University of Virginia Library

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF VIRGINIA

XI. Professional Schools—Law

When we come to inquire into the character of the
professional schools of the University of Virginia during
the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, we find that they were
subject to precisely the same influences as those which
were, at that time, impressing themselves so deeply upon
the like schools in every important seat of learning in the
United States. As to the professional courses in all the
principal institutions, it may be said, in a general way,
that there was now a broader and more liberal interpretation
of what constituted the right preparation for their
study. This was to be perceived (1) in the growing
attention given to the scientific aspects of their subjects
as distinguished from the aspects which were purely technical;
(2) in the more rigid requirements, both as to
scope and quality, applied to the academic work preliminary
to these courses.

Let us first consider the history of the School of Law
at the University of Virginia during the reconstructive
period. When the lectures in this school were resumed
in September, 1865, the method and the course of instruction
did not differ at all from those which Professor
Minor had always followed, and which he had already
made famous throughout the Southern States. He could
very correctly say that his school had never suspended.
What need, therefore, was there for a reorganization?

Previous to the war, there had been a professor assigned
to each of the two departments. Now there was one
alone in charge of both. This was the sole point of
divergence between the two periods. But with all his
remarkable power of industry, it was as impossible now
as it had been prior to 1861, for him to conduct the
School of Law without aid. Had the attendance continued
small, the task of doing so might have been performed
successfully; but the large number of students
who flocked to his lecture-room during the opening session
made it as imperative for him to seek assistance
now as it had been at the time when James P. Holcombe
was appointed for his relief.

Stephen O. Southall, a man of many amiable qualities,
and one of varied culture and fine native talents,[1] also,
but not a great instructor, was chosen. He at once took
charge of the department of civil, constitutional, and international
law, mercantile law, and equity, while Minor
confined himself strictly to his former province of common
and statute law, in which he had already won such
high distinction as a teacher. His Institutes,—which
was an epitome of his vast fund of information bearing
upon this subject, and which, in recent years, he had furnished
to his pupils by means of a lithographic press,—
began to appear in book form, in 1870; and from this
year, it was noticed that the number of graduates in the
school steadily increased. This was due less to the augmentation
of the law class from session to session,—
which was rather moderate,—than to the larger margin
of time which its members had now to give to preparation
for the lectures and the examinations. Previous to

the war, the proportion of the young men who won the
degree of bachelor of laws was only six per cent of the
two classes. During the interval between 1870 and 1880,
this proportion rose to eighteen per cent, and ultimately
to twenty per cent. It was necessary for the student to
answer correctly at least five-sixths of the questions submitted
in the examinations.

The publication of the Institutes gave a perceptible
impulse to the spread of Professor Minor's reputation
as an instructor, and in doing so, added to the prestige
and prosperity of the school. His establishment of a
summer class in 1871,—which was conducted by him
without assistance,—contributed further to his usefulness
by creating for many persons an opportunity for the
study of law as a profession, or as a part of a liberal
education, which they would not otherwise have enjoyed;
and it also swelled the attendance upon his university
lectures, by affording a preliminary training to many
young men of moderate means who wished to become his
pupils during the regular session, but would have hesitated
to do so without the degree of preparation, on entering
the school, which was required to ensure graduation
at the end of a single session. It was observed too
that numerous practitioners at the bar were able to take
advantage of these summer lectures because delivered
during their annual vacation.

The course in the regular school of law could be still
completed in one year, although it was the advice of both
of the professors that its study should be protracted over
two. No examination for entrance had to be stood at
this time; nor was any credit allowed for work which
had been done in the law department of another institution.
Professor Minor's health having shown a tendency
to fail, after many years of unceasing devotion to

the duties of his position, the Board of Visitors, in June,
1889, offered him an assistant.[2] As a means of further
relieving him, a committee was appointed twelve months
later to report upon the advisability of establishing another
chair, one of the subjects of which should be corporation
law. The decision of this committee was adverse,
on the ground that the erection of the new professorship
would deprive the candidate of the ability to
obtain his degree by the application of one session,—a
matter of grave importance to the large number of young
men in attendance whose incomes were limited. The
course was so ordered that anyone entering upon it with
a fair degree of previous preparation, could, by the exertion
of unremitting industry, pass successfully at the end
of nine months. It was apprehended that, should such a
change be made in the course as would render this impossible,
the number of students in the school would sensibly
fall away.

Southall died previous to the session of 1885–86.[3]
The faculty of the School of Law, beginning with the
session of 1890–91, comprised Professor Minor, who
was in charge of his old department of common and
statute law, with his son, John B. Minor, Jr., as his assistant;
and James H Gilmore, who was in charge of
the remaining department John B. Minor, Jr., having
resigned his instructorship, in consequence of persistent
bad health, his brother, Raleigh C. Minor, was chosen by
the Board in June, 1893, to take his place. The subject
of mercantile law was now restored to the department
of common and statute law. By the session of 1868–9,
a new designation had been adopted for the general

course, which remained unaltered throughout this period.
Previously, it was known as the School of Law, with
two departments; afterwards, it was known as the Department
of Law, with two schools at first; namely, the
school of common and statute law, part I, taught in
1893–4 by Professor Minor, and his assistant, Raleigh
C. Minor, and part II by Professor William M. Lile;
and the school of international and constitutional law,
evidence, and equity, taught by Professor Gilmore.

While the course was so arranged down to 1894–5 as
to extend over two sessions, no student was denied the
right to obtain his degree after the application of one
session, should his power of acquisition, or his previous
preparation, have made him equal to the task. Subsequent
to this year, the increase in the number of lectures
and examinations rendered such an upshot impracticable.
The department was now divided into three schools,
which comprised six classes, three of which were spoken
of as the junior or first year, and three as the senior or
second year. The junior were engaged with the law of
pleading and practice in civil cases, constitutional and international
law, and the law of personal relations, personal
property, contracts, probate and personal administration;
the senior with the law of real property, evidence
and equity, corporation and mercantile law, the law
of negotiable instruments, and criminal law.

XII. Professional Schools—Medicine

The lectures delivered in the School of Medicine were
not seriously interrupted while the War of Secession was
in progress. After the full resumption of activity in that
school, at the beginning of the session of 1865–6, there
was no change in the original courses of study; and with
the exception of Dr. J. E. Chancellor,—who succeeded

Dr. Allen as demonstrator of anatomy, and who, in
1872–3, was succeeded by William B. Towles,—the medical
faculty comprised the same men who had devoted
their talents and knowledge to maintaining the reputation
of the several departments during so many years. Dr.
Howard, who, during the session of 1867–8, was succeeded
by James F. Harrison,[4] was still the professor of
medical jurisprudence, obstetrics, and the practice of
medicine; James L. Cabell, the professor of comparative
anatomy, physiology, and surgery; John Staige Davis,
the professor of anatomy and materia medica; and Socrates
Maupin, professor of chemistry and pharmacy.

In soliciting the patronage of the public under the altered
conditions that now prevailed, the medical faculty
again harked back to those advantages of length of session,
daily examinations, order of studies, and the like,
upon which they had relied for success from the foundation
of the school. And they had now,—what they did
not have, at least during the First Period (1825–1842),
—one very pertinent fact to emphasize, in confirmation
of the soundness of their claim to efficiency; namely, the
professional distinction of a large proportion of the
medical alumni of the University.

