, should time
confirm their impression of its doubtful utility. It seems
to have been revoked by the session of 1899–1900.

The ten classes in which the entire two year course had
been divided were subsequently increased to twelve. In

May, 1902, the law faculty recommended that the two
year course should be extended to a course of three.
They were prompted to urge this change by the example
of other law schools of high standing. Coincident with
this counsel, and perhaps suggested by it, they advised
the appointment of a fourth full professor, together with
an assistant; and also the introduction of additional
studies. Although the General Faculty gave their assent
to these proposals, the Board of Visitors were unwilling
at that time to order their adoption; but afterwards they
did confer upon the law faculty the power, for which
they had asked, to demand, as a condition of admission to
the department, the previous enjoyment of a high school
education or its equivalent. In the long interval between
1826 and 1904, the end of the Eighth Period, the degree
of bachelor of law had been conferred on thirteen hundred
and thirty-five graduates of the school.

VI. Courses of Instruction—Professional, Continued

It has been affirmed that the senior John Staige Davis,
the second demonstrator of anatomy in the history of the
School of Medicine, was the first instructor in the annals
of that school to encourage the members of his class
to learn for themselves through individual dissections.
This practical method of teaching was carried further in
this department during the Eighth Period, 1896–1904,
than it had been during any of the periods which antedated
it. It was in the expansion of laboratory facilities
that the growth of the department in practical usefulness
was now most discernible. That expansion, as we
have seen, had become increasingly perceptible after
the election of Professor Tuttle, in 1888, to the chair of
biology. Down to 1907, he continued to offer a course
in medical biology, the most important feature of which,

perhaps, was the instruction in histology in the laboratory
during one half of the year. In 1892–93, he assumed
charge of the course in bacteriology, in which laboratory
instruction was given during fourteen weeks of
the session.[11] A course in pathology,—which included
four hours of laboratory work each week, from November
to April,—was undertaken by the younger John
Staige Davis, who had been appointed Professor Tuttle's
assistant.

But the Faculty was still discontented with the progress
of the department. "The lack of a hospital," they asserted
in June, 1895, in their report to the Visitors,
"stands as a bar to our keeping pace with the improvement
in other schools, and we, therefore, urge the necessity
of securing it." These schools,—even in the South,
—with their improved clinical facilities had already become
destructive competitors. Not long before the occurrence
of the Great Fire, the General Faculty asked the
medical faculty to draft a scheme that would provide for
a three years medical course; and this change, when proposed
to the Board, was adopted by that body. The
distribution in force from the session of 1895–96, was as
follows: the studies of the first year embraced anatomy,
histology, bacteriology, and chemistry; those of the second,
physiology, pathology, materia medica, and obstetrics;
of the third, surgery, gynecology, practice of medicine,
hygiene, and medical jurisprudence. The theory of
this arrangement was that the first year should be given
up to the acquisition of those special sciences which were
to form the foundation of the whole work of the course;
and the second year, to the mastering of those more distinctly

medical sciences which were based on the work of
the first year, and also of professional subjects of study.
The third year was to be entirely taken up with the latter
subjects. The course of the first year also called for a
large degree of practical research in the laboratory and
the dissecting room.

With the adoption of a three years course, it became
necessary to provide for reexaminations at the end of the
second and third sessions in case of a student's failure to
reach the prescribed standard in his examinations on some
of the subjects of the previous session. The course was
already so long and so varied that few candidates for the
degree would have been willing to cover the whole of any
single year again, should he have fallen short in his examinations
in one or two branches only. He must, however,
have passed satisfactorily in at least two of the
studies pursued during the previous session and attained
on one or more of the remaining subjects a standard approved
by the Faculty. If the student had attended one
course of lectures spread over seven months, or two
courses spread over fourteen months, in another medical
school of high repute, he was to enjoy the right to graduate
in the University's department of medicine at the
end of one year or two years, in correspondence with the
length of his previous studies elsewhere. But he must
have first passed a successful examination at the University
of Virginia[12] on all the subjects which had been
embraced in this course in the medical school with which
he had been previously associated.

These different provisions, valuable as they were, still
did not satisfy the paramount aspiration of the medical
faculty. What they still desired most was the establishment
of a modern hospital, which would furnish the clinical

facilities now more pressingly demanded than ever, if
the prestige of their department was to be maintained.
The professors of that department pointed out that the
three years course was, after all, a three years course only
in name, as the graduate was compelled to pass at least
twelve months in some hospital elsewhere in order to obtain
the indispensable knowledge of clinics. It is true
that the department was still in possession of a dispensary
in which about three thousand cases were annually
treated; but the drawback to this fact, advantageous as it
was, was the brevity of the time that could be allotted
to each patient, for it did not pretend to be more than
out-door practice. The medical faculty earnestly disclaimed
any wish or intention on their part to abandon
the theoretical plan of teaching. A hospital, they said,
in reality, would be only the logical upshot of the traditions
of the school. It would be merely an extension of
the pathological laboratory. "Theory and practice,"
they declared, "had become so closely related that men
like Pasteur had been obliged to leave their research for
the causes of disease and to try to find out its treatment."

It was estimated by a committee of the General Faculty
that the erection and maintenance of a hospital would
entail an expense of at least seventy-five thousand dollars.
Of this amount, about twenty-five thousand would
be required for the mere building. No action was taken
by the Board until March 2, 1899, and when they did
move, it was chiefly due to the influence of the chairman
of the Faculty, Professor Barringer, of the medical department,
who, with all the persistence of a modern Cato,
had never ceased to emphasize the need for hospital
facilities. The sum of one hundred and fifty dollars was
appropriated for the drafting of plans for suitable structures.
Paul J. Pelz, the architect of Randall Hall and

the Congressional Library, was employed for the purpose.
He submitted a scheme for a short corridor pavilion
hospital, consisting of a central administration
building, with pavilions on either side having the breadth
and length to afford the area required for one hundred
and fifty beds. This plan having received the approval
of the Board, that body reserved twenty thousand dollars
out of the Fayerweather Fund, yet to be collected, with
which to make a start upon the building; but it was not
until October 10 of the same year, (1899),—in consequence
of the delay caused by the litigation over that
bequest,—that it became practicable to deposit $9,200 in
the hands of the construction committee, composed of
Professors Barringer, Mallet and Davis, for immediate
use so far as that sum would be able to go. Barringer
was instructed to solicit, during his vacation, contributions
from the alumni and public at large to repay the expense
of pushing the work to a finish. After the structure had
been raised to the second story, it was found necessary
to draw upon the general income of the University in
order to put the walls under roof.

The administration building was inaugurated in April,
1901. It had cost the sum of $26,600, about one-fourth
more than the original calculation, owing to the advance
in prices. This building contained the offices, operating
rooms, and clinical laboratories. It was not at first intended
for the accommodation of patients; but after a
short interval (1902), several rooms on the second floor
occupied by nurses and the solarium, together with some
space on the first floor, were thrown open to admit the
beds of twenty-five patients. The building continued to
be used as a general hospital until the pavilions had been
added. During the session of 1903–04, the General Assembly
appropriated the sum of $31,000, and with this

supplementary amount, one of these structures was
erected.

In the enlarged design for the entire hospital as finally
drafted (1904), the group was to consist of a row of
rectangular edifices, separated by open spaces about
thirty-five feet in length. The administration building
was to stand in the centre. On each side of it were to be
placed two other buildings, which were to contain separate
wards for white and colored patients, male and
female. The University infirmary was to be erected at
the south end of the group, and a lecture-hall at the north
end. The plan for the entire number of edifices was not
carried out in actual construction until after the close of
the Eighth Period 1896–1904. By the end of 1904,
however, six hundred and fifty-seven patients had been admitted
to the wards then in use, and the hospital was already
fulfilling with conspicuous success the clinical purposes
which the medical faculty, led by Professor Barringer,
had so persistently and so wisely harped upon in
their unbending determination to secure the establishment
in the end.

By the session of 1895–96, the faculty of the medical
department comprised Mallet, of the School of Chemistry,
Tuttle, of the School of Biology, Barringer, of the
School of Physiology and Materia Medica, and A. H.
Buckmaster, of the School of Gynecology, Obstetrics, and
Practice, while Christian was the professor of anatomy
and surgery, John Staige Davis, the adjunct professor of
pathology and hygiene, and H. S. Hedges, the demonstrator
of anatomy. Davis was subsequently succeeded by
William A. Lambeth as the professor of hygiene. The
Faculty in October, 1898, recommended that Davis
should be appointed to a new chair to be devoted to
courses in pathology, clinical diagnosis, and surgical diseases.[13]

It was also to include practical laboratory instruction.
During the last session (1904–1905) of the
Eighth Period, the medical faculty was made up of Professors
Mallet, Tuttle, Barringer, Christian, Buckmaster,
Davis, Dunnington, and Flippen, with Lambeth as
professor of hygiene and materia medica. Dr. Flippen
was the adjunct professor of bacteriology. There were
numerous assistants, instructors, and demonstrators.

During the session of 1898–99, the different courses of
the medical department were for the first time distributed
over a period of four years. The studies for the first
year were to embrace chemistry, descriptive anatomy and
biology; for the second, physiology, bacteriology, general
pathology; regional anatomy, and hygiene; for the third,
embryology, obstetrics, practice of medicine, surgery, special
pathology, clinical diagnosis, and materia medica; for
the fourth, the practice of medicine, therapeutics, clinical
surgery, dermatology, diseases of eye and ear, gynecology,
and medical jurisprudence. During the fourth
year, the previous laboratory courses in histology, pathology
and comparative anatomy were to be extended, and
additional work in chemistry and physics was also then
to be required. Professors Dunnington and W. J. Humphreys
were the lecturers on the last two subjects.

During the following session (1899–1900), the medical
faculty announced that, in the future, they would expect
of every medical student at his first matriculation,
"evidence of adequate preparation for the work of the
medical department." For the present, they said, they
would be content with the proof of his possession of a
sound general education. It would be looked upon as sufficient
proof of this fact should the applicant be able to

show that he had obtained the degree of bachelor of
arts from a seat of learning of collegiate rank; or be
able to present a certificate of good standing in the
classes of such an institution; or the diploma of graduation
in a high school of reputation, whether public or
private; or a testimonial of excellent character from the
principal of such a school. If thought to be advisable,
the applicant could be further required to demonstrate
his proficiency by the test of an actual examination.

In 1901, a training school for nurses was established
at the University; and two years afterwards, the first
class was graduated. The instruction in the primary
branches was given by the professors in the medical
school; the instruction in clinics by the professors or their
assistants who were attached to the hospital.

VII. Courses of Instruction—Professional, Continued

Upon no single department did the catastrophe of the
fire fall more heavily than on the department of engineering.
It was asserted at the beginning of the ensuing session,
—jestingly, it is true, but with too close an approximation
to actuality to be pleasant,—that the engineering
corps of teachers and their audience comprised one
professor, one instructor, and one student. But how extensive
was the growth of this department during the
decade that followed was demonstrated by the number of
persons whom it became necessary, within that period, to
add to its faculty,—besides the four full professors in
1906, there were four instructors. Taking in all the
branches of study that impinged on the science of engineering,
there could be counted in the faculty of the department
not less than fourteen professors and instructors.

In spite of the ruin which appeared to have overwhelmed

the department just after the fire, the Board
wisely determined that it should not be allowed to remain
in this condition. The sum of five thousand dollars was
appropriated for its reequipment. The erection of the
mechanical building put the department in a position of
practical usefulness far superior in its advantages to the
one which it had previously occupied. The first gift for
the restoration of that usefulness was made by R. C. Taylor,
of New York; and it was followed by a donation of
twenty-five hundred dollars by his mother, Mrs. John A.
Sinclair. This was to be employed in providing the laboratory
with the means for testing the quality and
strength of constructive materials. The number of students
in attendance began to increase so steadily that,
after an interval, it was found necessary to choose an
assistant from the ranks of those members of the class
who had proven themselves to be most competent. Ultimately,
three were thus singled out. In 1903, Lewis L.
Holladay was appointed to the adjunct professorship of
applied mathematics. The second gift to the department,
—to which we have alluded elsewhere,—was the
sum of ten thousand, five hundred dollars presented by
Mrs. Frances Branch Scott, of Richmond, as a memorial
of her son. One half of this amount, as we have already
stated, was spent in equipping the manual laboratory of
electrical engineering; the other half was invested with a
view to the maintenance of that laboratory. Through
the liberality of Peter B. Rouss, two new adjunct professors
now became practicable,—one in civil engineering;
the other in mechanical. These were established in memory
of Charles Broadway Rouss, the philanthropic father
of the benefactor, and were filled by the appointments of
John Lloyd Newcomb and Charles M. McKergow.

The courses which had to be mastered during and after

the session of 1895–96, in order to secure the degree
of bachelor of science, which was now the title granted
in the department, embraced the five following divisions:
mathematics—mechanics, physics—astronomy,
chemistry—analytical chemistry, geology—biology,
and applied mathematics. Astronomy was subsequently
dropped. Each of these divisions led up to a special diploma
of graduation. There were to be found in each
school (1896–97) two courses,—one general, the other
advanced; one dealing with the general principles of the
subject, such as were necessary to be known for a liberal
education, the other with the extensions of that subject,
especially in its industrial applications. The first was required
of all who were candidates for the degree of bachelor
of science, which corresponded to the degree of bachelor
of arts; the other was an advanced course, which corresponded
to the graduate course required of a candidate
for the degree of master of arts.

In the School of Applied Mathematics, there was established,
—in addition to the general and advanced
courses,—a complete series of technical courses in the
different branches of engineering; namely, civil, mining,
mechanical, and electrical. The work of instruction was
simultaneously pursued in the drawing room, the laboratory,
and the field.

Some changes in the courses of study in engineering
were announced during the session 1898–99. Four divisions
were laid off, each of which led up to a separate
degree. One course was arranged for the degree of civil
engineering; another for that of mining engineering; another
still for the degree of mechanical engineering; and
still another for the degree of electrical engineering. In
each was introduced a notable expansion of subjects; and
this was particularly discernible on its technical side.

The enlargement in the electrical course was the most
perceptible of all; and this was to be observed as much
in its practical aspects as in its purely technical. The
equipment of the electrical school consisted of a workshop,
metalshop, testing laboratory, and drawing-room.
At the end of the Eighth Period, 1896–1904, the engineering
department had the use of four large buildings:
(1) the mechanical laboratory; (2) the Rouss laboratory
and museum of industrial chemistry; (3) Brooks
Museum, (4) pattern-shop, foundry, and forge. The
course was now spread over three sessions.

