University of Virginia Library

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.