The medical professors, however, were still pursued by
a nightmare that had never ceased to disturb them, and
one too which had been very influential in causing them
to lay such strong and such constant stress on the superiority
of their school. The not impartial suggestion
had been again made that this school should be removed
to Richmond, in order to enjoy the clinical facilities
which were admitted to be unobtainable at Charlottesville;

and so persistent became this demand that the perturbed
medical faculty, in April, 1867, addressed a petition
to the General Assembly, in which they earnestly
protested against the possible approval of this proposal
by that body. Their reasons for objecting to the transplantation
in that year were the same as those which they
had previously brought forward so emphatically. "Only
when well versed in the principles of medicine," they
declared, "was the student prepared to profit by clinical
instruction, and not before. The value of clinical instruction
is freely conceded, but it is an unprofitable use
of time for the first-course student to give his attention
to it. It has always been the policy of the University of
Virginia to make its honors testimonials of merit, and
not certificates of attendance in a prescribed course of
instruction. Hence the degree of doctor of medicine is
often won by a first-course student. Many do graduate
in nine months. Often an academic student joins a part
of the medical, with his academic, studies, during one
session, and during the next takes the medical course and
graduates. But a majority of the medical students do
not graduate here. They spend one session reaping the
well-known advantages of the department, and then go
off to city schools to secure their degree and profit by the
clinical facilities."

This excellence as a didactic school,—which continued
during so many years of the Seventh Period, 1865–
1895,—was chiefly sustained by the institution's ability
to distribute the subjects of instruction among a smaller
number of professors than was possible in a school each
session of which did not run beyond five months. It was
quite justly claimed that this distribution rendered it practicable
for the student to take up the different sections
of the general course in their natural and logical sequence.

There was such a discriminating arrangement
of the lectures that it was in his power to acquire a competent
knowledge of human and comparative anatomy,
physiology, and chemistry, before he turned to the study
of the principles and practice of medicine and surgery,
which, after all, were only clearly intelligible when a definite
amount of information had been accumulated about
these earlier parts of the course. The amplest time was
allowed him to prepare thoroughly for each lecture as it
approached, by the study of his text-books and professorial
notes, and by collateral reading.

In addition to the regular courses of the school, the
student enjoyed the advantage of a very valuable series
of lectures on the practical application of chemistry to
medicine,—especially as related to the detection of poisons,
and the microscopical examination of animal products.
And in further enlargement, the Faculty obtained
the Board's consent to the establishment of a laboratory
course in pharmacy, with a view to affording the future
practitioners a better comprehension of their remedial
agents, and some knowledge of the compounding of their
prescriptions.[5]

About 1875, there was observed beyond the precincts
of the University of Virginia the earliest indications of
a tendency that was to lead to a revolution in the science
and practice of medicine. This was the rapid development
of physics, chemistry, and biology. It was
impossible for the medical faculty to remain entirely insensible
to this new and powerful influence, however
firmly intrenched they might be in the traditions of a
didactic school. In April, 1880, Professor Cabell submitted

a report,—afterwards adopted by the Board,—
in which he recommended that this innovating activity
should be recognized by the University of Virginia only
so far as it did not require "a sweeping departure from
the fundamental principles of its medical administration."
There were certain alterations which, in his opinion, could
be made without running amuck with these principles:
(1) the course prescribed for the degree of doctor of
medicine should be extended over two sessions; and (2)
in order to ensure a proper division of studies between the
two, there should be a junior and a senior class. The
subjects to be taught in the first should be the course in
anatomy belonging to the School of Anatomy and Materia
Medica; the course in physiology belonging to the
School of Physiology and Surgery; the course in medical
jurisprudence belonging to the School of Practice of
Medicine and Obstetrics, and the course in chemistry belonging
to the School of Chemistry and Pharmacy.
These were the elementary branches of medical science.
The student who had been successful in passing his examinations
in these junior courses, was not to be required
to submit to a second test of his knowledge of them after
he had become a member of the senior class. Nor were
the young men who had been prepared by previous study
elsewhere to be denied, at the end of their first session,
the privilege of standing all the examinations of the two
years, if they should ask for it. This right to win the
degree after an attendance of nine months only was not
refused until 1891–2, although there was always a disposition
to discourage any one who claimed it.

At a meeting of the medical faculty, held in September,
1886, a plan was adopted for the early establishment of a
dispensary, which was expected to supply some of the clinical
facilities that had been so long wanting. It was to

be placed on the ground-floor of the anatomical hall, and
was to be open to the reception of patients at least twice
in the course of each week. During the first half of the
session, only three students of the senior class were to
be admitted at one time to the consultation on these occasions;
but during the second half, every member of the
junior class was to be privileged to be present in turn.
The dispensary was started (1886–87); but its work was
soon temporarily interrupted by fire, which consumed the
equipment of the hall.

Only a month after the medical faculty had recommended
this addition to the medical school, they suggested
that a similar establishment should be set up in
Charlottesville for the benefit of the people of that community
as well as for the instruction of the students of
the University. This apparently was completed some
time prior to June, 1888. Already a small charity hospital,
under the superintendence of the Ladies' Relief
Society, had been opened in that town, which provided another
opportunity for practical tuition for the members of
the medical classes. It seems that Dr. William C. Dabney,
—who had been elected to the chair of practice of
medicine, obstetrics, and medical jurisprudence, in August,
1886,—had signalized the assumption of its duties by
the adoption of the policy, for the improvement of his
pupils, of calling with them professionally on out-patients.
This practical application was only suitable to the needs of
those students who had finished the courses of the junior
year. Insignificant in scope as this new departure was, it
was the beginning of a new period in the medical history
of the University.

After Cabell withdrew, the sentiment in the medical
faculty favorable to the reorganization of the school on a
more practical footing became more pronounced. The

Board, now forced to take this sentiment into renewed
consideration, declared that, while they would be willing
to enlarge the clinical facilities of the department, it
would only be with the understanding that the theoretical
training, which had so long been given, should continue
predominant. In the meanwhile, a new dissecting
hall had been erected and equipped with every modern
appliance and convenience. This branch of instruction
had always been conducted with conspicuous ability at the
University; and its excellent results had never ceased to be
a tacit reminder that the application of its principle to
every one of the other courses would be accompanied
by the same practical benefits. Paul B. Barringer, who
had enjoyed a thorough education in his profession, both
in this country and in Europe, and who was also a man
of vigorous personality, became adjunct professor of
physiology and surgery during the session of 1889–90.

We have already referred to the revolution in the science
and practice of medicine which was perceptible beyond
the precincts of the University about 1875. It was
not until the admission to the medical faculty of younger
men like Dabney and Barringer, who had felt the full
force of this revolution elsewhere, that the medical school
began to exhibit all the symptoms of genuine sympathy
with the new methods of study. Dr. William G. Christian,
an assistant to both Barringer and Dabney, and
sharing their views, said, in a letter to B. Johnson Barbour,
that, up to the advent of this new influence, there
was no attempt at the University of Virginia, in either
the School of Pathology or of Physiology, to demonstrate
practically the facts stated by the lecturers. Without
such illustration, the high reputation of the institution
would, in his opinion, suffer because it would not, in its
medical school, at least, be in touch with the spirit of the

age. He brought up its limited facilities for teaching
microscopy as an example of the shortcomings that were
still holding it back in the race with those rivals who
had adopted with eagerness all the modern requirements.
"The mere statement," be said, "of healthy or diseased
conditions conveys not only an inadequate, but an incorrect
idea,—so imperfect, indeed, that not one case in a
thousand will a student recognize with the microscope,
while he can repeat the description faultlessly. There
can be no scientific practice of medicine without a thorough
knowledge of pathology, and to acquire this, an
equal familiarity with histology. This was impossible
without the microscope."