The student in the department of agriculture was not
confined to its lectures. If he should so desire, it was
permissible for him to combine the study of the several
courses in this department with the study of selected
courses in the academic schools. The object of granting
this privilege was to place the courses of the agricultural
department among those that might be elected by the candidate
for the graduated degrees of bachelor of arts, master
of arts, and doctor of philosophy. The income of the
Miller Fund was not sufficient to provide at the same time
for practical tests in the arts of agriculture, and also for
instruction in all those sciences upon which that art was
founded.

During the session of 1896–97, it was announced that
new regulations had become necessary in order to lay out
the fund more usefully, without departing by a hair's
breadth from the wishes of the donor. First, the experiment
station was discontinued. No loss to agriculture
was really occasioned by this act, as the Federal Government
had, by this date, set up stations of its own in all
parts of the Union. Second, agricultural colleges with
vocational advantages of all kinds were now numerous
throughout the South,—the region from which the agricultural

department of the University of Virginia could
alone expect to obtain its patronage. The existence of
these two facts seem to have convinced the Faculty and
Board that the funds of this department should now be
entirely expended in the enlargement of the opportunities
of those students who aspired to the acquisition of
the sciences on which the art of agriculture was based;
and it was, therefore, decided,—apparently with the
approval of the Miller trustees,—to limit the instruction
to the courses embraced in the Schools of Biology
and Agriculture, Analytical Chemistry, Applied Mathematics,
Chemistry, Natural History and Geology, and
Natural Philosophy. This instruction was, in its general
aspects, such as was considered to be essential to the
equipment of a liberally educated man who happened to
be pursuing agriculture as a calling in life; but it also extended
to special courses in those sciences which related
directly and practically to the art of farming.

The trustees of the Miller Fund, at a later date, were
not fully satisfied with the manner in which the School of
Biology was conducted,—in June, 1899, they informed
the Visitors that, in their opinion, the instruction given
in this school did not bear the precise relation to practical
and experimental agriculture which they, as representatives
of Mr. Miller, were required by their oaths to
keep strictly and constantly in view. Under the pressure
of this protest, the Board adopted the rule that the lectures
thereafter should be restricted to the principles of
agriculture as based on the sciences of chemistry, botany,
and zoology.

VIII. Scholarships and Fellowships

In 1896, the executive committee of the Board recommended
that a fellowship should be erected in each of

the following schools: Latin, Greek, Physics, Pathology,
and Biology. The annual income to be used for the support
of each was to amount to three hundred dollars, and
the holder was to be exempted from the payment of matriculation
and tuition fees. No one was to be permitted
to be a candidate for any one of these fellowships unless
he had been successful in a competitive examination; and
he must also be a member of the school to which the fellowship
belonged; or at least have studied in some academic
department with a cognate subject. The Faculty
apparently approved of the establishment of these new
fellowships. They advised (1) that the appointees
should be required to give up their time principally to
advanced study in the province of original research; (2)
that no one should be chosen who was not desirous of
making such investigations; and (3) that those selected
should possess such tact and capacity as teachers that they
would be able to assist the professors of the schools in
which they were fellows as often, and to as great an extent,
as those professors should decide to be desirable.

The Faculty, in 1897, drafted a scheme of scholarships,
which, in their opinion, was adapted to link the private
schools more closely to the University: (1) one scholarship
was to be annually awarded to every such school that
could prove that five students of the previous session had
been admitted to the University's academic department;
(2) the holder of each of these scholarships, if a Virginian,
was to be exempted from the payment of a matriculation
fee; and if from another State, from the payment of
the tuition fee; (3) the candidate, however, was to be
required to pass a preliminary examination in the Latin
and English languages, and in the science of mathematics.
These recommendations,—which were reported in December,
1897,—were promptly adopted by the Visitors.

It was also proposed to establish five public school
scholarships. When these scholarships were announced
by the Board, it was with the provision that each one of
them should continue in existence at least three years,
with an annual income of two hundred dollars. The Faculty
pointed out that if each of these scholarships was
to be filled only once in three years, then only the graduates
of the third year in the public schools would have an
opportunity of competing for them,—a fact which they
anticipated would excite criticism and cause dissatisfaction.
If, on the other hand, in order to shut off this feeling,
the entire number of five scholarships were to be filled
annually, there would be, at the end of three years, a company
of fifteen incumbents, which would thereafter never
grow less. This would impose a burden of three thousand
dollars, each session, upon the narrow resources of
the University,—an outlay which it could not afford to
incur. As a substitute for the plan presented by the
Board, the Faculty recommended that the number of the
scholarships should be limited to six; that only two appointments
to them should be made each year; that the
holders should not be exempted from the payment of matriculation
fees; that they should be selected by competitive
examination from among the applicants furnished by
the public high schools; and that each school should be required
to choose at least three competitors from among its
graduates or candidates for graduation. The Board
adopted this recommendation, just as they had done the
one touching the scholarships for the private schools.[14]

In June, 1900, the Visitors, perceiving the practical advantage
to the University of extending a certain number
of scholarships to communities situated beyond the borders

of Virginia, established three, which they named the
Board of Visitors Scholarships. These were to be supported
by annuities, to amount, in each instance, to two
hundred and fifty dollars; were to be awarded by the executive
committee on the recommendation of the chairman
of the Faculty; and were to be limited to a single
session. They do not appear to have been confined to
the academic department.

During the session of 1900–01, there were twenty-three
holders of scholarships, and during the session of
1901–2, there were twenty. A considerable proportion
of these incumbents were in the enjoyment of alumni
scholarships which had been created by the Board of
Visitors in March, 1899. It was provided in that year
that every alumni chapter which embraced a membership
of ten,—the number was subsequently advanced to
twenty,—should possess the annual right to name the
holder of a scholarship at the University. He must,
however, be a young man who was in need of assistance to
obtain an education. If the chapter numbered fifty members,
it was to be entitled to two incumbents annually.
Each of these appointees, if a Virginian, was to be exempted
from the payment of tuition and matriculation
fees alike; if from another State, he was not to be required
to pay any of the tuition fees except those imposed
in the School of Analytical chemistry and for the
use of the laboratories. It was not the several chapters
that supported these alumni scholarships,—it was the
University alone. Each chapter was supposed to contribute
to the expenses of the General Alumni Association,
but not to those of the University itself.

In 1902, the following list embraced the scholarships
then in existence: (1) the private and public school,—
one scholarship for every five pupils sent by each to the

University of Virginia; (2) the Virginia public high
school,—each standard school was entitled to one scholarship;
(3) the alumni,—filled by the appointment of the
local associations; (4) the Miller,—awarded on the recommendation
of the Faculty; (5) the McCormick,—
awarded by the representative of the original donor; (6)
the Thompson Brown,—awarded by the founder; (7)
the Isaac Carey,—awarded by the Carey trustees;
(8) the Birely scholarship—awarded by the Board of
Visitors to a student from Maryland; (9) the John Y.
Mason Fellowship; (10) the Vanderbilt fellowship,—
filled on the recommendation of the director of the observatory;
(11) the Board of Visitors fellowship,—one
of which was awarded in the School of Teutonic Languages;
the other, in the School of English Literature.

In 1903, a scholarship in English literature was established
by Mrs. Herbert A. Claiborne, and her brother,
Colonel Henry C. Cabell, in memory of their father, a
distinguished officer in the Confederate army. At one
time, there was a scholarship attached to the department
of physical training. This was conferred by the Board
of Visitors upon the candidate who had been recommended
by the director of the gymnasium; it entitled the
holder to admission to the medical courses without the
payment of either matriculation or tuition fees, and to a
cash bonus of one hundred dollars; but he was required
to serve as an assistant to the director in the athletic exercises.
This scholarship seems to have been subsequently
abolished.

In November, 1903, the Board created a number of
scholarships which were designated as the Scholarships of
Accredited Schools and Colleges. Those institutions
were pronounced accredited which had bestowed an unbroken
patronage on the University, or the graduates of

which had, from year to year, been exceptionally successful
in its lecture-halls. These scholarships were limited
to the academic department, and each could only be held
by an incumbent who had graduated the previous session
in the particular school to which his scholarship belonged.

In March, 1903, the Faculty awarded a medal for the
best essay submitted on some branch of philosophy by
a candidate for the degree of master of arts. A second
medal was conferred upon the student of the graduating
class in the department of law who possessed the most
meritorious record; a third, on the student in engineering
who had made the most original investigation into the
properties of the hydraulic cements manufactured in Virginia;
and a fourth, on the student in the graduating class
of the School of Latin who had surpassed his fellows in
the excellence of his marks.

IX. Degrees

In June, 1895, the Faculty recommended for adoption
by the Board of Directors the ensuing rule for the
bestowal of the degree of bachelor of arts: the candidate
should be required to win a diploma of graduation
in at least one branch of every one of the following
courses,—and with a sufficient addition from the same
courses, in branches not at first selected, to make up a
total of nine diplomas: (1) Latin, Greek; (2) German,
French, and English languages; (3) English literature,
history, political economy; (4) logic, psychology, ethics,
and history of philosophy; (5) mathematics, mechanics
and astronomy; (6) physics and chemistry; (7) biology
and geology. It was claimed that this division of studies
for the degree would be accompanied by several substantial
advantages: (1) it would create a perfect balance
between the literary and scientific requirements, and make

certain a rational distribution between natural science in
the sixth clause and natural history in the seventh; (2)
it would remove the subject of political economy from the
section of philosophical science,—to which it was improperly
assigned originally,—and transfer it to one of
the branches of literary study; (3) it would admit the
English language to association with the cognate German,
and thus concentrate the instruction given in Teutonic
philology; (4) it would add a ninth course to the
ground to be traversed by the candidate, and thus widen
the basis on which the higher degrees of master of arts
and doctor of philosophy should rest.

These recommendations do not appear to have been
adopted.

The necessity for new attractions in the requirements
for the degree of bachelor of arts still remained. It was
announced, during the session of 1897–98, that the division
of subjects would hereafter be as follows: (1) ancient
languages—Latin, Greek; (2) modern languages,
—French, German, Italian, Spanish; (3) history and
English,—general history, English literature and English
language; (4) philosophical science,—economics,
logic, psychology, ethics, and philosophy; (5) mathematical
science,—mathematics, mechanics and astronomy;
(6) experimental science,—physics and general chemistry;
(7) descriptive sciences,—botany, comparative anatomy,
and geology.

A significant feature of this new grouping was the provision,
in 1898–99, that only the student who should select
both Latin and Greek would be exempted from the requirement
of a general course of nine studies. It was
considered by the Faculty to be adequate preparation for
entrance upon these studies should the candidate possess
a respectable knowledge of English grammar, composition,

and rhetoric; of arithmetic, algebra, and plane
geometry; and of the grammar and composition of at
least one of the classical languages. It was calculated
that the acquisition of the degree would call for the application
of at least four years.

Evenly balanced and nicely adjusted as these provisions
appeared to be, they failed to be acceptable to the college
authorities of New York and Illinois, because they did
not fulfil the conditions adopted by those States for matriculating
students with credits for their previous work
in outside institutions. In order to surmount this obstacle,
the Board, in November, 1900, determined to
confer the degree only on the student who had completed
ten of the studies presented, three of which could be
selected from any of the courses included in the list. The
remaining seven had to be chosen with at least one from
each of the seven groups. The candidate who selected
both Latin and Greek was permitted to limit his courses to
nine.

It was perceived, at an early date, that the adoption of
a too voluminous division for the baccalaureate degree
would extend too much the length of time which a professional
student would be compelled to remain in the
University. Many of the young men who expected to
enter the department of law, medicine, or engineering
after completing the undergraduate course, did not think
that they could afford to prolong so far their stay within
the precincts. The number of matriculates was soon diminished
by this fact, for a disposition, in consequence of
it, sprang up to cut down the period spent in the academic
department to two years. In order to remove the reason
for this action, the Board, in 1903–04, permitted the
candidate for the degree to choose, as one of his three
electives, a course in the department of law or medicine,

or three courses in the department of engineering.
Knowing before hand what profession he intended to pursue,
the candidate could make a selection among the
studies for the baccalaureate degree that would be precisely
adapted to the character of his proposed calling in
life. If his purpose was to become a lawyer, then it
would be expedient for him to include in his list Latin,
history, English literature, economics, and philosophy.
If, on the other hand, he aspired to become a physician,
he would be certain not to omit the subject of chemistry,
physics, biology, French and German; or if his purpose
was to enter business, then he would be sure to choose
the subject of modern history and economics, English literature,
the English language, and such continental
tongues as would probably be of most service to him.

In 1903, the Faculty recommended that biology should
be substituted for geology in the scheme adopted for the
degree of bachelor of arts; and that geology should be
transferred to the list of electives. Italian was to be
dropped from this course, in order that it might become
a part of the course for the degree of master of arts.

Previous to the year 1892, the round of studies prescribed
for the degree of master of arts was, as we have
shown, an inflexible one. There was no room to be found
in it for the exercise of a choice of subjects. It was designed
for the promotion of mental discipline rather than
for the acquisition of information, although well adapted
to this latter end also. But the expansion in the scope of
the higher academic classes, and the introduction of more
courses in science, rendered it inevitable that the curriculum
of the degree of master of arts would undergo in
time very material alterations to suit the special tastes of
the young men who should desire to win it. The number
of those whose inclinations leaned, not so much to mathematics

and the ancient languages, as to English literature
and history, natural science, natural history, the
Teutonic and Romanic languages, was steadily growing
larger. This disposition could not be permanently
brushed aside. A complete revolution in the character
of the degree was brought about when it was decided to
award it to the candidate who had obtained diplomas in
four specified elective courses, but it was essential that he
should have beforehand won the degree of bachelor of
arts, either at the University of Virginia, or at some other
approved institution, as a foundation for these advanced
studies, and as a guarantee of the culture necessary to
their fruitful prosecution.

Among the practical benefits to be gained by these
changes was the assurance which it gave (1) of a closer
bond to be created between the academic work of the
Southern college and the similar work of the University
of Virginia; (2) of a more powerful influence to be
brought to bear for the further expansion of the higher
courses of the latter institution; and (3) of a more vigorous
encouragement to be given to specialization on the
part of both student and professor. Under the rule
that formerly existed, a candidate for the degree of master
of arts, who had previously received a degree in another
college, was still called upon to win a diploma in
every school belonging to the old curriculum. Even the
bachelor of arts of that college was required to stand
an examination on the subjects which had not been already
traversed by him.

"Experience has proven," says Professor Thornton,
in commenting on the abandoned regulation, "that this
onerous provision was useless. The work of the Southern
colleges grew better and better. It seemed unreasonable
to keep these men back from their special work.

