University of Virginia Library

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.