Although the movement of the medical school towards
a full recognition of the new conditions was slow in its
progress, as we have seen, nevertheless it never ceased.
An important step was the adoption by the Board in
1891–2 of the rule recommended by Dr. Cabell, in 1880,
that no student should be awarded the degree of doctor
of medicine unless he had attended the lectures of the
medical professors at least two years, and passed successful
examinations in every branch of the course. The
only exception allowed was in the case of a member of the
class who had traversed at another college one course
extending over nine months, or completed two courses
before the termination of that length of time. Such a
student was permitted to become a candidate for graduation
in one session; and he was only required to pursue
the course of the senior year. But before he could obtain
his degree, he must have passed a satisfactory examination
at the University on all the subjects included
in the schedule of studies for both years.

During the session of 1891–2, the subjects of instruction
for the first year were anatomy, chemistry, normal

histology, bacteriology, physiology, and medical jurisprudence;
and for the second, materia medica, surgery,
hygiene, gynecology, practice of medicine, practical
pathology and obstetrics. The number of students in at
tendance rose, during this session, to one hundred and
forty-five,—the largest membership that had so far been
enrolled in the medical school. This increase was supposed
to be due partly to the influences which had led to
the expansion in the general list of the University matriculates,
and partly to the growing reputation of the
practical features of the medical courses. This advance
in distinction was especially conspicuous in the cases of
histology, pathology, and biology.

Clinics were held thrice a week in the Charlottesville
hospital for the second-course students; and valuable
facilities of the same character were afforded by the
charity practice in the town and contiguous districts. An
appropriation had been recently made by the Board for
the erection of a new dispensary, and work was begun on
the building during this session. This section of the
medical school was expected to offer clinical material of
importance for the benefit of the higher classes. By
this time, the old principle that descriptive teaching alone
was to be employed in the University's medical courses,
outside of the dissecting room, had been discarded by its
medical faculty as a whole. It was now ungrudgingly admitted
by this body that objective teaching must go hand
in hand with it, if the school was to subserve the best interests
of the student to the utmost. The pecuniary expense
imposed by the new method was heavier than that
imposed by the old, for there was now a demand for
an ampler supply of apparatus and material, and also for
a larger degree of laboratory assistance, and for a
greater number of thoroughly trained instructors.

By the opening of the session of 1892–3, every chair
of the medical school was occupied by an incumbent whose
appointment had been made subsequent to 1875. To
Towles was assigned the courses in anatomy and materia
medica[6] ; to Dabney, those in obstetrics and practice
of medicine; to Barringer, those in physiology and
surgery; and to Tuttle, those in biology; while Christian
was charged with the duties of demonstrator of anatomy.
Towles died before the end of the session, and
Christian was advanced to his vacant professorship in
part. Surgery was now brought under his instruction,
and in its place, materia medica was transferred to Barringer.

These men, with Barringer at their head, were so convinced
of the need of greater clinical facilities to complete
the round of a medical education at the University
of Virginia that it might have been predicted that some
practical step would, under their influence, be taken at the
earliest opportunity presenting itself to establish a large
hospital. In 1893, the Faculty earnestly recommended
that a building of this nature should be erected on the
University grounds; but the Board, while acknowledging
the advantages which it would bestow, were compelled to
say in reply that they had no funds in hand with which

to carry so imposing a project into effect. Hardly a
month later, however, the rector was instructed to petition
the Legislature for an appropriation for the construction
of the desired edifice; and he was authorized
to offer the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars out of
the Fayerweather bequest as an addition to whatever
amount might be granted by the Commonwealth. Should
the hospital be established, it was to be known as the
State Hospital. Once erected, it was hoped that the
General Assembly would be willing to contribute ten
thousand dollars annually for its support, on condition
that not less than forty patients should be receiving
gratuitous treatment at one time.

In June, 1895, a committee was appointed to draft
plans and specifications for the proposed building. It
was decided on that occasion to be best to remove the
dispensary to one wing of this projected structure, so
soon as finished, but the committee was left at liberty to
figure upon the retention of the existing edifice, as a part
of the main establishment.

In March, 1894, the Faculty recommended, and the
Board adopted, the readjustment of certain professorships
of the medical department on the following footing:
(1) the chair of anatomy and materia medica was
to be designated the chair of anatomy and surgery;
(2) an adjunct chair of pathology and hygiene was to
be created, the holder of which was to teach the didactic
and laboratory courses of those subjects. These courses
were now attached to the chairs of surgery and practice
of medicine. The new incumbent was to have charge of
the laboratory instruction in histology and bacteriology.
Christian was appointed to the professorship of anatomy
and operative surgery, and John Staige Davis, Jr., the
son of the famous instructor of the same name, to the

adjunct professorship of general and surgical pathology.
Hygiene was subsequently added to his chair. After
Dabney's death, the chair of obstetrics, gynecology, and
practice of medicine was occupied by A. H. Buckmaster.
The last important step taken, during this period,
was the nomination of joint committees of the Board and
Faculty to consider the advisability of adopting a system
of preliminary examinations for the medical department;
but in May, 1895, this was decided to be inexpedient at
that time.

XIII. Civil and Mining Engineering

In July, 1865, the professorship of mathematics was
declared by the Board to be vacant, owing to the protracted
absence of Bledsoe; and Charles S. Venable was
chosen to fill it. Venable, at first, made no change of
importance in the division of courses which had been
adopted by his predecessor. This arrangement was only
materially altered when the collegiate, university, and
post-graduate system went into effect, during the session
of 1892–93. The courses in civil engineering,—which
were still associated with the School of Mathematics,—
were a survival of those that had been taught before the
war. They seem to have been distributed between two
sessions. During the first, the subjects of study were
mathematics, natural philosophy, mineralogy, geology,
chemistry, and practical drawing; and during the second,
higher geodesy, special astronomy, leveling roads and
railways, theory and use of instruments, geometrical
drawing, and the applications of descriptive geometry to
shading and the like. In 1866, the Faculty recommended
that the instruction to be given in this branch of the
School of Mathematics should be left to an assistant, who
was to be nominated by the full professor.

In the course of the following year, the School of Applied
Mathematics was erected, with special reference
to the study of engineering in general; but it was still to
form a section of the School of Mathematics; and it was
not until 1869–70 that it became an independent school.
The degrees of civil and mining engineering were conferred
for graduation in definite courses. By the session
of 1881–2, the combination of studies in the Department
of Engineering stood as follows: natural philosophy,
pure mathematics, general and applied chemistry,
natural history and geology, analytical and agricultural
chemistry, and mathematics as applied to engineering.
William M. Thornton had been chosen the adjunct professor
of applied mathematics and civil engineering when
Boeck was dismissed in 1875.

As time passed, the demand for the services of young
men in every branch of industry engaged in utilizing the
natural wealth of the South became more acute; and in
order to meet it, steps were taken at the University to
enlarge the facilities of the engineering department.
New courses in the exploitation of mines, practical metallurgy,
machine design, hydraulic motors and pumps, railway
appliances and electrical engineering, were proposed.
For so great an expansion, buildings would have to be
erected, and apparatus and machinery purchased, and at
least three assistants employed. "The time has come,"
declared the report which recommended these additions,
"when it is no longer reputable to treat civil engineering
without the aid of a laboratory. The demands of modern
practice require of the mining engineer less knowledge
of the intricacies of chemical analysis and a fuller
acquaintance with the practical details of mining and
metallurgy." It was estimated that a building with
two wings, and possessing the proper equipment for civil

and mining laboratories, would cost not less than twenty
thousand dollars; and that an annual expenditure of two
hundred and fifty dollars, at least, would be needed for
the purchase of the proper supplies. The first step taken
to bring about these improvements was the purchase of a
testing machine, a steam engine and boiler, and a complete
number of field instruments. A large room and
two offices were reserved for use as a shop and mechanical
laboratory. With these additions, comparatively
meagre as they were as yet, and with a new series
of lectures on certain branches of machinery, a broader
course of instruction in mechanical, mining, sanitary, and
civil engineering became practicable.