The policy of the University is to admit a bachelor of arts
of a good college to full advanced study, and to permit
him to take in each department of his work the highest
class which he can profitably pursue. The Faculty reserves
the right in extreme cases to exact examinations and
to require the pursuit of supplementary courses of undergraduate
study. But their attitude in general is advisory
and not mandatory. It is essential to the aspirant
for the degree of master of arts who has been educated
elsewhere that his preliminary training shall have been
ample and thorough, and such studies as may be needed
to fill up his training will be arranged for him. He must
receive his degree of master of arts upon a course of
study as comprehensive, as thorough, as enlightening, as
liberal, as that of his brother bachelor of arts of the
University of Virginia."

In 1896, the Faculty asked the Board of Visitors' consent
to the admission to the University's advanced
courses, as candidates for the degree of doctor of philosophy,
of all bachelors and masters of arts from other
seats of learning with whose preparation they had reason
to be satisfied, after an examination by two professors.
Having obtained the approval solicited, this body,
during the session of 1897–98, announced that the pursuit
of three studies would be required as the first condition
for the attainment of the degree, whether by a candidate
from the University itself or from another institution.
These were to be a major subject,—in connection
with which a dissertation was to be written,—a cognate
minor, and an independent minor. The second condition
was that the entire course was to be spread over a
period of three years as a minimum. The study of the
major subject was to be continued throughout this interval;
of the first minor, through two years at least; but

of the second minor through only one. A third condition
was that the candidate should possess a "reading knowedge"
of French and German; and a fourth, that, at
the end of the third session, he was to pass a successful
examination on the whole ground covered by the major
and minor subjects.

In 1895, in order, as they said, to liberalize the requirements
for the degrees in the engineering department,
and to bring the practice of the University of
Virginia into harmony with that of the foremost American
and European schools, the Faculty recommended:
(1) that the existing degrees of civil engineer, mining
engineer, and mechanical engineer should be abolished;
and that in their place, the degree of bachelor of science
should be established, with some special earmark
to show the branch in which it had been won; (2) that
this new degree should be awarded to the student who
had obtained diplomas in seven courses, two of which
should consist of electives. As we have already mentioned,
this distribution was subsequently revoked, and
there was a return to the original scheme, to which the
degree of electrical engineer was now added.

During the first eighty sessions in the history of the
University of Virginia, (1825–1904), the degree of bachelor
of arts was won by three hundred and sixty-one students;
the degree of master of arts by three hundred and
ninety-three; of doctor of philosophy by thirty-five; of
civil, mining, mechanical and electrical engineer by ninety-nine;
of doctor of medicine by twelve hundred and fifty-seven;
and of bachelor of law by thirteen hundred and
thirty-five. If the number of students enrolled, during
this interval, is considered, there was perhaps not another
institution which could show so small a proportion
of graduates for the same period.

X. Administration

Many years before the divisions into departments had
been officially approved,—although, in the meanwhile,
these divisions had been recognized in the catalogues,—
the professors connected with each one had exercised, as
members of the standing committee to which their particular
department had been assigned, the functions of a
minor faculty. The efficiency of such small governing
bodies had been conspicuously exhibited in the instance
of the professional departments, although it was tacitly
acknowledged that not one of them had, except as a committee,
the authority to act in that character. As the attendance
at the University increased, and the teaching in
the professional courses grew more highly specialized,
the need of a frank and open statement of the powers of
these minor faculties became more difficult to ignore.
It seemed to be imperative that some member of each one
of them should be formally designated to represent it
when the occasion arose for voicing its convictions, or for
giving information and advice touching some matter belonging
to that particular department. The burden of
these duties now fell on the chairman of the General Faculty,
and it was feared that, with the more numerous
calls upon his time, created by the ever swelling mass of
correspondence, and the rapid expansion of college work,
he would not be able to stand up under so great a burden.

In order to relieve this over-taxed officer in part, and
also to secure for the minor faculties a more direct control
over the affairs of their several departments, the
General Faculty recommended that the academic department
and the departments of agriculture, law, medicine,
and engineering, should be formally recognized, and that
they should be organized in harmony with the following

regulations: (1) the professors in each department
should constitute the faculty of that department
(2) this minor faculty should possess the right of
supervision over all the general interests of their
department; and should also exercise such authority over
the attendance, scholarship, and behavior of every matriculate
enrolled in it as the General Faculty should
specially delegate to them; (3) a right of appeal
from the decisions of the minor faculty to the
General Faculty should always exist, and no student
should be dismissed without a review of all the circumstances
of his case by the larger body; (4) each
minor faculty should be empowered to elect by ballot a
dean from the circle of its members, whose duties should
consist of acting as the presiding officer at every meeting
of his own faculty; of assisting the chairman in replying
to the University's general correspondence; of matriculating
those students who should wish to be admitted to his
own department; and of serving as its public representative
whenever the occasion made it appropriate for him
to do so. This recommendation was earnestly opposed
by several of the older professors, but in May, 1899, it
was finally adopted by the General Faculty, and sent on
to the Board of Visitors, who stamped it with their approval.

Two years afterwards, the committee of the General
Faculty charged with the distribution of powers among
the minor faculties reported in favor of the following
rules,—which, in some small particulars, modified the
existing regulations touching this subject: (1) each minor
faculty should possess the sole right of control over the
discipline of the young men enrolled in their department
so far as it related to attendance and class standing; but
this was not to be accompanied by the additional right to

require a delinquent to withdraw from the University unless
the General Faculty had first approved the order; (2)
in each case in which a special examination was requested
by a student, the minor faculty of the department to
which he belonged should first decide whether it should
be granted; and (3) they alone should be authorized to
permit a student of that department to change his classes
or to extend his courses of study.

In 1902, the Visitors instructed the General Faculty to
appoint a special committee of their members who were
to be ready to attend any meeting of the Board to which
they might be summoned for consultation. The chairman
of the Faculty was to act as the head of this committee.[15]

XI. Library

When the books which had been dropped in confused
piles on the Lawn during the Great Fire were about to be
gathered up for temporary deposit elsewhere, it was decided
that the safest place of storage for the present was
one of the upper rooms of the Brooks Museum; and here
the remnants of the once fine collection found a resting
spot until the Rotunda was rebuilt. In the meanwhile, at
least one plan for a second temporary removal was debated
by the Faculty. In January, when barely sixty
days had passed since the reduction of the old library
room to ashes, that body, in their anxiety to assort the
surviving volumes and rearrange them for use, recommended

that the chapel should be put in shape to receive
them until more commodious quarters could be obtained.
But the Board apparently failed to adopt this suggestion,
—in all probability, because it would have made necessary
at least two transfers of the books.

When the library-room was first ready for reoccupation,
the volumes were not removed there at once. Before
this could be done, shelves had to be provided.
This brought the question of the physical equipment of
the apartment up for disposition; there was, at the moment,
an almost complete lack of funds for the continuation
of the building; and the Faculty were of the opinion
that the rough shelves then in existence at the Brooks
Museum should be taken down, and replaced in the new
library-room, there to remain until the University should
be in a financial position to substitute for them shelves of
a better quality. One year later, the same body complained
that the professors and students were still practically
deprived of the use of the books,—there were,
they said, no enclosures to the shelves, no doors to the
cases, few chairs for seating the readers. Apparently as
late as October, 1898, the books had not been deposited
on the shelves owing to the fear that they would be
damaged by the repairs, which had now become necessary
in consequence of certain defects in the original reconstruction.
The students went so far as to threaten
to place the volumes before these repairs were begun, as
they had grown impatient over the small use to be made
of the library. When the last touch, however, had been
given to the room, the University was in possession of
one of the noblest apartments of that character to be
found in the United States.

Apart from law and medical books, about eleven thousand
volumes were snatched from the jaws of the consuming

flames by the fierce energy of the students, with the
heroic cooperation of the ladies of the University, and
with the assistance also of the people of Charlottesville.
Frederick W. Page was still the librarian. In May, 1896,
he was able to report that nearly seven thousand volumes
had been presented by friends of the institution during the
short interval that had elapsed since the conflagration.
Among these donors were publishers like Little, Brown,
and Company, Harper Brothers, and the Macmillan
Company; universities like Tulane, Yale, and Columbia;
and private citizens like Colonel Charles S. Venable, General
Eppa Hunton, and John S. Pierson. In the course
of the same year, the choice Hertz collection, comprising
twelve thousand titles, which had been bought by the members
of the New York chapter of the alumni, was delivered
to their alma mater, with an eloquent expression of
sympathy and affection, which made the gift doubly
valuable.

By the opening of the year 1897, not less than twenty
thousand volumes had been added to the collection by
the generosity of individuals and organizations. Among
the donors in 1897 were the Virginia State Library; the
Universities of Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge; the
executors of Professor Minor; Colonel R. T. W. Duke,
educator, lawyer, and soldier; Dr. W. H. Ruffner, who
had been most influential in establishing the public school
system in Virginia; John S. Wise, the author of the End
of an Era; F. W. M. Holliday, Governor of the Commonwealth,
and a man of uncommon culture; Professor W. P.
Dubose, the distinguished theological writer; Daniel B.
Lucas, the poet and jurist; and John L. Williams, the
philanthropic banker of Richmond and a devoted alumnus.
No one had been more instrumental and more successful
in replenishing the depleted library by their private

appeals to friends than Colonel W. Gordon McCabe
and Rev. Dr. J. William Jones. By February, 1897,
the librarian reported that the number of volumes then
in the University's possession was thirty-eight thousand.

A gratuitous stream of valuable books continued to
flow in. Alfred Roelker, of New York, in May, 1897,
presented a large number of volumes relating to German
philology; and in September of the same year, gave a
complete set of the works of Professor Bledsoe. An
alumnus purchased a bulky portion of the collection which
had belonged to Professor George F. Holmes,—three
thousand titles in all—and made a gift of it to the University.
Governor Holliday, who died in 1899, bequeathed
to the institution his entire library, which had
been gathered together with remarkable discrimination
extended over a long period. It contained more than
four thousand volumes, and was especially rich in works
relating to the history of Virginia. Several hundred volumes
of a very choice collection were presented during
the same year by Miss Marie Bruce as a memorial of her
father, William Ballard Bruce. In the course of the next
year, Professor James A. Harrison and his wife gave a
large number of books bearing upon the subject of Southern
literature; and they also presented a cabinet filled
with editions of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and publications
relating to his chequered life. During the twelve
months ending with June, 1899, not less than nine thousand
additional volumes were placed on the shelves of the
library. Among the donors of 1901, were Rev. Haslett
McKim, Rev. Charles A. Briggs, and Dr. B. W. Green.

By the end of the following year, the library had
swelled to fifty thousand volumes, and it now lacked only
about seven thousand to be equal in size to the one which
had fallen a prey to the flames in 1895. The original

had contained some old and rare editions which were of
almost priceless value in the eyes of bibliophiles, and
which could never be replaced; but for practical usefulness,
the new library was superior in quality to the old;
the room too was far better lighted and heated; and it
was observed also that it was much more resorted to by
the students. In 1903, three thousand books belonging
to the Barnard Shipp collection were added to the library.
Mr. Shipp had directed his chief attention to the purchase
of works relating to American history. This gift was
swelled, in the course of the following year, by Mrs.
Thomas R. Price's presentation of her deceased husband's
collection of four thousand volumes. The law
library of General Bradley T. Johnson was also given at
this time by his son and executor, Bradley S. Johnson.

In addition to these numerous and valuable gifts, several
endowments were established for the annual purchase
of books. In 1899, the family of Alfred H. Byrd, of
New York, in conformity with his wishes, presented his
entire estate to the University as a memorial fund, the
income from which was to be annually invested in the purchase
of volumes relating to the history and literature of
Virginia. A separate alcove in the library was reserved
for the storage of the special works to be thus acquired.
The D'Arcy Paul memorial fund, amounting to one thousand
dollars, was created by his widow, with the provision
that the interest annually accruing from that sum was to
be used for subscriptions to journals devoted to modern
philology.

Interesting busts and portraits were also added to the
existing collection of the library in the course of this
period. As we have seen, there had been no loss in either
form by the fire in consequence of the fact that these objects,
having caught the eye of the rescuers at once, had

been promptly carried out to a place of safety. All, including
Galt's statue of Jefferson, were restored to the
room as soon as it was thrown open for reoccupation.
Among the additions to the number of busts was a marble
one of Senator W. C. Preston, of South Carolina, presented
by his brother, the former rector, Colonel Thomas
L. Preston; a bronze bust of Poe, the artistic work of
Zolnay; a replica of Houdon's bust of Lafayette, which
was presented by the French Republic in appreciation of
the warm reception extended by the University to Jusserand,
the French ambassador, on the occasion of his
visit; and a bronze bust of Cicero, the gift of Doctor
Coles, of New York. The portraits added, during the
same period, were those of Alfred H. Byrd, a benefactor;
Schele de Vere, the professor; John R. Thompson, the
poet; Robley Dunglison, a member of the first Faculty;
John Marshall, the gift of John L. Williams; W. Gordon
McCabe, the gift of the alumni of his school; Commodore
Maury, the gift of John L. Williams also; and
Thomas Norwood, the gift of his former pupils.

In October, 1902, John S. Patton was appointed assistant
librarian for the session of 1902–3. When Frederick
W. Page retired from the senior position, after occupying
it for nearly twenty years, Mr. Patton was elected
in his place, with Miss Anne S. Tuttle as his assistant.
A resolution of the Faculty paid a just and feeling tribute
to the character of Mr. Page,—his love of books, his interest
in literature, his courteous manners, his sense of
order, his knowledge of the students' needs, and his extraordinary
tact, patience, and kindness.

XII. The Students—Their Number and Expenses

During the long interval between February, 1825, and
June, 1904, approximately sixteen thousand young men

matriculated in the University of Virginia. Beginning
with the session of 1896–97, and ending with the session
of 1903–04,—the Eighth Period,—the total enrolment
from Virginia fell little short of twenty-seven hundred,
with an annual enrolment averaging about three hundred
and thirty-six. The attendance from all the States
grew from five hundred and four in 1896–97, to six hundred
and thirteen in 1903–04,—an average attendance
during these eight sessions of five hundred and ninety-five
for each session. The total for the entire Eighth Period
closely approximated four thousand, eight hundred matriculates.
One-fourth of this number were admitted
from Virginia. The attendance from the other States
had increased from two hundred and twenty-one in 1896–
97 to two hundred and sixty-seven in 1903–04. Thirty-two
commonwealths were, during this interval, represented
in the enrolment; all the Southern were to be found
in it; and of the Northern, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania,
Connecticut, Montana, California, Indiana, Kansas,
Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio,
Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. The total attendance
from these Northern States, during the session
of 1896–97, was thirty-one students; during the session
of 1903–04, fifty-two.

