University of Virginia Library

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.