How clearly the need of such instruction was comprehended
was revealed in the words of Professor Thornton.
"The graduate in engineering," he said, "must
add to the older discipline of books, lectures, computation,
and drawings, knowledge of a practical and positive
sort. He must, in the chemical laboratory, learn to
determine the qualities of his building materials, fuels,
ores, and water supplies, and in the mechanical laboratory,
their strength, heaviness, toughness, and so on;
and also learn to test the qualities of steam, the performance
of engines, boilers, furnaces, pumps, and dynamos.
In the geological laboratory, he must find out the gross
and microscopical structure of minerals and rocks; and
in the physical laboratory, learn to measure the amounts,
etc., of electrical, magnetic action, and the transmission of
light, heat, and sound."

During the session of 1891–2, the teaching force of the
Department of Engineering was enlarged by the appointment
of Adjunct-Professor William H. Echols, and, in
consequence, the work of the technical engineering courses
had to be redistributed. This work was now arranged

under ten main heads: mechanics, engineering geodesy,
bridge construction, steam enginery, thermo-dynamics, advanced
mechanics, hydraulic engineering, hydraulic machinery,
and mining and descriptive geometry. The
practical operations in the field, the machine shop, and
the mechanical laboratory, were extended. By the beginning
of 1892–3, the three great branches of instruction
offered in this department; namely, civil engineering,
mining engineering, and mechanical engineering, had been
further improved by prescribing a period of three years
for the completion of each course; and to the graduate
in each an appropriate degree was awarded.

At a meeting of the Board held during the session of
1894–5, an important alteration was made in the scheme
of studies required for the degree of civil engineer. The
bounds of election were widened.[7] It was provided that
the candidate should pass in at least seven courses, one
of which certainly should be taken from each of the following
groups: (1) mathematics, mechanics; (2) physics,
astronomy; (3) chemistry, analytical chemistry; (4)
geology, botany; (5) applied mathematics. He must
graduate in at least two of the seven schools elected.
The title conferred on the winner of the degree at this
time was bachelor of science in civil engineering.

XIV. Scholarships

The first academic prize to be offered, after the close
of the war, was offered, in 1866, by Professor Venable,
of the School of Mathematics,—during four years, he
annually presented the sum of forty dollars to the student,
who, in the course of the session which had just
ended, had solved the largest number of problems submitted
by the head of the school in the daily and final

examinations. In 1868, three prizes were conferred in
the School of Moral Philosophy, and three in the class of
political economy.

A request by the members of the Washington Society
for permission to establish a scholarship for the benefit
of the "best set of editors for the current session" appointed
by them on the magazine board, was granted, on
condition, that, in the beginning, the privilege should last
only one year, in order that its feasibility might be tested;
and also that it should not be transferable. This scholarship
was to be bestowed after comparing the merits of
the different numbers of the magazine of the first editorial
period with the merits of those issued during the
second.

In June, 1871, eleven scholarships were founded by the
Board of Visitors, which were designated the University
scholarships. Five of these were assigned to the
academic department, and two respectively to the departments
of law, and medicine, and one to the combined
schools of industrial chemistry, civil and mining engineering,
and agriculture.[8] In 1882, there was a change in
this arrangement, owing to the establishment of other
scholarships,—five of the University ones were now to be
conferred on the students of the academic department,
two on those of the law, two on those of the medical,
and two on those of the civil and mining engineering department.
The like awards in industrial chemistry and
agriculture had been withdrawn, because special scholarships
had been founded for those schools. Previous
to the session of 1874–75, what were designated state
scholarships were in existence, of which there were fifty in

all, since one was assigned to each senatorial district
and ten to the Commonwealth at large. The length of
the tenure was two years. These scholarships were abandoned
as soon as the General Assembly passed an act admitting
all students whose age exceeded eighteen years
to the academic schools without charge for tuition. Two
scholarships were founded by the trustees of the Miller
Fund in connection with the School of Analytical and
Agricultural Chemistry. Each student who received this
appointment was required to restrict his attention to the
studies comprised in the general department of agriculture,
unless the Faculty should authorize him to attend
lectures in other schools. The original number of
Miller scholarships was increased to three during the
session of 1881–82, with a value of three hundred and
thirty-three dollars each. One of these was awarded to
post-graduates only. During the session of 1885–86, the
number in existence seems to have been four. They were
always bestowed on competitive examination. After the
session of 1886–87, one Miller scholarship was awarded
at the end of each session.

In 1882, the Board, in commemoration of the liberal
gifts of three benefactors of the University, founded the
Corcoran, McCormick, and Vanderbilt free scholarships.
The right to name the incumbents was to belong to the
donors of the three funds; but should they decline to exercise
it, that right was to pass to the Faculty. The only
fee which had to be paid by the student who was awarded
one of these scholarships was the usual fee imposed for
the support of the infirmary. He was at liberty to enter
any department which he might prefer. Of the scholarships
known as the alumni scholarships, some had been
created by the executive committee of the general association,
and some by individuals. Apparently, the privilege

of appointment was not reserved at the time of their establishment
by those persons whose contributions had
called them into being.

By the arrival of the session of 1887–88, there seem
to have been in existence several scholarships which had
been made possible only by special endowments. These
were appropriately designated by the names of the persons
in honor of whose memories they had been founded,
—such were the J. Thompson Brown, the Isaac Carey,
and at a later date, the Valentine Birely scholarships.
The Birely was the gift of Mrs. Evelina Birely, of Frederick
county, Maryland, as a memorial of her husband,
and was restricted to students who had matriculated from
that State; the Brown was the gift of the widow of Colonel
J. Thompson Brown, one of the most efficient and
gallant officers in the Confederate army. The Mason
fellowship was founded by Colonel Archer Anderson, a
distinguished alumnus of the University, in memory of
his father-in-law, John Y. Mason, at one time Attorney-General
of the United States, Secretary of the Navy, and
afterwards minister to France. This fellowship was supported
by the income from a gift of five thousand dollars.
In 1893, it was provided that fellowships should be
awarded only to those students who should be fully
equipped to pursue post-graduate courses in the academic
department. They were required to submit a certificate
that they had already received a liberal education. The
appointment was restricted to a single year.