Not until the session of 1899–1900 did the number of
matriculates pass the highwater mark recorded for the
session of 1856–57,—the enrolment for the two sessions
was respectively six hundred and sixty-four and six hundred
and forty-five students. During the sessions of
1901–02 and 1903–04, the number again declined below
that of 1856–57. The increase in the general attendance
was attributable, in the first place, to the growing population
of the Southern States, with its accompanying
accumulation of wealth; and, in the second, to the influence

of the local alumni associations, which had begun
to show a thoroughly practical interest in the prosperity
of their alma mater.

At a meeting of the Faculty, held in March, 1899, Virginia
was divided into groups of counties, and to each
group a professor was assigned, with instructions to
start upon a canvass among its citizens, with a view to persuading
them to send to the University such of their
sons as were fully prepared to enter its classes. There
had already been appointed one committee to solicit endowments
and benefactions; a second, to conduct a literary
and correspondence bureau; and a third to keep the
run of the affairs of the numerous alumni chapters.

The following table indicates the proportion of students
attending the different departments at the begin
ning and at the end of the Eighth Period:

             

	1895–6	1903–4
Academic	250	299
Engineering	14	58
Law	110	190
Medicine	168	164
	___	___
Total	542	711

Anterior to the Eighth Period, 1896–1904, the session
began on October 1, and terminated on the last Wednesday
that came before the third day of July. After the
close of the session of 1896–97, the scholastic year seems
to have begun on September 15 and ended on the Wednesday
that preceded June 19.

The vexed question of granting a formal holiday at
Christmas was broached for decision again in November,
1895. The Faculty, with the Board's full approval, set
apart the interval between December 21 and December
28 as the period for the suspension of lectures; but before

six months had passed, they were of the opinion that
their recommendation to this effect should be recalled.
They had gone back to their original attitude of hostility
to the proposal under the influence of the revived conviction
that a holiday at this time of the year was detrimental
to the welfare of the University, in addition to
being repugnant to the wishes of a large proportion of the
students, who were anxious to avoid any interruption in
their work. The Board having refused to shift around
to this view, the Faculty, at a meeting held in the June
of 1897, declared, by a vote of twenty to two, that, in
their judgment, the Christmas holiday, if it had to be
established, should run from December 23 to December
28. One of the most tenable objections to the adoption
of such a holiday was removed by the division of the session
into three terms, the first closing on the second day
before Christmas. In 1898, the Board of Visitors unanimously
decided that the Christmas vacation should last
during the whole interval between December 20 and January
2.

A motion that April 13 should be marked by a suspension
of lectures also, was rejected, in 1903, at a meeting
of the Faculty; but Founder's Day seems to have been
celebrated as early as 1900–01 byexercises in the evening,
the most important part of which was an address by an
invited speaker of distinction. Thanksgiving Day, however,
had, by this date, been adopted as a college holiday.

In the course of 1888, a mass meeting of students was
held in the public hall to consider the expediency of altering
the University colors. Hitherto these colors had
very appropriately consisted of silver gray and cardinal
red,—the gray having been suggested by the tint of
the Confederate uniform, the red by the blood with

which it had been dyed on so many heroic battlefields.
The passion for athletic sports was now all-engrossing,
and it was imagined that these colors, in spite of their
inspiring patriotic associations, were not suitable for athletic
uniforms; and in addition, that, even if they were,
the gray tint would soon, with hard and rough wear, begin
to fade. How was it possible to obtain a combination
that would successfully resist the test of the rudest
and longest use? This question was so difficult for decision
that the brains of the entire audience were said to
have been, for the time being, paralyzed by an emotion
of complete perplexity. Suddenly, as if by a revelation
from another sphere, the problem which was confusing
so many bright intellects was solved. The recorder of
the event thus relates the story: "Mr. Allen Potts had
come in in his football clothing, being on his way to the
field. He had about his neck a very large silk handkerchief
striped navy blue and orange. A student pulled
this handkerchief from his neck, waved it, and cried out,
'How will this do?' The students adopted the combination
without opposition. It is said that the handkerchief
was a waist handkerchief that the English college men
used at that time instead of a belt. Mr. Potts had got
it at Oxford the previous summer, with a lot of boating
clothes."

As might have been expected and predicted, this abrupt
discardal of the old colors, with their splendid historical
memories, and the adoption of a bald substitute under
the influence of circumstances so casual and so trivial,
stirred up a feeling of opposition in the breasts of those
members of the Faculty who remembered the silver gray
and the red in their college years. "The bloody gray
of the old Confederate was good enough for the first generation,"
said Professor William H. Echols, "and it remained

for a younger to discern that it would not take
water well, and that blue and orange would be better, in
imitation of Princeton's orange and black; and here comes
Princeton saying that her real colors are orange and blue.
Let the University of Virginia go back to the colors of her
battlefields, which she carried to the front of Virginia
crews for eight successive years over all the waters of
Virginia."

After the session of 1895–96, there was a tendency in
the general charges of the University to advance. The
matriculation fee was now forty dollars; the contingent
fee, ten. The payment of the former entitled the student,
not only to the use of the books in the library, but
also to the enjoyment of all the advantages of the gymnasium,
including, besides free baths and free lockers, gratuitous
physical examination and instruction; the right, in
case of illness, to be attended by a member of the medical
faculty, without expense to the patient; and also without
expense to be nursed, should it become necessary for him
to be removed to the infirmary for treatment. The contingent
fee, now, as formerly, was to cover the cost of repairing
injuries to books, or to settle fines imposed for
violations of the rules, should either occur. The tuition
fees varied according to the school and department.
The general academic fee was still proportioned to the
number of studies,—there were still special charges only
in the case of the laboratory courses, or courses belonging
to a prearranged series of lectures. The only expense
for tuition that was borne by the students from Virginia
was incurred in the laboratory courses. All the professional
departments, as the table offered further on will
show, still retained their original scale of charges.

It was estimated that the cost of board, fuel, lights,
servants' attendance, and laundry, would not exceed

eighteen dollars a month; but there is reason to think that
the majority of the matriculates, during the Eighth Period,
1896–1904, spent for these purposes from twenty
to thirty dollars every thirty days; and many were led
to indulge in an even greater outlay of money for the
same objects. The following table sums up the average
charges during the session of 1899–1900, which was substantially
representative of all the sessions embraced in
this period.

           

Department	University Fees	Tuition	Books	Living Expenses	Total
Academic	$40.00	$75.00	$15.00–$25.00	$135–$270	$265–$400
Engineering	40.00	100.00	15.00–25.00	135–270	290–425
Agricultural	40.00	75.00	15.00–25.00	135–270	265–400
Medical	40.00	88.00	20.00	135–270	315–450
Law	40.00	100.00	45.00	135–270	320–455

In 1902, it was calculated that the living expenses of
the average matriculate varied from one hundred dollars
to two hundred and seventy, in the course of a single session.
Some of the young men, it was asserted, were able
to reduce their outlay on this account to a still lower figure.
In order to meet the needs of the members of the
student body who were compelled to subsist on the most
economical footing, the Faculty, in 1903, recommended
that a loan fund should be created by setting aside for
that purpose all the sums due at the end of each session
by those young men who had been credited with their University
and tuition fees at the beginning of their terms;
that out of this fund, definite amounts should be loaned
on notes to such individuals as would otherwise be unable
to enter; and that a permanent committee should be appointed
whose duty should be to find manual labor in the
University and its neighborhood, which would, by the income
it would afford, enable indigent students to acquire

the money that would be needed to pay the general fees
of admission.

XIII. Publications and Debating Societies

The first number of the Alumni Bulletin to be printed
was issued in May, 1894. The second series began in
April, 1901 and the third in 1908. The Visitors gave
their emphatic approval to this publication, as it was expected
to be an important channel of official communication
between themselves and the Faculty, on the one hand,
and the alumni and public at large on the other. The
Annals of Mathematics was also coming out during the
same interval.

The principal innovation in the management of the
magazine between 1895 and 1904 was the attachment to
the different articles appearing in its pages of the names
of their authors. Three prizes were now awarded for
contributions to this periodical. One of these was for
the most meritorious translation written by any matriculate
of the current year,—such translation to be of a
poem or prose article belonging to any of the languages
taught in the University. The purpose which it had in
view was to foster grace of style and stimulate a taste
for letters. The donor of this prize was Professor
James A. Harrison. The second prize,—which was
also presented by Professor Harrison,—was for the most
excellent poem; and the third,—the gift of Professor
Harrison again,—was for the most admirable prose article.
The magazine medal awarded by the two societies,
and valued at fifty dollars, was still annually conferred.
There were many persons who thought that now, as formerly,
this medal alone should be given as a reward for
the production of highest merit printed in the pages of
the college's only literary organ. The Harrison prizes,

—which were valued at but twenty dollars apiece,—
were considered by those who held this opinion as more
suitable for a high school, or even for a kindergarten,
than for a university.

There were now two terms, the autumn and the spring,
for each of which a separate group of editors for the magazine
were chosen; but the members of this board, during
the first term of the year, were eligible to reelection
to the same body during the second. Of the new set of
constitutional rules adopted by the two societies in the
course of the Eighth Period, one of importance related
to this periodical,—instead of those bodies offering one
medal, of the value of fifty dollars, for the most meritorious
prose article printed in its pages during the session,
two medals, of the value of twenty-five dollars each,
were to be conferred by them,—the one for the most admirable
story, the other for the most excellent prose piece.
This change followed the spirit of Professor Harrison's
annual gifts for the same purpose, which had, as we have
seen, been a ground for criticism. Unlike the Harrison
prizes, however, these medals could only be won by members
of the societies and subscribers to the magazine. In
addition to these two medals, two were still presented by
Professor Harrison, one of which was now awarded for
the most excellent poem, and the other for the best translation
of a prose article written in some foreign language.
These two last prizes were thrown open to the competition
of all the matriculates.

After delivering an address at the University before
the literary societies, William Jennings Bryan offered
them the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, on condition
that the annual income accruing from it should be
awarded to the author of the most thoughtful essay on
government printed in the magazine for each year.

In 1898, the editors complained that they had to support
the burden, not only of managing the business affairs
of this periodical, but also of writing the larger proportion
of its contents; and as a possible remedy for the lack
of interest in its welfare exhibited by the students as a
body, they proposed that all literary work of merit done
for its pages by any matriculate should be credited to his
standing in his classes. It seems that this rule had been
adopted in many of the Northern colleges.

By 1900, the magazine had shed some of its conventional,
classical, and imitative spirit, and had become
more distinctly reflective of the social characteristics of
the South,—more racy, in short, of the soil. It had, by
this time, begun to publish dialect stories and poems drawn
from the inexhaustible fund of negro lore, or the traditions
of the plain white folks of the back regions cut off
from intimate touch with the modern currents of thought
and speech. Miss Murfree and Page and Harris were
now the beckoning stars rather than Poe and Tennyson,
Bulwer and Addison, as in former years. This new disposition
was directly traceable to the influences created
by the award of the Harrison prizes. The tendency was
now to nurse the imaginative sense as contradistinguished
from the purely descriptive, critical, or historical sense.
While the imitative spirit which is always bobbing up in
college literature, was still far from being exorcised, it
had taken a direction in which it was liable to develop
more vigor of thought and skill in treatment. By 1900,
enough stories of merit had been printed in the magazine
to justify the publication of a separate volume; the Idyls
of the Lawn contained six tales which were of remarkable
talent by whatever standard they might be tested; and
their charm was enhanced by the decorative designs from
the graceful pencil of Duncan Smith.

In 1902, the prize offered by Professor Harrison for
the most meritorious poem was divided into two prizes,
one of fifteen dollars and one of five,—the first of which
was to be awarded for the authorship of the best poem,
the second for that of the next best, printed in the magazine
during each year. These prizes had a tendency to
encourage the production of verse, a form of composition
well adapted to improve the student's power of verbal expression,
but also perhaps promotive of a spirit of youthful
literary dilettantism. On top of these two prizes,
there was still open to competition the prize bestowed for
the most excellent translation in prose, the two societies'
medal conferred for the best essay, their additional medal
awarded for the best story, and the Bryan prize granted
for the most thoughtful dissertation on civil government.
Besides these numerous agencies for arousing interest in
English composition in its different forms, the department
of English announced, during the session of 1901–02,
that it would give a prize annually for the most admirable
original poem which should be printed in the pages of the
magazine. This prize was open to the competition of
every student in the University. The practical result of
this additional, perhaps imprudent, stimulant to the poetical
fecundity of the young men was a shining multitude
of poems of every variety. Not less than forty poetical
pieces,—some of them translations from foreign
tongues,—were published in the numbers for 1902–3
alone.

The condescending, not to say impartial, verdict of
other institutions of learning was highly favorable to the
merits of the University magazine during these years,
when so many prizes were sharply pricking the students
on to extraordinary volubility of prose and poetical utterance.
In 1904, the editors of the Harvard magazine

placed the periodicals of the principal colleges in the following
order of proportionate merit: Princeton, Harvard,
Columbia, Williams, and the University of Virginia.
In such a shining company, it was presumed to be
an honor even to bring up the rear.

A trophy, consisting of a gold and silver wreath encircling
a scroll of copper, was offered by Professor James A.
Harrison, in 1895, as a prize to be contested for by the
debaters of the two societies. Each of these bodies was
to be represented by its own group of selected champions,
the names of whom, in case of victory, were to be
engraved upon the face of the trophy, and the trophy itself
placed in the possession of that society, until it should
be won by the champions of its rival. There had been
such a decline in the interest which had been once shown
in the discussions in the two halls that the Visitors, in the
course of the following session (1895–96), appropriated
one hundred dollars for the purchase of medals to be
awarded by the societies themselves to their two most
skilful speakers. These were to be known as the "Rector
and Visitors' debating medals." In April of this
year, there was a public test of oratorical ability between
the recipients of the two society medals, and the
representative of the Washington having been declared
to be the victor, he was appointed to speak for the two
societies in the State oratorical contest, which was to take
place at the College of William and Mary, and also in the
similar contest of the Southern Intercollegiate Association,
which was to come off at Centre College.

The energy displayed by the students towards the acquisition
of these medals was so feeble that the Faculty
requested the Board to abolish their award; and in June,
1899, this was done. But it was afterwards perceived by
the Visitors that it was not entirely becoming for them

to show indifference to what had once been such an important
feature of the University's activities, and in
November, 1901, they appropriated fifty dollars to be
bestowed annually upon the best debater of the two societies.
At this time, each of the societies conferred a
medal costing twenty-five dollars on its ablest argumentative
speaker; and a medal of the same value was presented
to its most eloquent orator. The two bodies still
contested each session for the Harrison trophy. The debate
for this trophy seems to have been held, occasionally
at least, in the public hall, while the separate oratorical
tussles of the Washington Society champions not infrequently
took place in the chapel,—perhaps because that
apartment offered more spacious seating for the persons
who wished to be present.