XV. Professors

In our history of the Fifth Period,—the interval that
extended from 1842 to 1861,—we turned aside from the
straight path of our narrative to describe the salient features
in the characters of the men who then occupied the

different professorships. A large proportion of these instructors,
as we have seen, survived to continue the work
of the University after the war, and to carry it on with
eminent success, in spite of the new and disheartening conditions
which they had to face. Such were Gildersleeve,
Cabell, Davis, Maupin, Holmes, Schele, Smith, Howard,
and McGuffey. Among the distinguished teachers who
were either elected to the chairs declared vacant at the
end of the war, or who succeeded professors appointed
before the war, but whose labors had reached well into
the era of reconstruction, were Charles S. Venable, William
E. Peters, John W. Mallet, Thomas R. Price, Noah
K. Davis, and William C. Dabney. With the exception
of Price, who was subsequently called to Columbia University,
all these latter instructors were associated with
the University of Virginia alone until their death,
whether as active or emeritus members of the Faculty.[9]
The principal work of each was performed in the course
of the Seventh Period, 1865–95, and they may be picked
out, without any invidious distinction, as typical representatives
of the spirit which animated that constructive and
fruitful interval. Individually, they will never cease to
occupy conspicuous niches among those who have left
upon the history of the University, the indelible stamp
of their profound scholarship, their devotion to their
calling, and their purity and loftiness of character.

Foremost among them, from several points of view,
was Charles S. Venable. Venable was the manly product
of influences that were the very essence of the Virginia
of those generous and bountiful social times, which
now loom so remote. Born in a country home of the
Southside, with all its self-contained appurtenances of
gardens and woods, tobacco-fields and slaves, his boyish

tastes were moulded by the constant enjoyment of rural
sports of all kinds; his intellect fertilized by the choice
volumes of an old-fashioned library; his spirit invigorated
and refined by the atmosphere of a cultivated and pious
household. He was the fifth in descent from the first of
his name to settle in Virginia. The presence of the family
went as far back in the past as 1685, and its association
with the soil began almost with the inauguration of
the plantation. In the direct ancestral line as it came
down to him, there was a succession of country gentlemen,
who showed their patriotism by serving in the
House of Burgesses and General Assembly, or by hurrying
off as officers to join the armies of the Revolution,
or of 1812, in order to defend their country against invasion.
His grandfather was an ensign in a company of
dragoons that had a conspicuous share in all the exploits
of Light Horse Harry Lee's famous legion, just as the
grandson, at a later time, was to take part in the campaigns
of Light Horse Harry's celebrated son.

The great-grandfather of Charles Venable, Nathaniel
by name, enjoyed a remarkable reputation in his region
of country as a mathematician; and it may have
been from this distant source that the great-grandson
inherited his talent for that abstruse branch of science.
It was this Nathaniel, with a native genius for figures,
who was chiefly instrumental in founding Hampden-Sidney
College, the fortress of the Presbyterian faith in Virginia.
In each generation, there was observed, in addition
to a taste for science and literature, and a willingness
also to seize the sword, a decided aptitude for business
affairs. All had won success as farmers and planters,
and some as merchants and bankers. To this source
again, we can trace the great executive ability which
Professor Venable exhibited as chairman of the University

Faculty. Mathematician, soldier, administrator,—
all the qualities which he possessed to such an eminent
degree were conspicuous in that ancestral stock from
which he was sprung.

But he differed from his immediate forefathers in one
vital particular: he never seems to have entertained the
thought of following their principal calling as planters of
the ground. When barely twelve years of age, he matriculated
at Hampden-Sidney College, and at fifteen, became
a bachelor of arts. It was said that, at this time,
he began a course of preparatory reading for the study of
divinity,—a proof of the gravity of his character even in
his youth. During his sojourn as a student at the University
of Virginia (1845–6, 1847–8), he made an excursion
into the field of junior law; but if he had ever seriously
looked forward to the practice of that profession,
it was abandoned on his election to the chair of mathematics
in Hampden-Sidney College. He was then in his
nineteenth year. Here he remained until 1856. It was
said of him even in these years, when his own age did not
exceed by much the age of some of his pupils, that "he
excelled both as an instructor, and in his knowledge and
control of students,"—two characteristics that were to
be still further developed by subsequent experience. He
was described, at this early period of his career, as
"affable at all times, full of fun, genial, and interested
in everything about him." Before accepting an appointment
to the chair of mathematics in the University of
Georgia, he attended lectures in the Universities of Berlin
and Bonn. From the University of Georgia, he
passed, at the end of a single session, to the University of
South Carolina, in which seat of learning, then of wide
reputation, he occupied the chair of mathematics and astronomy.

When South Carolina severed all ties with the Union,
Venable became the second lieutenant in the Congaree
Rifles, and was present with that rank at the bombardment
of Sumter. After taking part, as a private, in the
first Battle of Manassas, and as a lieutenant of artillery,
in the defense of New Orleans, and as a captain, in the
fortification of Vicksburg, he became one of the four aids
of General Robert E. Lee (1862), at that time acting
as the military adviser of Mr. Davis, with headquarters
in Richmond. From this hour, until the end of the war
in Virginia at Appomattox, he remained continuously,
and with unbroken fidelity, at the side of the illustrious
Confederate leader. The impression left upon his mind
by this close association, so crowded with events of lasting
importance, were never effaced from his recollection.
"His sweet and tender veneration for Lee," we are told
by Professor Thornton, "was mingled with affection.
He loved to talk of him,—of his heroic courage, as, when,
at the Battle of the Wilderness, Lee would have led the
charge of Gregg's valiant Texans; of the matchless magnanimity
with which he accepted the reproach of every
reverse to his strategic plans, and caused the withdrawal
of reports that would have created dissension by their
just reflection on his sluggard and maladroit lieutenants;
of his generous placability, as when Venable himself,
chafing under a rebuke from his general which he felt to
be unmerited, turned angrily away, and threw himself
down on the cold ground in utter weariness and depression,
where, falling into a deep sleep of fatigue, he woke
presently to find himself covered with Lee's own cloak."

In accepting the invitation extended in August, 1865, to
occupy the chair of mathematics in the University of Virginia,
Venable became the successor of men who had
conferred great distinction on the institution,—of Key,

the first incumbent of the professorship, who had been
educated at Cambridge; of Bonnycastle, who was acknowledged
to be the most original mathematician of his
time in America; of Courtenay, who combined with profound
scholarship, extraordinary capacity as an instructor;
and of Bledsoe, who surpassed them all in philosophical
power of intellect. To be pronounced the equal
of these accomplished men in knowledge, and their superior
in the art of teaching, because of his sympathetic
readiness to adopt all the modern ideas and methods of
analysis, was the reward that he soon reaped by his conduct
of his school, which became, under his stimulating
and suggestive influence, one of the most popular in the
University. "His personal relations with his pupils,"
says Professor Thornton, "were simply delightful. The
dignity of the professor, the affection of a father, the
bonhomie of a comrade in scientific studies, were so
mixed in him, that we scarcely knew where respect ended
and affectionate confidence began. Out of the lecture-room,
as in it, you never failed of prompt recognition and
genial greeting. He was the confidant and counsellor of
his students in all their troubles, their adviser in difficulties,
and their helper in every legitimate ambition."

It was partly due to his wise appreciation of the value
of the applied sciences that two new schools in that department
of study were organized in 1867; it was chiefly
attributable to his personal energy that the School of Astronomy
was established and amply endowed; it was
largely due to his influence, direct or indirect, that the
School of Biology and Agriculture, and also of Natural
History and Geology, were added to the existing courses
through the beneficence of Samuel Miller and W. W.
Corcoran. He was the foremost instrumentality in obtaining
for the institution (1) an advance in the State annuity

from fifteen thousand dollars to thirty thousand,
and afterwards to forty thousand dollars; (2) an augmentation
of the equipment to the value of one hundred and
thirty thousand dollars; and (3) an increase in the endowment
to the amount of two hundred and seventy-five
thousand. It was principally during his incumbency of
the chairmanship of the Faculty that all this invaluable
work in behalf of the institution was performed by him;
but it was not discontinued after he had withdrawn from
that position. It was justly said of him, "that his wide
knowledge of men in public life, and his high repute
as a cultured gentleman and patriot soldier, enabled him
to accomplish much that would have been impossible
for a man of purely scholastic habit and training." Nor
were his activities limited to pedagogic and administrative
provinces,—he planned a complete series of treatises
in pure mathematics, but was only able to carry out this
imposing task in part, owing to the draughts upon his
time resulting from his various duties, and in the end, to
the decline of his physical powers.

"A man of antique mould," says Professor Thornton,
in concluding his vivid and moving sketch of Venable's
useful and distinguished career, "strong and earnest, direct
and forceful, bold and sincere, a brave soldier, a true
patriot, an humble Christian, a faithful friend, an honest
gentleman. To know him was a lesson in virtuous
and noble living; to love him was to breathe in the fragrance
of a generous and chivalric soul. The life which
had been so crowned with honor and victory was destined
to be crowned with suffering too. Who that saw
him in those shadowed years can forget that pathetic resignation,
that noble patience, that uncomplaining courage!
Never in the brave days when he rode with Lee,
had he fought such battles or gained such victories. And

then at last came the eleventh of August, 1900, and
Charles Venable had fought his last fight, had gained the
victory of all victories."

A colleague worthy to stand upon the same high platform
with Charles S. Venable was William E. Peters.
He too had been a soldier and an officer in the Confederate
armies; had endured privation and defied danger
in camp and field; had been strengthened and ennobled
by conduct of the sternest self-forgetfulness, amid
scenes that tested the souls of men. Like Venable, he
had been a successful student, first in the University of
Virginia, and afterwards in foreign seats of learning; and
like Venable too, he was quietly employed with the uneventful
duties of a professor's chair when he was summoned
to take part in the mighty conflict between the
States. He began his military service as a private soldier;
was chosen first lieutenant of his company; and before
the close of the war, was appointed Colonel of cavalry
in McCausland's Brigade. His career in the army
was temporarily interrupted by a severe wound, which,
perhaps, prevented him from attaining to a higher rank.
In August, 1864, when told by his superior officer to set
fire to Chambersburg, because it had refused to pay the
money tribute imposed in retaliation for Federal depredations
in the Valley, he declined to carry out the command
"With a full knowledge of the consequences of
refusing to obey orders," he replied, "I have to say, you
may take my sword, but I will not use the torch against
innocent non-combatants." Such was the firmness, the
fearlessness, the chivalry, the humanity of the man!

The reputation which Peters had won as a gallant and
efficient officer, associated with that of Venable, acquired
under the same supreme circumstances, became, by the
impression of intrepid manhood which it left upon the

minds of their contemporaries, an asset of extraordinary
value to the University of Virginia in its recurring hours
of need. When the financial wants of the institution had
to be laid before the General Assembly, then so largely
made up of the veteran comrades of these two soldier-professors,
it was their voices which received the most
respectful attention from the members of that body.
When they appeared upon the public platform to press
the University's appeal to the public at large for more
generous aid, it was their words which sank deepest in
the minds of the audience, for, among their hearers, there
were few who had not fought in the same armies with
them, and some, perhaps, had fought at their side. If
their petition was submitted through the press, every
reader was certain to recall the tried patriotism, the unshakable
courage, the unselfish spirit, of these two men,
whose names had so often appeared in the reports of the
great battles of the recent war.

As a scholar, Peters's most salient trait was a love of
exactness and accuracy. His principal stress was laid
on the syntactical aspects of his subject, but his requirement
of his pupils was not limited to this. "He demanded,"
says President Denny, "an intelligent acquaintance
with Roman literature and history, a clear understanding
of the various metres, an appreciative knowledge
of the style of composition, and a comparative study
of the different periods of that literature." His second,
and almost equally dominant, characteristic was his influence
as an instructor. "He was successful in teaching
thoroughly what he thought ought to be taught," says
the same discriminating authority. "He had a persuasive
and insistent personality in the class-room, and was a
pastmaster in the art of cross-questioning. He did not
use the club of sarcasm or the rapier of ridicule, in dealing

with his students. He demanded the proper respect
for recognized authority and proper performance of
known duty. But he was heartily loved." "No one,"
says another pupil, "could sit at the old professor's feet
without learning that one of the sacred things in scholarship
was veracity to fact,—the one touchstone for opinion
and speculation, the solid ground of truth." "When
discussing our exercises," testifies Dr. Culbreth, "he
would not allow the slightest paraphrase of his English,
which was not always of the best, for he wrote for a
certain construction and syntax to be covered. He would
throw his right hand around to what he had just written
on the blackboard as the best possible form, saying
with his characteristic smile, 'But, gentlemen, this is the
Latin'."

How powerful was the influence which he could exercise
over the entire body of students, if the occasion arose
for his doing so, was illustrated in a scene that occurred
in the hall of the Washington Society. The young men,
very much excited by some recent event that had aroused
their indignation, had assembled there, with the avowed
intention of committing a breach of the peace. Informed
of their purpose beforehand, the sheriff entered the room
and placed them all under arrest. They defied that officer
to take them into custody, and were about to leap upon
him in a rage, when Colonel Peters pushed his way into
their midst, and stepping upon a bench, begged for a
hearing. At first, no particular attention was paid to
the interruption, but finally a voice cried out: "We will
listen to old Pete. He is a fighting man." By this it
was meant that he had been an intrepid soldier. A
silence at once fell upon the menacing crowd; he was
heard with perfect respect; and at the end of his appeal,
they quietly broke up and returned to their dormitories.

While Professor Peters was held in special esteem as
a distinguished veteran, and as a conscientious and accurate
teacher, yet it was as a man, apart from all the
prestige of his soldier's and scholar's record, that he
won the affectionate veneration of pupil and colleague
alike. It was weight of character and native force of
individuality which were the main causes of his impressing
his personality so deeply upon all those who enjoyed
the lasting privilege of his tuition or friendship. "His
supreme traits," says Professor E. S. Joynes, "were an
intense earnestness of thought and feeling, and an undaunted
courage ready to die for a sentiment or a principle."
"A brave man, a true man, a sincere man," was
the verdict of another, who had known him intimately
in all the relations of life, "true to his friends, frank to
his foes, his life has taught even better lessons than his
lectures, and breathes forth a finer harmony than all the
metres of the Romans." Such was the impression which
this high-minded scholar, soldier, and gentleman, made
upon all brought under his personal influence.

He was buried, in conformity with his own wish, in the
beautiful family cemetery situated on the Sheffey estate
near Marion. "The afternoon was cold and bleak," we
are told by one who was present at that last scene, "and
the summit of the hill where he was laid was exposed to
the winds and to all the elements. Somehow, it seemed
in keeping with the old campaigner, who never coveted
life's pleasures as of any consequence by the side of life's
sterner duties, and who, therefore, had never flinched at
any hardships. But the student, who, in the sunny summer,
returning to his home, lets his eye climb the southern
hill from the station at Marion, will, doubtless, see
it sunlit, and recall with reverence and affection the sun-crowned
hero of Chambersburg."