In 1901, there was a State Oratorical Association in
existence composed of the eight most conspicuous institutions
of learning in Virginia. These contested for a
gold medal valued at forty dollars. During the same
year, the Johns Hopkins University invited the Universities
of Virginia, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Pennsylvania,
to organize, along with itself, an oratorical league;
but the proposal, in spite of its practicability, appears to
have fallen to the ground. The debaters of the University
of Virginia, selected by the test of inter-society discussions,
frequently struggled for the palm of victory with
representatives of the Northern colleges. In the spring
of 1902, a debate was arranged with the champions of
Columbia University; and for this occasion, four speakers
were chosen by the Faculty, one of whom was to
serve as a substitute only. A joint discussion was held
with the debaters of the University of Pennsylvania in
March, 1904. It was thought at the time that these intercollegiate
contests sensibly stimulated the interest of

the students in the Washington and Jefferson Societies;
and as an additional influence for increasing this interest
and directing it into the most productive channel, the Faculty,
in 1902, recommended that a special instructor in
the art of speech should be employed; that he should be
attached to the School of English; and that he should be
subject to the control of the professor in charge of that
school. This recommendation was adopted, and during
the session of 1903–4 the position was filled by N. L.
South, one of the licentiates.

XIV. Social Organizations

It would seem that, anterior to 1895, no fraternity had
possessed the means necessary to build a residence of its
own. The associations continued to hold their weekly
meetings in some vacant garret or dormitory, where there
was reason to know that they would be in no danger of intrusion.
At this time, they made up an assemblage of
more or less disjointed clubs, with no perceptible influence
beyond conferring on their members a certain measure of
social standing or exercising a decisive preponderance in
the event of a close and embittered contest for political
honors in the debating societies.

The earliest step towards the acquisition of separate
residences was the use by different fraternities of rooms
in the houses in Dawson's Row. The Chi Phi set up
their home in House D, the Phi Kappa Psi, in House E,
and the Delta Psi, in House F. The Zeta Psi, in 1898,
took possession of the pavilion situated at the southern
end of East Range; and here they remained during
a period of several years. The Delta Kappa Epsilon,
—which was the first of the modern fraternities to
found a chapter at the University of Virginia,—was
also the first among them to build there a club-house

of its own. This was undertaken by it in October,
1899. The members were required to show that they
had collected a fund large enough to enable them to
erect a building that would be completely in harmony
with the general architectural design of the Univesity
as a whole. It was to be constructed of brick,
with a roof of metal or slate. The contractors must
agree to waive all liens in case of a failure on the part of
the fraternity to make the promised payments. The
title to the house was to be vested in the University corporation;
and should its premises remain vacant for the
space of a year, the Board reserved the right to take possession
of it. If the disuse arose from the disbandment
of the proprietary fraternity, and that fraternity should,
at any time, be resuscitated, the decision should lie with
the Visitors whether the house should be returned at all;
but in no case was it to be permanently turned over to the
University's purposes without the fraternity that built
it being recouped for the money which had been expended
in its original construction.

The first independent home of the Delta Kappa Epsilon
seems to have been situated on Fourteenth Street
not far beyond the college boundaries. It was a very
modest framed building, which was divided off on its
ground-floor into an entrance hall, library, and billiard
room. Above were the sleeping apartments. It was at
first designed to serve more as a lodge than as a place of
actual residence. The example set by this fraternity was
followed by the Delta Tau Delta, which acquired the
right to occupy the building that had formerly been used
as the infirmary. The interior of this structure was completely
renovated, and a billiard room, reading room, bed
rooms, and baths added for the comfort and convenience
of the members.

In the autumn of 1902, the Beta Theta Pi and the
Delta Psi also were established in homes of their own.
The Beta Theta Pi took possession of a building opposite
the gymnasium which had formerly been occupied as a
boarding house, and they altered the interior so as to provide
a reception-room, a reading-room and a ping pong
room. There were sleeping accommodations for twelve
persons on the several floors. The house of the Delta
Psi, known as St. Anthony's Hall, was erected at a cost
of twenty thousand dollars. This was partitioned off on
the first floor into a large reception-room, billiard-room,
library, and three bedrooms. There were under its roof
sleeping accommodations for ten, and it contained every
modern appliance for heating and lighting. The Pi
Kappa Alpha leased a house situated on Madison Lane
and looking across the campus of the Young Men's Christian
Association. In the autumn of 1904, the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon rented a building immediately adjacent to
St. Anthony's Hall. During the following year, the Phi
Kappa Psi erected a handsome house of their own with
three bedrooms on the first floor, and five on the second.

The influences which followed the establishment of
these commodious homes were distinctly beneficial from
several points of view. Prior to their purchase or erection,
it very frequently happened that the young men of
the same fraternity, in consequence of their being domiciled
in different parts of the university precincts, and attending
different lectures, possessed no real opportunity
of cultivating intimate friendships with each other. The
grouping of the fraternities under their own roofs, by
bringing the members of each one into daily and even
hourly intercourse, had the very natural effect of removing
all trace of formality in their personal relations. For
the first time, these organizations assumed in full the

character which their names and mottoes had previously,
in most instances, only perfunctorily indicated. Possession
of handsome homes of their own also tended to raise
the general standing of these associations. It was noticed
that, with this increase in dignity, their older members
were disposed to set a better example to the younger.
The spirit of hospitality was also nursed by them with
extraordinary success,—the fraternity houses became the
scenes of pleasant dances, musicals, and soirées; a hearty
welcome was held out to outsiders; and a sober and genial
atmosphere was created, which made itself felt, not
only in the personal relations of the fraternity men themselves,
but also in the social tone of the University at
large. The members, residing like a single family under
the same roof, were quite naturally inclined, like their
elders in the homes of after-life, to uphold the reputation
of their houses for refinement and orderliness.

The erection of these buildings,—many of which were
after a handsome architectural model,—not only contributed
to the attractive physical aspect of the University,
but were also of great practical advantage to the institution
by adding to the number of its dormitories.

In the history of the previous period, some description
was given of the disorderly conduct of the Eli
Banana Society, and reference was made to the Faculty's
determination to put an end to its existence at the University
as a separate association. Finding this body deaf
to their repeated solicitations, the Elis made a direct appeal
to the Board for an order that would permit them to
reorganize; and the Visitors were so much softened by the
earnestness of this petition, that they requested the Faculty
to remove their bar upon the disbanded society if it
were possible to do this without shaking the discipline of
the University. But the Faculty continued immovable.

"Many individual members of the Eli Society," they said
in their reply, "were worthy and excellent as students
and gentlemen, but for years, the society itself has been a
disgrace to the University, and a source of lamentable
scandal before the public. Their songs, avowing and
glorifying drunkenness, habitually sung over the University
grounds, and on the public streets of Charlottesville;
outrageous annoyance of ladies and sick persons by
drunken orgies prolonged far into the morning of each
recurring Easter Sunday, followed by an annual disturbance
of the congregations of the Charlottesville churches
in the midst of Easter services; and the flagrant establishment,
during the public exercises of at least one commencement,
of a place of assembly serving practically as
a free barroom in one of the dormitories of the University,
—are samples of conduct which cannot be excused
on the ground of mere effervescence of boyish spirit; and
all has rendered the existence of the society a scandal and
a nuisance in the eyes of the sober and respectable people
throughout the State."

But the Elis appear to have been made of stuff that
was not to be dispirited even by excoriating reflections
upon themselves like these, and after posturing for a
brief period under the name, as already stated, of "Peter
Magill," they succeeded in June, 1897, in wheedling from
the Board the right to reorganize under their old name.
In the ensuing December, they petitioned for their old
privilege of holding a german in the gymnasium during
Easter week.

While the star of the Elis was under temporary eclipse,
their rivals, the Tilkas, had been industriously employed
in coddling their own prosperity. A larger proportion
of the college honors had, during this interval, fallen to
their share than had ever before been recorded in their

history, but they were not to be permitted to continue
to reap without any competitor in the field. In the
session of 1898–99, the Eli Bananas,—their appetite
whetted by their long sojourn in outer darkness,—threw
themselves into all the contests with such energy that
the Tilkas retired before them beaten and discomfited.
They succeeded in electing one member of their body the
president of the General Athletic Association, and another
the vice president; a third and fourth, manager
and assistant manager of the football team; and a fifth,
the manager of the baseball team. A sixth member was
chosen to the distinguished social office of president of the
German Club. But during the next session, the Tilkas
became aggressive again and recaptured the presidency
of the General Athletic Association. Not very many
months had gone by when the exciting rumor ran through
the University that these two powerful organizations had
entered into a secret compact to make an equal division
between themselves of all the separate honors of the football,
baseball, and track teams as well as of the General
Athletic Association itself. The two lions were not to
leave even a hoof to the unfortunate jackals.

It was calculated that, during the session of 1903–4,
there were thirty positions of political prominence open
to election, and that of this number, all the most conspicuous
were filled by members of the ribbon societies.
From their ranks were drawn the president and vice-president
of the General Athletic Association; the managers
of the football, baseball, and track teams; the president
of the academic class, the president of the law class, and
the president of the medical class; and a long list of
assistant managers and vice-presidents.

There flourished during the Eighth Period, 1896–
1904, numerous other kinds of associations. The classes

were organized during the session of 1890–91 with the
election of presidents to represent the academic, engineering,
law, and medical departments respectively, and these
positions continued to be filled by popular election from
year to year. There followed various clubs of a social or
practical character, notable among which were the Coffee
House Club, the Whist Club, the O. F. C.,—whose
distinctive mark was the figure of Cupid sitting on the
top of a beer barrel, pulled by a team of bottles and tobacco
boxes; the Kodak Club, the Riding Club, the Gun
Club,—which contested with teams from other communities;
the Graduate Club,—which was made up of graduates
and instructors who banded together to advance the
welfare of the University by every legitimate means available;
the Goosequill Club, the Masonic Club, the P. K.
Club, the V. B. M. Club, the Philosophical Club,—composed
of professors and students who met to discourse
upon questions of science and literature, to report their
researches and experiments, and to listen to addresses by
distinguished strangers; the Alliance Francaise,—which
was organized to disseminate French culture by means of
social intercourse and popular lectures; and finally, the
Raven Society,—which was composed of students who
were the foremost members of their classes, with honorary
members selected among the most distinguished
alumni.

The musical clubs continued, throughout this period, to
keep a foothold in spite of numerous discouragements.
In 1897, there were the Glee Club, the Banjo Club, and
the Mandolin Club, each a separate organization, with a
different leader, but, apparently, with a single president,
a single director, and a single manager. The three combined
were designated the Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin
Association. In 1900, there was in existence an organization

that bore the name of the Mandolin and Guitar
Club. Three managers were elected by its members in
the course of this year, one of whom was to be the director
of the concerts to be given at the University of Virginia;
the second, of the concerts to take place in
Richmond and Washington; and the third, of the concerts
to be held at Staunton and elsewhere at Easter.
The instruments used by this club comprised the first and
second violin, the first mandolin, the second mandolin,
the mandola, the first flute, the second flute, the first and
the second guitar, and the bass violin. There was also a
vocal quartette.

The tours of the musical clubs,—which were subject
to strict regulations,—were not discountenanced by the
Faculty, as they tended to arouse interest in the University
among the members of the most influential social
class of the large cities visited. A complaint was heard
that the popularity of these clubs within the precincts of
the University itself was so impoverished that the attendance
at the concerts was always discouragingly small.
The eagerness of the students at large to be present at
the public performances had perhaps been dulled by
the constant intrusion of the same sounds upon their ears
when the practicing was going on in the dormitories.
The social distinction of these occasions was naturally
enough greater abroad under fashionable roofs than at
home in the familiar public hall.

For some years, there existed within the precincts no
dramatic club made up of students alone, although dramatic
performances took place there. About 1903, however,
a University club, composed of men, seems to have
visited different cities to present the lighter plays. This
was the V. V. V. Club. A meeting of interested students
was called in 1904 to organize a permanent dramatic

club. "This," said the editor of College Topics, "is
the first year the dramatic club has appeared as a college
club." It assumed the practical name of the Arcadians,
and its members petitioned the Faculty to put them on
the same footing as the Glee Club and the Athletic teams
so far as to grant them the privilege of giving performances
beyond the precincts, provided that they obeyed
the rules which had been adopted for the other associations
when absent on a tour.

The Hot Feet was an association formed apparently
for the single purpose of enjoying the grand ceremony of
crowning one of their number king in the presence of the
public as spectators. First came the monarch in a motor
car, with his predecessor following in the humble conveyance
of a phaeton. Behind the two trooped a gorgeous
line of cavaliers, with a motley and miscellaneous train of
attendants. After traversing a route that ran first down
East Range, and then across the Lawn to West Range,
and then down this range and back to the Lawn, the dismounted
procession slowly defiled through the Rotunda,
and thence marched, with stately step, to East Range
again, and down this range to the southern end. Here
the coronation took place. The new king, when he
placed the crown on his head, was surrounded by a flamboyant
company, composed of the queen, the heir, the
court poet, the wizard, the chancellor, the archbishop, the
pages, the musicians, the cup-bearers, guards, jesters, and
chamberlains. There were also present ambassadors
from the kingdoms of Dawson's Row and West Range,
from the duchy of East Lawn, the principality of Monroe
Hill, and the independent republic of Carr's Hill. A
feast was spread in Randall Hall, to which the gaping
multitude, with mediaeval hospitality, was invited en
masse by public proclamation.

XV. Athletics

It has already been stated that a field for the athletic
exercises was offered to the General Athletic Association
by the University, and this was in a condition to be
thrown open to use on the threshold of the session of
1888–89. The acquisition of this private ground so long
aspired to was largely due to the foresight and energy of
Felix H. Levy, at that time the president of the association.
The space occupied in 1896 was bounded by Main
Street on the north, by the roadbed of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Railway on the east, by the Lynchburg highway on
the south, and on the west by a line that extended from the
site of the postoffice building, parallel with East Range,
back to the road to Lynchburg. This area proved in the
end to be unsatisfactory as it was marred by serious inconveniences.
In 1901, the land for a substitute having
been obtained on the north side of the University, the
first spade was struck in the soil of the new field, and by
the end of the second year the arduous work upon it was
completed. The fund in the treasury of the association
at the beginning of this work was only sixteen hundred
dollars. The entire cost ultimately mounted up to ten
thousand dollars; and of this sum, the alumni contributed
a respectable share. The surface of the new athletic
grounds spread over twenty-one acres. To prepare
it for football, baseball, and track contests, required the
removal of forty-eight thousand cubic yards of earth.
Within its bounds not less than one thousand persons
could be seated without jostling or over crowding. It
was very properly named Lambeth Field, in honor of
Doctor William A. Lambeth, to whose knowledge,
fidelity, and industry, the prosperity of athletic sports at
the University was already so deeply indebted.

It is a proof of the increased importance of these sports
at this institution, that, in the course of 1903, one of the
debating societies discussed at length the question whether
athletic instruction should not be required as a subject
indispensable to the winning of a degree. Some years
earlier, the students had suggested that twelve athletic
scholarships should be established; but the Faculty had
refused to listen to this recommendation; and that body
also, in 1902, declined to allow the ceremony of presenting
the V to each distinguished member of the athletic
teams to form a part of the public exercises of commencement
week. The most popular games during the Eighth
Period, 1896–1904, were football, baseball, track, golf,
and tennis; cricket and lacrosse also had a small number
of ardent devotees; while the events in the gymnasium
were as absorbing as ever to the students at large.

The foremost of all these sports, however, continued
to be football and baseball. It was said, at this time,
that, in proportion to the number of its matriculates, the
University of Virginia had one of the most remarkable
records in these two branches of athletics that had been
made in the different American seats of learning. Her
leadership in both was frankly admitted by every member
of the Southern group of colleges. Of the two, football
enjoyed the primacy in the popular view. This fact was,
in a measure, attributable to skilful coaching by outsiders
like Spicer, the two Neilsons, Gresham and Johnson Poe,
Mackay, Sanford, Abbott, Chamberlain, and John de
Saulles.

There was, during many years, a feeling of opposition
to the employment of strangers for this duty, and under
its influence, the General Athletic Association, in the
course of the session of 1898–99, concluded that it would
be expedient to substitute alumni instructors for the professional

experts from the Northern colleges who had
been hitherto engaged. The rule now adopted was that
a fully qualified alumnus should be placed in charge of the
team; and that, if he should be found to require assistance,
other alumni, of equal experience and efficiency,
should be summoned to his side. Although the scores
recorded, during the existence of this system (1898–
1900), seem to have been capable of a favorable comparison
with those made under the preceding one, it was
abandoned after 1900, and the alien coaches were again
called in. Some of the most distinguished members of
this class of experts in the East now took up the drill on
the University ground; but in spite of their success, the
former regulation of using only alumni coaches was, after
the lapse of some time, reintroduced.

There was a prevailing impression that no matter how
skilful as trainers, or agreeable as men, these foreigners
might be, it was impossible for them to enter with such
spontaneous sympathy into the spirit of the University
life as to feel exactly as the student felt. Naturally,
their interest was restricted to the triumphs of their
teams, and as long as they were in command, there was a
risk of professionalism creeping in,—an insinuating
poison which was so firmly to be eschewed. On the other
hand, it was thought that the alumnus coach took instinctively
a larger view of his duty and for that reason, bore
always in mind the higher welfare of the University in
the pursuit of the different sports. Moreover, he was
more likely to fix a vigilant eye on the future, and, as the
result of this deliberate foresight, to leave behind him
suitable material for the team of the ensuing year.
"The professional coach," it was said at the time,
"comes for one year and is paid for one season to develop
one team. He does not care what the next professional

who comes along,—probably from some college the rival
of his own,—will find for developing a team and making
a reputation."

Doctor Lambeth, whose opinion was, on account of
his ripe experience and acknowledged ability, entitled to
thoughtful consideration, preferred the alumni coach for
the following reasons: (1) the student of the University
of Virginia was just as intelligent and just as acquisitive
as the student of any other seat of learning in America,
and was, therefore, quite as capable of making of himself
a competent trainer; (2) the game of football depended
upon those definite principles of force and strategy which
have been accepted as correct for many years in the past,
and were not likely to change substantially for many years
in the future; the method of forming and operating
change, but the principles remain; and these principles
were as fully inculcated in the student of the University of
Virginia as in the student of Yale or Harvard, Princeton
or Columbia; and he was equally as competent in his turn
to teach them; (3) under the foreign coaching system,
there was no prospect at all of the player's rise to a class
higher than the one in which he started, but always a
chance of his falling into a lower one; the principal coach
could give the University nothing that could properly be
considered its own,—nothing which local pride could concentrate
itself upon and gradually perfect; he left the
team as he found it, without sentiment, spirit, or confidence
in its own exertions; (4) the alumni system was
employed by every college which could show a record of
success in football; it fostered harmony; it encouraged the
players to be more thorough in the lecture-room; it caused
more students to become players; and it put a ban on professionalism;
(5) the Southern colleges that employed
graduates of the University of Virginia as coaches were as

often triumphant in the competitive games as those which
obtained their coaches from the Northern seats of learning;
this had been demonstrated at the Universities of
Alabama and Mississippi, at Tulane University, and at
the Blacksburg Agricultural and Polytechnic College,—
to mention only a few among many.

Z. N. Estes concurred in opinion with Doctor Lambeth.
"A hired coach," he said, "will usually have a set
system of football beaten into him, during four years at a
Northern college, which he will teach regardless of the
character of the team. He does not pick out the strongest
team possible, and adapt the playing to it. He cannot
observe the capabilities of each player. Besides, he is
apt to offend in many ways, as he is not accustomed to our
conditions and traditions. The alumni system, on the
other hand, fosters traditions. It presents to us more
athletes who have done great things for alma mater.
The spirit of enthusiasm which alumni coaches employ in
their work will stimulate zeal in their men."

In spite of a solid foundation for the views which we
have quoted, there was, nevertheless, some disadvantages
accompanying alumni coaching which could not be put under
foot. In the first place, the absence of a curriculum
system at the University of Virginia, by placing every
student, whether in his first or second, or even his sixth
year, on the same platform, tended to dwarf and even to
prevent entirely the growth of that feeling of reverence
which the freshman has for the fellow-collegian who belongs
to a class above him. The alumni coach was crippled
in his authority by this attitude of perfect equality,
and the edge of his instructions was, to that extent,
blunted in the ears of his subordinates. Moreover, it
would require a series of years to pass before the novelty
and rawness of the alumni coaching system could wear

off completely. But, above all, as the enormous majority
of the graduates had, after leaving the precincts, to look
to their own industry for support, very few could afford
to give up any of their invaluable time to the exhaustive
work of preparing a team for the field.

There were two supreme regulations which were enforced
by the General Athletic Association with unremitting
strictness: (1) every player must be a genuine student,
and not a matriculate who attended the lectures for
the ostensible purpose of graduating, but with the real
purpose of securing an appointment on the team; and
(2) he must ask for and receive no money for his services
in the field. By these two rules, the slightest taint of
professionalism was made impracticable. So keen was
the opposition to such a spirit creeping in that a member
of the Faculty was charged with the special supervision
of the University players, in order to block its introduction.
The record of the football scores during the sessions
between 1898 and 1902 inclusive is exhibited in the
following table. This record embraces the contests with
all the schools, colleges, and universities, both Northern
and Southern.

                 

Year	University	Opposition
1895	206	104
1896	242	88
1897	111	54
1898	117	60
1899	92	88
1900	186	37
1901	274	48
1902	157	51

During these years, there were found among the opponents
of the University of Virginia, the Universities of
Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins.
The majority of the games, however, were played

with the teams of small colleges and academies situated
in Virginia and other parts of the South.

XVI. Athletics—Continued

By the year 1896, the Faculty had become so philosophically
reconciled to the existence of the acute interest
now felt by the students in every branch of athletic sport
that they actually, on one occasion, granted to the baseball
team an extra day to enable it to play an important
game. It should, however, be mentioned that, in this
instance, the proceeds were to be used to swell the restoration
fund; but not even so patriotic a motive as this
would, at an earlier day, have caused that body to consent
to the suspension of any lectures for an additional
twenty-four hours.

The University baseball team was now intrepidly challenging
the most carefully drilled teams in the entire
country. Among the competitors whom it faced in the
field in the course of 1897, were the players of Lafayette
and Lehigh Colleges, and of the Universities of Pennsylvania,
Yale, Princeton, and North Carolina. In April
of this year, the team of Yale University was defeated
by a score of thirteen to five, but that of Princeton
triumphed by a score of nine to three. Previous to
1898, the University team had been trained by a coach
from one of the Northern colleges, at an annual expense
of six hundred dollars; but, during this year,—with
the enthusiastic consent of the players themselves,—the
preparation of its members was undertaken by Murray
M. McGuire, and the success that followed reached the
highwater mark in the history of the game at the University
of Virginia. The baseball team, during 1898,
was the winner in as many as two hundred and seventeen
runs, and the loser in but one hundred and four. In at

least two games the team defeated the team of Yale University,
—once by a score of thirteen to zero, and once by
a score of four to zero. Yale, in the interval, succeeded,
on one occasion, by a score of five to zero. The University
team also triumphed over the Princeton team, in
one instance, by a score of fourteen to ten; but, in turn,
was beaten by the team of Harvard University by a
score of seven to five.

A more remarkable record still was established in the
spring of 1899. In two games played with Yale University,
the team of the University of Virginia was victorious
by a score, in one instance, of ten to four, and in
another, of ten to three. On two occasions also, this
team defeated the team of the University of Pennsylvania
by a score of eighteen to three and six to four. On another
occasion, the team of the University of Virginia
won a victory over the team of the University of Princeton
by a score of nineteen to four; but, subsequently, was
beaten by a score of eighteen to six. The same fate overtook
the team in a game played with the team of Harvard
University,—it was defeated by a score of nine to
three; but compensation for this rout was found in a victory
obtained over the Cornell team by a score of fourteen
to five. In the course of 1899, there were one hundred
and seventy-six games won by the University team
and one hundred and twelve lost.

The record for 1900 was less brilliant in achievement.
The team was defeated by its Harvard, Yale and Princeton
competitors, and was only successful in winning one
game of several played with the University of Pennsylvania.
The total number of runs made by the team in
1900 was one hundred and fifty-five, and by the opposition
only, sixty. The general proportion for the year 1901
was one hundred and sixty-nine runs, and one hundred

and twenty defeats; but the contests with the great
universities, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell,
seemed to have ended in discomfiture. A somewhat similar
upshot marked the history of the University team in
1902,—its only conspicuous victory, during that year,
was achieved in a game played with the team of Princeton
University, which, in one instance, was defeated by a
score of fourteen to one, after it had, in another, won by a
score of nine to eight. There was, on one occasion, a
tie between the team of the University of Virginia and
the team of Yale University. In one contest with Harvard
University, the score in favor of that Northern
competitor was eleven to eight. The total number of
runs made, during this year, was two hundred and three,
to one hundred and twenty-five by the opposition. The
corresponding numbers for the year 1903 were one hundred
and fifty-five, and eighty-one.

Summing up the results of the games played with the
teams of the principal colleges, the record down to 1902
was approximately as follows: In eighteen with the team
of Yale University, five were won by the team of the University
of Virginia; in eight with the team of Cornell
University, five again; in fourteen with the team of Lehigh
College, seven; in fourteen with the team of Lafayette
College, ten; in twelve with the team of the University
of North Carolina, nine; and in seven with the
team of Johns Hopkins University, five. In the numerous
games played with the team of Princeton University,
the team of the University of Virginia was successful on
five occasions. When it is recalled that, with the exception
of three only, these Universities were attended by a
far larger number of students than the University of Virginia,
and thus possessed a wider margin within which to
select the individuals of their teams, the record of the

champions of the Southern institution was one which
could very properly be contemplated by them with an
emotion of pride, and even of enthusiasm.

During the year 1896, track athletics received such
stinted encouragement from the students at large that
the manager was, at one time, compelled to put aside all
hope of a public exhibition. A like condition in this
important branch of sport seems to have prevailed during
several of the previous sessions, for, in the course of
1897, College Topics commented with stinging disgust
"on the miserable showing for the past five years in track
athletics." There was, nevertheless, carried out a public
day in May, 1896, on which occasion the Faculty promptly
assented to the petition for a suspension of lectures. At
the meet in April of next year (1897), a series of track
events took place; namely, the 100 yard dash, the 220
yard dash, the half-mile run, the mile run, the running
high jump, the pole vault, putting the shot, throwing
the hammer, throwing the baseball, the one mile bicycle
race, and the hurdle race. The trophies delivered on
this occasion were contributed by Professor W. M. Lile,
while one cup was presented by Mr. Charles Maphis, and
additional cups by other persons; and there were also a
medal and several prizes awarded by mercantile firms of
the town of Charlottesville. In spite of the elaborate
efforts to bestow distinction on this particular exhibition,
it was regretfully stated by persons who remembered the
earlier events that the interest which the students once
displayed in track athletics had now fallen away. This
was not to be attributed to any discouraging attitude on
the Faculty's part,—in 1897, and again in 1898, that
body ordered lectures to be suspended on the occasion
of the public day.

In the autumn of 1902, there was an interscholastic

and field meet, in which, at the instance of the General
Athletic Association, representatives of the most conspicuous
preparatory schools of the State took part as competitors,
such as the Episcopal High School, Woodberry
Forest Academy, Pantops Academy and Jones' Academy
in Charlottesville.

In 1903, the champions of the University of Virginia
contested for the first time in track athletics with the experts
of other colleges. In the beginning, the University
team was beaten in Baltimore by the team of Johns Hopkins
University, but was afterwards successful in a meet
held on Lambeth Field, in which the University of North
Carolina was the opponent. At this time, the field com
mittee of the University players was composed entirely
of members selected from the Faculty. This was the
first exhibition to be given within the bounds of the new
field. It was admitted in 1904, that, in spite of this
improved track and the increasing number of candidates
for the prizes in the different events, the records made
upon the primitive area of the Ficklin farm had not, in
some instances, been again equalled at the University of
Virginia. The session of 1904 marked the third since
Lambeth Field had been in use, and yet only two points of
the older teams had been surpassed. Nevertheless, it
began to be noticed at this time by the lovers of that
branch of sport that the interest in track athletics at the
University was slowly extending to a wider circle of the
students. Stimulated by this fact, an elaborate schedule
was arranged by the manager for the exhibition of this
year. A trainer was brought upon the ground and a
large number of the young men,—having placed themselves
under his supervision and control,—assembled
daily for the exercises which he prescribed.