XVI. Professors, Continued

John W. Mallet, the son of a fellow of the Royal Society,
was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. Visiting
New England for the purpose of examining one of
Ericcson's inventions,—which was then arousing the curiosity
of scientists,—he was, for a short period, associated
with one of the departments of Amherst College, at
the end of which time, he removed to Alabama, in order
to take up the duties of chemist in the geological survey
of that commonwealth. This was connected with the
work of the State university at Tuscaloosa. After occupying
with distinction the professorship of chemistry
in that institution, he was, at the breaking out of the war,
a member of the faculty of the Alabama Medical College.
During these years of service, he had become so thoroughly
identified with the interests, feelings, and convictions
of the Southern people that, when the call was
sent out for volunteers, he entered, as a private soldier,
a local troop of cavalry; but, afterwards, was appointed
by General Rodes his aide-de-camp; and in that capacity,
participated in the Battles of Williamsburg and Seven
Pines. Happening to be visiting in Richmond on furlough,
in the course of this campaign, he was invited by
Colonel Gorgas, the chief of the Confederate Ordnance
Department, to take charge of the production of ammunition
for both artillery and small arms. Entering upon
this vital responsibility in May, 1862, he inspected
monthly each of the ordnance establishments of the Confederacy,
and the principal forts still under Southern
control. It was, during a stay in Charleston, while that
city was in a state of siege, that he received a slight
wound when in the course of examining the supply of
ammunition.

Emerging from the war with the title of lieutenant-colonel,
and with a high reputation for patriotic fidelity,
conscientious performance of duty, and professional
knowledge, Mallet was soon elected to the professorship
of chemistry in the University of Louisiana; and, in
1867, was chosen to be the first incumbent of the chair of
industrial and applied chemistry in the University of Virginia.
Here he remained until his retirement in 1908,
with brief intervals of service in the University of Texas
and the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia. He
was the author of numerous papers bearing upon the different
branches of his studies; delivered many addresses
of a technical character; and enjoyed so much reputation
as a toxicologist, that he was constantly sought for expert
testimony in criminal trials.

Like his fellow Englishman, the first professor of
Latin, George Long, he detested every form of pretension,
sham, and charlatanry in the field of learning and
scholarship. It was said of him that he was never seen
to fail or bungle in any illustrative experiment which he
undertook, and this unceasing carefulness, this untiring
preciseness, this scrupulous conscientiousness, marked his
conduct in every relation of life. Professor John Staige
Davis, Jr., after describing his erect bearing and commanding
personality, informs us that he impressed all his
pupils, "as he raised his head and walked among them,
as one who was not afraid of anything and anybody in
this world." Dr. Culbreth draws his portrait with characteristic
sympathy and vividness: "Manners easy, reserved;
gentlemanly qualities that never failed him, no
matter how provoked; dignified, a trifle formal, kind to
students, but tolerated no familiarity; allowed nothing to
conflict with set duties, all being performed by stroke of
clock; spoke concisely and clearly, tolerating in others

and himself nothing but work, but was easy of appraoch
and friendly. In his classroom, he was self-possessed,
serious, and busy."

Thomas R. Price, who succeeded Gildersleeve in the
chair of Greek, possessed,—if the tale of his contemporaries
at the University of Virginia is correct,—one
characteristic at least in commonwith sturdy old Samuel
Johnson: he never walked down a range or arcade, on his
way to his classroom, without touching, with a single out-strentched
finger, every coal box that he passed. If some
obstruction like a chair seemed to block his access to the
box, he would either withdraw it, or walk around it, so
as to perform the desired rite, and then cheerfully continue
his advance to his goal in the Rotunda.

One of Price's pupils spoke of him as a pedagogue
who had the heart of a poet in his breast. Somewhat
the same idea touching this distinguished teacher was
expressed by a colleague: "His heart's blood colored,
not only his passions, but all his judgments, and all his
thoughts. His vision of men and books, of politics, and
of society, was through the medium of the affections.
He must love what he admired; and disapproval meant
for him frank detestation. Men who knew him loved
him all the more for these hatreds without rancor, these
boundless enthusiasms, these passionate loyalties."
"Who of you that knew him well," said W. Gordon McCabe,
in his sympathetic memorial address, "that does
not recall the compelling charm of his presence in all
social intercourse, his air of distinction, his grave courtesy,
with just a flavour of the old world manner as he
bent over some lady's hand; his winning smile, that could
so subtly express eithe affection or amusement; his unaffected
modesty; his easy graceful talk, touched by the
play of a lambent wit that never left a sting."

On the morning of that memorable thirteenth of June,
1876, when Gildersleeve bade his colleagues, and the assembled
University, a farewell full of eloquent feeling,
he made this remark: "If I have turned out, in the
twenty years of my professional career, only the one
noble scholar who is to succeed me, I should not think my
life a failure"; and on another occasion, he declared that,
among all the pupils whom he had instructed in the
course of these two decades,—and there were many able
men and many brilliant scholars among them, he said,—
Price had been his "sole choice."

Price was a student in Europe when the war began,
and he was only able to return by running the blockade.
He was first elected to a lieutenancy in Stuart's command,
and subsequently entering the engineer corps, rose
to the rank of captain. "Beyond all honors in scholarship
and letters that came to him in after years," says
Colonel McCabe, "he counted the honor of having
served the Confederate cause, which, in his maturer manhood,
became to him as it were a religion." As a professor
of philology in the College of Randolph-Macon, he
was one of the first to insist that English studies should,
in the scheme of a liberal education, be placed on a footing
of equality with the Latin and Greek languages;
and he so luminously and suggestively taught his native
tongue as to justify fully his imperative demand. Within
a few years, many men who had sat under him, had passed
through the University of Virginia, and accepting professorships
in Southern institutions of learning, had spread
the principle which he was still so brilliantly enforcing by
his continued leadership at Ashland. "His chair thus
became the starting point," says Gildersleeve, "of a
beneficial activity which is felt today wherever our mother

tongue is taught in spirit and truth,—in the truth of art,
in the spirit of science."

It was in his part as instructor,—it was in his influence
radiated from his professor's chair,—that the real
mission of his life was accomplished. "He had the faculty,"
said Dr. Woodberry, his colleague at Columbia
University, to which Price was called from the University
of Virginia, "of making learning a social thing." But
that learning, whether it consisted of a fund of accumulated
knowledge, or of the ability to write, was not displayed
by a prolific pen. He composed but little. One
of the greatest teachers of English to whom the South
ever gave birth left no printed memorial behind him that
was even moderately commensurate with his culture and
genius. The explanation of his meagre productiveness
has been attributed to his literary fastidiousness, to his
passion for perfection of form. "He was tireless,"
says Colonel McCabe, "in seeking the elusive word, unwearying
in his quest of some hovering subtle rhythm of
phrase, some haunting cadence that witched him with its
beauty half-revealed, and mocked him with its music as it
fled. He had the happy art of imparting to his lighter
sketches and studies an aroma of delicate and playful
humor, a felicity of allusion, an ease and grace of diction,
a certain note of distinction, that render them a joy to
every reader of ripened intelligence."

Noah K. Davis was, in his imposing physical aspect, his
slow gait, and solemn bearing, the impersonation of the
old philosophers of the classic age. The physical idea
of Socrates or Aristotle that rises before the mind's eye,
seemed to have taken on visible shape as one beheld his
tall, broad-shouldered figure, with the large, heavily-bearded
face, moving leisurely down the arcade, with

head bent down and eyes fixed upon the pavement.
When he spoke, his articulation was careful and deliberate,
his manner dignified and reflective. The body of
the professor was always clothed in a long black frockcoat
as an outer garment, which, with the high silk hat
that covered his head, and the baggy trousers that hid his
legs, had the effect of increasing the impression of spaciousness
which the sight of his uncommonly large frame
first created.