During the session of 1896–97, lessons were given in

light gymnastics to classes which came together in the
Fayerweather Gymnasium. This was in addition to the
special instruction which each individual privately received,
—there was marching and running, and also calisthenics,
and the wielding of the dumbbell and the Indian
club. The extensive course of winter exercises was usually
terminated in the spring with a gymnastic tournament,
an episode that always aroused a more vivid spirit
of competition than the track public day. The large
number of prizes which were offered on this occasion
never failed to raise up a crowd of aspirants who were
willing to devote their leisure hours to practising in view
of the rewards to be won by superior skill. Professor
James A. Harrison, with characteristic generosity, presented
at least six medals annually to successful particpants,
three of which were given for remarkable feats
on the horizontal bars and three for the like feats on
the parallel. The three medals conferred by Professor
Peters seem to have been restricted to agility in tumbling.
A gold medal valued at fifty dollars was presented by
Richard Anderson, of the firm of respected booksellers of
that name so long established in business just without
the precincts of the University. This medal was
awarded to the "best all round" gymnast of the year.
The events in the tournament for 1897 embraced the horizontal
bars, the parallel bars, vaulting, Roman ladders,
flying trapeze, flying rings, German horse, the high kick,
and tumbling.

So valuable had the services of Doctor Lambeth, as
the director of the gymnasium, proved to be, that, in
1898, a substantial addition was made to the amount of
his salary. A few years later, he was appointed associate
professor of the School of Hygiene and Materia
Medica.

Some falling off in interest in the gymnastic exercises
was observed, in 1902, on the part of students who were
passing through their first session; this led the director to
suggest to the Faculty that physical training should be required
of every matriculate, and that specific credit for
successful work in the gymnasium should be given in the
markings for diplomas. This proposal was not favorably
received, on the ground that it was repugnant to the
spirit of the elective system as enforced at the University
of Virginia; and moreover, it was thought to be impracticable
to estimate accurately the real proportion which
gymnastic skill should bear in the valuations for graduation.
In opposition to these conservative conclusions, it
was pointed out that, of the one hundred and nine conspicuous
colleges of the United States, not less than sixty-four
per cent. of the whole number had raised instruction
in physical development to a separate department, which
stood on a footing of equal dignity with the academic
and professional departments; and furthermore, that at
least sixty-six per cent. had made physical training indispensable
to the acquisition of a diploma.

So efficient was the gymnastic team of 1903 considered
to be that one public performance was given by it, during
that year, in Charlottesville, and one in Staunton.
The annual tournament continued to be held, with apparently
no decline either in individual expertness or in
popular interest.

In the autumn of 1903, the Tennis Association numbered
in its enrollment about one hundred members; and
it was so confident of the skill of its players at this time
that it sent a team to other universities to contend for
the different prizes. A series of games was arranged
with the team of the University of North Carolina in the
course of this year; and there was also held a tournament

on the home courts. A lacrosse team was made up, during
the session of 1903–04; and so expert did its members
become by practice that they ventured to send a challenge
to the team of Johns Hopkins University, and also one to
the team of Swarthmore College. The Golf Club em
braced a large number of members, many of whom had
been drawn from the circle of the professors and the
families of residents in the neighborhood. During the
session of 1900–01, there was an enrolment of sixty-one;
and during the session of 1902–03, of forty-five. A
cricket club was organized during the session of 1897–98;
but the game did not now acquire the popularity which it
possessed at one time before the War between the States
interrupted its advance in college favor.

XVII. Religious Observances

During the year 1895, Rev. Dr. Otts, of Alabama, offered
to endow a lectureship in the University of Virginia,
to be devoted to the perpetual defense of the truths of
Christianity. The same proposal, it appears, had been
made to the trustees of Davidson College. The important
condition was attached to the gift in each case
that the two institutions should be associated in the management
of the double fund. The Board of Visitors,
from the beginning, shrank from acceding to this condition
because they feared that embarrassing complications
would arise in consequence of it, and they, therefore,
recommended that private arrangements for utilizing the
money should be entered into by those professors who
approved of the lectureship. Apparently, however, it
was not created even in this indirect way.

During the sessions of 1896–97 and 1897–98, a course
of lectures on the Bible, contemplated from a historical
and literary point of view alone, were delivered at the

University, with the financial assistance of persons who
were specially interested in this particular subject. These
lectures were countenanced by the Faculty's committee on
religious services, and also favored by a similar committee
of the Young Men's Christian Association, because,
both in spirit and in expression, they were undenominational
and unsectarian. The principal teacher in this
valuable course was Rev. Charles A. Young.

Among those outsiders of deep religious feeling who
were eager to aid in establishing a permanent lectureship
for systematic biblical instruction at the University, was
Colonel John B. Cary, of Richmond, who had been very
successful in business, and who, until his death, remained
an influential factor in his church. He passed away before
he was able to mature his benevolent plan fully, but
his earnest wishes were fruitfully carried out by his widow
and children. In 1902, the amount of the Cary endowment
approximated as large a sum as twenty-eight thousand
dollars. The subjects of the lectures embraced the
Old Testament Characters, the Acts and Epistles, the
Life of Christ, and the Teachings of Christ and His
Apostles. This lectureship was not originally connected
with the normal work of the University, but, from the
beginning, it was regarded by the authorities of the institution
with sympathy and approval, since all denominational
leanings were scrupulously avoided in its discourses.
Its themes, indeed, were strictly limited to the literary
and historical aspects of the English Bible, and from time
to time it was filled by invited clergymen of acknowledged
eminence.

The last chaplain to occupy the pulpit at the University
was Rev. L. C. Vass. He had been chosen to fill an
unexpired term, 1896–97, but died while in the act of
delivering his first sermon within the precincts. It was

always difficult to engage the services of a clergyman,
should a vacancy occur after the session had begun, and
this fact, in this instance, suggested that, for sometime at
least, no one should be called to succeed Mr. Vass, but
that, instead, his empty place should be taken from Sunday
to Sunday by representative preachers of the different
evangelical denominations. The invitation to each
in turn was extended by a committee composed of three
students and three members of the Faculty, the students
being trusted officers of the Young Men's Christian Association.
What was at first a temporary arrangement became
a permanent one in the end. The first clergymen
asked to conduct the services were the incumbents of the
pulpits in Charlottesville. These were followed by the
most famous preachers in the several Protestant denominations,
among whom may be mentioned Bishops Whittle,
Hurst, Granberry, Randolph, Tucker, A. W. Wilson,
R. H. Wilmer, and Julius Horner, and such ministers of
the gospel as Rev. Dr. A. Mackay Smith, Rev. Dr. R. H.
McKim, Rev. Dr. Hoge, Rev. Dr. Collins Denny, Rev.
Dr. J. William Jones, and Rev. Dr. W. W. Moore. Between
October 4, 1896, and June 13, 1899, thirty-five
clergymen of high distinction occupied in succession the
pulpit at the University; during the session of 1897–98,
thirty-nine; and this condition was repeated from year
to year,—for instance, during the session of 1902–3,
there were invited twenty-eight clergymen, and four bishops;
and they came from parishes and dioceses as far
away as New Orleans, Nashville, and New York, as well
as from those much less remote.

Rev. C. A. Young, to whose activities we have already
made a passing reference, had, during several years in
early life, been engaged in religious work among the students
of the University of Missouri; had, during the

three succeeding years, served as a professor in a denominational
college; had, afterwards, for a period of five
more years, filled the pulpit of a church situated in sight
of the campus of the University of Michigan; and in addition
to all this, had given instruction in the Bible to the
students of the Universities of Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas,
and Nebraska. In short, there was hardly another
minister of the gospel in the United States who possessed
such a remarkable record for usefulness as a teacher and
leader of young men in their religious life. His observation
of that class had extended, as he himself said, all the
way from Michigan to Georgia, from the Atlantic coast
to the far Pacific. "I have never known," he declared,
in summarizing his experiences, "a more manly Christianity
among students than I have found under the leadership
of the Young Men's Christian Association, of the
University of Virginia. There is no show or sham in
their religious pretensions."

The following table for the session of 1900–01 and
1903–04 shows the proportionate number of young men
at the University of Virginia affiliated with the principal
denominations:

                 

	1900–01	1901–02	1903–04
Protestant Episcopal	144	119	125
Presbyterian	64	60	68
Methodist	63	70	78
Baptist	45	52	60
Christian	14	16	18
Jews	10	7	5
Catholic	11	11	17
Lutheran	7	6	5

During the session of 1902–03, an assembly-room was
set apart for the Young Men's Christian Association in
the new academic building; and to its secretary, for clerical
use, the dormitory on West Lawn numbered 13 was

assigned. In order to assure a fixed income for the support
of the religious interests of the University, Professor
Peters proposed, at a meeting of the Faculty in 1900,
that the contingent fund of each student,—which, at this
time, amounted to ten dollars annually,—should be
charged with two dollars and a half for the maintenance
of the chapel and chapel service, provided that he should
offer no objection in writing to this diversion of his deposit.
Just one month later, Professor Barringer suggested
that the net proceeds from the Temperance Hall
leases should be used for the same general purpose.
The Temperance Society had now fallen into eclipse.

The Young Men's Christian Association and the Faculty
had united in choosing W. I. McNair to fill the position
of General Secretary of the association. Mr. McNair
had been in charge of the branch in Louisville, and
had won unusual distinction in that office. In 1898, he
was succeeded by J. M. Brodnax, who was followed, after
a considerable interval, by the Rev. Hugh M. McIlhany.
Dr. McIlhany took up, with extraordinary energy and
intelligence, the important duties incident to his position.
These duties still consisted of fostering a higher and better
life among the members of the association by constant
visits and exhortations; of assisting others beyond its
bounds in becoming more faithful Christians; in holding
weekly prayer meetings; in conducting Sunday school
within and without the precincts; in arranging different
Bible classes, and in inviting clergymen, or men of prominence
engaged in Christian work, to address the students
from time to time. The association maintained seven
Bible classes—all in the University,—and four Sunday
schools, three of which were situated in the country districts
not far off.

During many years, with the growth in the activities

of the association, the need of a large building of its own
had steadily become more insistent. Various practical
steps to acquire such an edifice had been suggested, but
none had been seriously taken. It happened that John R.
Mott, the general secretary of the World's Student Christian
Federation, had frequently visited the University of
Virginia on religious missions, and ultimately, through
the influence of Dr. McIlhany, he became deeply interested
in increasing the prosperity of its religious life by
securing more dignified quarters for the association. He
mentioned the subject to William E. Dodge, a philanthropical
merchant of New York, and the latter was only
prevented by death from donating the fund required for
the erection of a suitable building. His widow generously
determined to carry the interrupted design of her
deceased husband into effect, and with that object in view
offered to give forty thousand dollars to defray the cost
of construction, if an endowment fund of twenty thousand
should be raised for the support, through its annual income,
of the property. Before the end of two weeks,
the students, the professors, and their friends had agreed
to contribute ten thousand dollars of the desired sum.
By April, 1904, the architectural plans for the edifice had
been drafted and adopted, and on October 19, 1905, the
structure was formally dedicated.

XVIII. Alumni Association

With the passage of time, the General Alumni Association,[16]
resting as it did on the principle of individual
membership, proved to be limited in its power for usefulness,
although the authorities of the University endeavored,
as far as they had the ability, to nourish and

strengthen it. In 1898, there were about thirty chapters
widely dispersed over the eastern and southern parts of
the United States. In the course of that year, Professor
Raleigh C. Minor submitted a resolution at a meeting of
the Faculty which was destined to bring about a beneficial
change by drawing closer the bonds already existing between
the alumni and the University. He suggested that
the chapters should be more thoroughly organized and coordinated.
A committee was appointed at the instance
of the Board of Visitors, comprising Colonel Thomas
H. Carter, the proctor, Professor John Staige Davis, Jr.,
and Professor Raleigh C. Minor, with instructions to devise
a scheme that would place the alumni chapters on a
more practical footing, draw them more closely together,
and keep them in constant touch with the institution.
The new plan of government now propounded made provision
for the same scholarships and ordinances for each
chapter, and proposed the insertion of vital new clauses
into the body of the general constitution. The substance
of this suggested innovation was that the local chapter,
and not the individual alumnus, should be the unit, and
that each meeting of the General Association should be
regarded as a convention of delegates representing these
scattered entities. Each chapter was to be entitled to
one vote at this meeting for every five persons to be
counted in its membership.

A printed statement of this plan was sent to seven
thousand alumni, and every answer that was received was
favorable to its adoption. With this support behind it,
it was called up at the annual meeting in June, 1899. A
committee was then appointed to consider its terms, and
to report their recommendations to the meeting in June,
1900. Having been amended, it was, on that occasion,
adopted as a new constitution; but it was not until June,

1902, that it seems to have gone into practical operation.
When the General Association assembled on the
17th of that month, a new president and executive committee
were elected, and they at once entered upon the
performance of the duties of their several offices. At a
meeting which took place in the following October, a formal
charter was tentatively adopted. The aim of those
who drafted it was to preserve to the limit of practicability
the main features of the charter of 1873, and, at the
same time, not only to throw a safeguard around the local
associations by maintaining their privileges, but also to
create influences that would encourage their rapid increase
in number. In March, 1903, the Act of Assembly
that granted this second charter was signed by the Governor
of the State.

The following was the substance of the new organic law
in its final amended form: First, as to the aims of the
association. These were (1) to advance the prosperity
of the University of Virginia by acquiring endowments
for its professorships, and by augmenting the number of
its matriculates; (2) to cultivate a spirit of unity and
good fellowship among its alumni; (3) to encourage the
formation of additional associations in those communities
which contained a sufficient group of graduates; (4)
to build an alumni hall, to establish fellowships, and to
found scholarships. Secondly, as to the organization of
the General Association. This was to rest on the membership
of the local association. In other words, the
central body was to be simply a combination of the separate
local units. Thirdly, as to the right of representation
at the annual meetings. Each of the local units was
to be entitled to one delegate for every knot of five active
members which it contained. When the General Association
should assemble annually, every member of a local

chapter present as a representative was to have the right
to cast one ballot. Finally, the pecuniary assessments
were to be determined only at this general meeting. The
executive committee was to be composed of the president
and secretary and seven other alumni selected periodically,
and to them was to be delegated the administration
of the affairs of the General Association.[17]

By June, 1903, the year in which the second charter
was obtained from the General Assembly, there were to
be counted forty-five associations in as many widely scattered
communities. Of this number, twenty-three were
situated outside of Virginia in twelve States, extending as
far south as Texas and as far north as New York. The
commonwealth that contained the largest number of these
local units, after Virginia, was Texas, which could claim a
total of seven. Tennessee came next with three, and
Alabama with two. There were two thousand, one hundred
alumni on the roll during this year, of whom one
thousand and twenty-five resided in Virginia,—the remainder
were dispersed throughout the United States.

The new coordination of the local associations, with
a unified practical object in view, in place of the banquet
which had formerly more or less limited their activities,
soon began to disclose its beneficial influence in the increased
interest which the alumni displayed in the work of
the University. In 1903, the Baltimore chapter recommended
that the General Association should obtain from
the Legislature the right to a definite representation on
the Board of Visitors in the person of some of their own
members, whenever a new set should be appointed by the

Governor. This was a valuable suggestion, which, had it
only been adopted, would have strengthened the University's
hold on its alumni, by extending the alumni's
power to the practical management of its affairs. About
this time, the General Association created a board of
three trustees, who were to be responsible for the custody
of all funds which the association should collect as
endowments, and for their disposition in strict harmony
with the directions given by the donors.

It had always been clearly perceived that the prosperity
of the General Association was very much curtailed by
the absence of an alumni hall. In June, 1903, its executive
committee was authorized to enter into an arrangement
with the General Athletic Association by which the
athletic club-house and the alumni hall would be consolidated
into one building; such a combination would make
it possible to obtain quarters for both bodies at an earlier
day than would be practicable, should each be forced to
depend upon its own separate resources. The three thousand
dollars now in the treasury of the Alumni Association
was to be reserved as a common fund for this purpose.
This plan for a mutual building, excellent as it
seemed to be, failed to be carried out. Another measure
suggested, which was ultimately adopted, because indispensable
to the welfare of the association, was the appointment
of a secretary, whose entire time was to be devoted
to the performance of the duties of the office. It
was foreseen that the services of a competent officer could
only be secured by the payment of a liberal salary, and in
order to acquire the necessary sum, it was proposed that
every member of the local chapters should be annually
mulcted to the small extent of fifty cents.

As indicating the position occupied by alumni of the
University of Virginia in the political life of the nation

during the Eighth Period, 1895–1904, the following facts
relating to the congressional session of 1903–04,—in no
particular exceptional,—may be mentioned. In the Senate,
the proportion of membership belonging to several
of the highest seats of learning was: the University of
Virginia, six; Yale, seven; Harvard, three; and Princeton,
nine. In the House, the proportion stood: University
of Virginia, twelve; Yale, eleven; Harvard, seven;
and Princeton, five. The significance of these figures appear
more impressive when it is recalled that the number
of students in attendance at the University of Virginia,
during this year, was only six hundred in comparison
with five thousand, one hundred who had matriculated at
Harvard, twenty-seven hundred, at Yale, and thirteen
hundred and fifty, at Princeton.

Down to 1904, four alumni of the University of Virginia
had been members of the cabinet in Washington;
one a Justice of the Supreme Court; one a Justice of the
International Court of Appeals; twenty-five, members of
the Senate; eighty-six, members of the House of Representatives;
eighteen, governors of commonwealth; forty-eight,
judges of State Supreme courts; and eight, ambassadors
or foreign ministers. In the General Convention
of the Protestant Episcopal church, during certain
years of the Eighth Period, not less than eight bishops
who were graduates of the University of Virginia occupied
seats. In one session, 1901–2, seven candidates,
educated at the same institution, were successful in meeting
all the requirements demanded by the Examining
Board of the medical department of the Federal Navy.
Only one among the eight applicants from the University
of Virginia on this occasion failed. The other
medical schools of the country were represented by fifty-four
candidates, of whom only twelve were able to pass

the ordeal. In 1902, the proportion of medical graduates
of the University's school of medicine in the service
of the United States Army Medical corps was nineteen
per cent.; of the Naval Medical corps, twenty per cent.,
and of the Marine Hospital, twenty-six.

XIX. Relations with Public Schools

Throughout the Eighth Period, 1896–1904, the male
white teachers and superintendents of the public schools
continued to possess the right to attend, without payment
of tuition fees, the different lectures of the academic department
delivered during the last three months of the
session. The professors were always willing to inaugurate
new and independent courses for their sole benefit.
We have previously referred to the establishment by the
Board of Visitors of six scholarships in this department
for the benefit of the public schools of Virginia,—each
to be held for a period of three years by the incumbent;
each to be endowed with an annual income of two hundred
dollars; and each to carry an exemption from the usual
charges for matriculation and tuition alike.

The manner in which these scholarships were to be
bestowed was in harmony with that great principle which
Jefferson was so eager to imbed in his system of public instruction.
It will be recalled that he provided for the advance,
from the district school to his projected university,
of a definite number of young men, who had displayed
conspicuous evidence of original talent and accumulated
learning. Each public high school, under the similar
plan adopted by the Board, was to have the privilege of
bringing forward three candidates for the scholarships,
all of whom must have demonstrated their capacity and
knowledge by passing successfully preliminary examination
in Latin, mathematics, and English. The final

awards were to be made to those students whose papers
tested by the standards of the University should indicate
the greatest degree of merit.

The Faculty, always ready to show their interest in
the public school system of the State, and by every means
in their power to increase its usefulness and prosperity,
offered in January, 1898, the use of the dormitories, lecture-halls,
and library to the School of Methods, which
was to assemble in the course of the following summer.
Two months afterwards they invited the superintendent
and secretary of the Board of Public Instruction,—
Messrs. Southall and Brent,—to visit the University
with a view to conferring with the authorities there upon
the best plan for establishing closer relations between that
institution and the public school system. And this invitation
was repeated in December, 1900, in the same
earnest and farsighted spirit. A condition was now arising
that was to widen steadily with the progress of the
sessions—the University's graduates were already accepting
the management of the large public high schools;
and through the influence of men like J. P. Thomas, of
Richmond, and George M. Bain, of Norfolk,—the presiding
officers of the two most conspicuous schools of this
character in the State,—the University had begun to
stamp its temper and its standards on the whole public
school system. By 1900, it was estimated that at least
twenty-one of the county superintendents were graduates
of that seat of learning; this was about one-fifth of the
entire number; and by the beginning of the same year, it
was also calculated that at least one-third of the superintendents
of the city schools were graduates of the same
institution.

When it was found that the six scholarships offered by
the Board of Visitors to the public high schools had failed

to accomplish fully the purpose which that body had in
view in creating them, it was wisely decided to make a
more general distribution of the fund previously expended
on their endowment. This now amounted annually to
twelve hundred dollars. Instead of joining two hundred
dollars to a single scholarship, they offered to assign
one scholarship to every high school in the State,
which they should specially designate yearly, and to
support it with a fixed appropriation of fifty dollars.
It was expected that this sum would relieve the incumbent
of all expenses except the bare cost of boarding.
The only condition that was to be attached to the
scholarship was that it should be considered to be the
foremost honor open to the pupils of each school; and
that it should only be conferred on the graduate who
could show the highest marks. It was anticipated that,
in time, the sum which the scholarship carried would be
sensibly increased, and the length of time embraced in
the scholarship materially extended. In 1902, there
were fifteen public high schools in Virginia, each one of
which could in turn hope to be awarded one of these scholarships.
The public primary schools were now rapidly
growing in number, and their coordination with the high
schools was steadily becoming more solid. It followed
that the new close relation between the University and
the high schools would signify in time an equally close
relation between the University and every grade of the
public school system down to the very bottom. This relation
even now was not limited entirely to the assignment
of scholarships by the University,—it extended also to
the arrangement of the studies taught in the primary
schools in such manner as to lead naturally and directly
to the grade of the high school, and the arrangement of
studies in the high school in such manner as to lead naturally
and directly to the grade of the University of Virginia.

Between September, 1890, and September, 1900, the
number of public high schools increased from forty-eight
to seventy-three, a gain of fifty-two per cent.; the number
of secondary private schools increased from sixty-three to
seventy, a gain of only twenty-three per cent. The number
of pupils enrolled in these secondary private schools
in 1890–91 was two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six;
and in 1900–01, it was three thousand, five hundred
and twenty-seven. This was a gain of only twenty-two
per cent. On the other hand, the corresponding figures
for the public high schools were two thousand and sixty,
and four thousand, four hundred and forty-six, a gain in
excess of one hundred and ten per cent. The difference
in the growth of the two groups of schools indicated very
clearly the importance of the public high school as a tributary
to the reservoir of the University of Virginia, and
the practical wisdom as well as the public duty of utilizing
it in the cause of general education.

The various methods which the Board of Visitors and
the Faculty employed from decade to decade previous to
1900 to strengthen and push forward the interests of the
public school system may be summarized as follows: (1)
they offered a valuable scholarship to the most competent
graduate of each standard public high school in the State;
(2) they held out to the teachers and superintendents of
the public schools the privilege of a course of instruction
in the academic department during three months of each
year, without any charge for either matriculation or tuition;
(3) they adopted the recommendation of the State
superintendent that the members of the classes in ancient
languages, modern languages and mathematics, at the
University should begin the study of those subjects at the

point where the graduate of the public high school had
left off; (4) they threw all the weight of their influence in
the scale of the bill before the General Assembly which
provided for the erection of a high school in every rural
district of the State; and, finally, (5) they authorized the
summer School of Methods to make use of the University
library, lecture-halls, and dormitories on the occasion of
their sessions; subsidized these sessions with a large sum;
and during their progress, assigned many of the University's
ablest professors to the duty of lecturing from day
to day.

How imposing has been the attendance at the meetings
of this School of Methods is revealed in the history of
any one of them which may be taken as an example. In
June, 1902, one thousand teachers at least were present.
On this occasion, one hundred names were registered in
the academic department alone. In 1903, the general
attendance was equally as great, while the registration in
the academic department rose to two hundred and fifty
individuals. Among the throng of persons present during
these sessions were found teachers from every State
of the South, and from many of the North and West.
The aim of these summer students has been said to be
"to continue the practical work of the normal school, and
its academic dependent, with regular university courses
of the broadest scope." There were manual training
classes, besides a psychological laboratory, a basket factory,
a musical studio, and a typewriting establishment.

The sessions were prolonged during these first years
over a period of one month and a half, beginning on the
15th of June. "When one reflects on the condition of
the rural schools in many parts of Virginia," remarks an
observer who attended in 1903, "one is not surprised to
find preparation often meagre, habits of application lacking,

and educational ideals low. It is just here that the
University is exercising a silent but patent influence. No
one can live six weeks among the serene arcades of Jefferson
without drinking in some of their worth and scholarship.
Recently, 1902, the county superintendents met in
the auditorium there in convention. Happy augury for
Jefferson's idea that the University should be the capstone
of the public school system! And it is through the public
schools that the growth and expansion of the University
in the next decades must come."

As early as 1904, it was clearly recognized by Professor
E. Reinhold Rogers, of the Faculty, that there was
already a demand for the creation of a department of
education at the University of Virginia, and he earnestly
recommended that courses in pedagogy should be taught
there, in pursuance of the example already set by the Universities
of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

XX. Finances

The expansion in the University's receipts as well as in
its disbursements, during the Eighth Period, 1896–1904,
as compared with that for the Seventh Period, 1865–
1895, is foreshadowed in the figures recorded for the session
of 1896–97,—the income for that year amounted
to $138,546.86, and the outlay, to $139,198.48. Of the
receipts, $50,000 was derived from the State in the form
of the customary annuity, and $21,490 in the form of interest
from the following endowments,—Corcoran, Miller,
Linden Kent, Fayerweather, Observatory, Madison,
Gordon, Brown, and Mason. About $53,950 was obtained
in the shape of fees paid by the students. Turning
to the disbursements, we find that they were made to
defray the current charges. The most voluminous of

these were the salaries of professors and instructors
amounting to $71,500. The items in the annual budget
of expenses were $5,954 paid to the officers of the University
and $2,000 paid to its employees. The outlay for
the interest on the debt was $15,170, and for current repairs,
$8,000. The strictly operative charges already
reached as high a figure as $10,910. The scholarships
absorbed about $1,080; the sinking fund, about $4,050;
and miscellaneous calls about $4,650.

The University of Virginia, in 1901, possessed the following
securities: The Corcoran Fund, $100,000; the
Madison Fund, $2,600; the Gordon Fund, $5,000; the
Mason Fund, $7,000; the Observatory Fund, $86,500;
the Miller Fund, $100,000; the Kent Fund, $60,000; the
sinking fund, $66,900; the Birely Fund, $4,500; the Byrd
Library Fund, $10,000; the Paul Fund, $400.00; the
Bryan Fund, $250.00; miscellaneous, $600.00. The
bonded debt consisted of a mortgage for $200,000, and
general obligations to the extent of $69,500. In October,
1901, the trust funds, with legacies yet to mature, belonging
to the University, amounted to $900,000.

During the session of 1897–98, the annuity received
from the State was reduced to $45,000. After the
Great Fire, the General Assembly had increased the annual
appropriation to $50,000, of which sum $10,000
was to be set aside to pay the interest on the money
which the Board had been authorized to borrow for the
restoration of the buildings, namely $200,000. During
the session of 1899–1900, the annuity of $45,000 was
raised again to $50,000. Ten thousand dollars of this
amount was still to be used in defraying the charges for
interest on the Restoration Fund. The remainder had
been granted by the Legislature on the specific condition
that all students from Virginia should still be admitted

without any outlay for tuition. There was at this time
no provision made for diminishing the volume of the Restoration
mortgage bonds by the establishment of a separate
sinking fund,—the only reserve was credited annually
to the sinking fund created for the gradual liquidation
of the original debt of $69,500. This reserve fund
was obtained by holding back a portion of the annuity
paid by the State, the remainder of which was expended in
the payment of the insurance premiums, the cost of repairs
of buildings, the salaries of executive officers, wages
of employees, and the charges for heating and lighting.

It was calculated that, during the Eighth Period, 1896–
1904, the University of Virginia either kept within the
State, or brought within its borders, a sum which was
equal to the amount of the annuity many times duplicated.
The total annual payments by students from this Commonwealth,
either directly to the University itself, or
to colleges of the State in anticipation of entering its
classes, did not fall below $280,000, if every branch of
expenditure by them was embraced in the estimate. Taking
the outlay for one purpose or another, in the course
of a single year, the sum paid by the whole number of
students, irrespective of the Commonwealths from which
they registered, was thought to be as much as $300,000.
This was six times the amount which the General Assembly
appropriated annually to the University; and it was
an amount which would have been entirely lost to the
State's resources had not that institution been in existence
to draw these young men to Virginia, or to hold them
there, if they were natives of its soil.

The daughter of the donor of the Austin bequest possessed
the testamentary right to dispose of the income
accruing from it during her life, but she generously released
her claim upon $10,000 of that income in favor of

the University, to which otherwise it would have gone
only after her death had taken place.

For the fiscal year ending with the session of 1901–2,
the receipts of the institution amounted to $157,169.21,
and the expenditures to $157,899.19. The salaries of
the professors now absorbed $75,350, and those of the officers,
$5,850. The amount needed for the payment of
interest on the debt, together with the annual additions to
the sinking fund, was $21,287; for wages, $7,692; for operating
expenses, $17,320, and for miscellaneous charges,
$25,650. The State was still appropriating an annuity
of fifty thousand dollars. The estimated expenses for
the fiscal year ending with the session of 1903–4 were,
$147,768, and the estimated income, $149,939.