Only two incumbents had occupied the chair of moral
philosophy before Davis's election. These men, Tucker
and McGuffey, were known far beyond the precincts, not
simply for their skill and learning as instructors, but even
more,—the one for literary accomplishments, the other
for his powers as a pulpit exhorter. To equal these men
in depth of knowledge, and in capacity for exposition, was
an arduous, perhaps impossible, undertaking for their successor,
whoever he might be. From some points of view,
however, Davis proved himself to be the superior of both.
He was more comprehensive in his teaching and more exacting
in his standards than either of the two. He did
not simply uphold the reputation which his two predecessors
had conferred upon the chair,—it can be truly
averred that he perceptibly advanced that chair beyond
the point of usefulness and celebrity which it had previously
reached. He was a thorough and indefatigable
worker, and a very clear and vigorous thinker. His
knowledge was profound, and his aptitude for imparting
it so persuasive and attractive that it was observed that
his students frequently lingered with him in his classroom
long after the lecture had closed. The dignity and
reserve which sat naturally upon his massive personality
was often lit up by a flash of genuine wit and humor.
"Not one of the great teachers of the University," the

Board of Visitors affirmed at his death, "had served its
life with more ability, distinction, and consecration"; and
this is a judgment which is fully confirmed by a critical
study of his career in his professorship.

William Cecil Dabney, in harmony with the custom
which, at that time, prevailed in so many of the old Virginian
homes, received his first lessons beyond the rudiments
from a private tutor. He started upon his professional
career as a country physician,—no mean school
in which to broaden his medical skill and experience. Impaired
health diverted his assiduity from patients to the
duties of a farmer's life; but on recovering his strength,
to some degree, he removed to Charlottesville and reopened
his office. While engaged with his practice there,
and in the vicinity, he wrote an essay, the merits of which
were so extraordinary that he was awarded the Boylston
prize, the gift of Harvard University. This was the
first of his numerous contributions, in the form of special
papers, to the general knowledge of medical science.
Again his health showed signs of collapse, and he went
out on a long voyage to Japan; and after his return to the
United States, settled in California, in the hope that
the dry sunny climate of that State would assist him in
preserving his precarious strength. He afterwards
turned his face towards Albemarle; and there, throwing
himself into the practice of his profession with renewed
ardour, was instrumental in organizing the Medical Examining
Board of Virginia,—of which, he was appointed
the first president.

When Dabney was elected to the chair of medicine in
the University of Virginia, he found the attendance of
students in its classroom small; but his energy, knowledge
of his theme, and charm as a lecturer, soon filled
up the vacant seats. He made the systematic study of

practical pathology the basis of his principal course; and
as a means of insuring clinical instruction, maintained a
very successful dispensary for charity patients. But it
was as a practitioner of medicine that he won his principal
distinction, although, as a teacher, he was remarkable
for suggestiveness of thought, accuracy of statement,
and copiousness of speech. He had, in his consuming desire
to alleviate suffering and combat disease, something
of the burning zeal and enthusiasm of the crusader. It
was said of him that his appetite for the work of his
profession was so insatiable that he was not to be deterred
from satisfying it by the distance which he had to
traverse before he could reach his patient; or by the fatigue
which would follow from so long a journey; or by
the certain prospect of receiving no fee on account of the
poverty of the household visited; or by the desperate character
of the malady which had to be treated. There was
hardly any limit to his capacity for labor. It is computed
that he wrote as many as fifty highly important contributions
to medical journals giving the fruits of his indefatigable
researches, and prolonged experience in the
sick-room. His translations of articles from the German
and French languages bearing upon medical subjects,
numbered not less than one hundred. So much confidence
was felt in his professional knowledge that he was
constantly called into consultation.

In addition to all these exacting and exhaustive labors
as teacher, practitioner, and consulting physician, Dabney
took a continuous and influential part in the administration
of the affairs of his church. In principle and
in conduct, his life always moved on in the hallowed light
of the Christian faith. A man of quick perceptions, ardent
sympathies, and inspiring enthusiasms, whatever he
was called upon to do, he did with all the varied powers

of his cultivated intellect and energetic spirit; and so
completely did he concentrate all these powers in order
to carry out the main objects of his laudable ambition and
deep sense of duty, that it was said, after his decease, that
he had lived the slave of his profession, and died its martyr.
But he had made an impression upon the medical
school of the University of Virginia which time has only
tended to deepen and extend.

XVII. Fees of the Professors

In July, 1865, the Board of Visitors decided that it
would not be advisable to limit the amount of the fees
which the professors were to receive for the discharge of
their respective duties. The maximum figure which had
been allowed before the war, and during its progress, was
not readopted. At this hour, the prospects of the University
were full of obscurity. There was no positive
reason to think that the number of students who would
matriculate in the following September would be sufficient
to create a fund ample enough to meet the current expenses
independently of the salaries. Common prudence
suggested that no fixed burdens should be assumed except
those that could not be avoided. The professors cheerfully
recognized the wisdom of this course, and made no
demur to the return to the system of remuneration which
had been established by Jefferson, and which, as we have
seen, they themselves had so earnestly advocated before
the close of the recent conflict. The Board had gone so
far in August (1865) as to say that a fixed salary was
not only inexpedient in itself, but unsound in principle;
but it was not many months before they had to admit that
they had given expression to this opinion while in a state
of complete misapprehension; and, therefore, as we shall
see, they did not hesitate to repudiate it.

But before this was done, there arose among some of
the professors the same inimical attitude of mind which
had been so conspicuous during the Fourth and Fifth Periods,
1825–1861, and the reappearance of which, after
the readoption of the fee system, could have been safely
predicted. Again was heard the old complaint that
there was a grave inequality in the amount of the respective
fees which were received by the members of the Faculty.
The justice of this statement is plainly demonstrated
by the following figures recorded at the time:

                   

	1865–6	1866–7		1865–6	1866–7
Peters	....	$3.820	McGuffey	$1.169	$1.825
Schele	$1.932	3.160	Holmes	745	1.370
Gildersleeve	2.492	1.905	Southall	....	4.195
Venable	2.569	4.065	Minor	4.528	4.195
Smith	839	2.475
Maupin	1.437	3.020
Howard	767	1.800
Cabell	767	1.800
Davis	792	1.915

A glance at this table discloses the higher profit accruing,
under the working of the fee system, to the professors
of law and mathematics, and also the hardship which it
imposed more especially upon the members of the medical
faculty. Such an individual among them as Cabell, for
instance, could, without presumption, have asked why
should he, who had served the institution longest, and
with a distinction admitted by all to be unsurpassed, be
paid only $767.00, whilst Professor Minor, his junior in
the point of tenure, and not his superior in the point of
reputation, should receive $4.528, six times as much as
himself, and Venable, who had been associated with the
University but one year, $2,569, three times as much.
The exercise of ability, and the expenditure of labor, on
the part of all three, had been precisely the same. If the

corporation of the University was simply a business partnership
between the institution and its teachers,—as several
of the professors with large and lucrative classes had
asserted before the war,—then it would have been improper
for Cabell, and the other members of the Faculty,
whose classes were small, to call for a more equitable
division of the fees. But quite naturally they did not
look upon the connection as an ordinary business partnership;
and still more naturally they refused to acknowledge
their inferiority to colleagues whose classes were swelled,
not so much by their own merits, as by the nature of the
subjects which they taught.

But there was now an additional reason why the former
system of maximum remuneration should be reintroduced.
If the University was to be brought fully abreast with the
increasing scientific demands of the hour,—if, indeed,
it was to continue to hold a position of scholastic equality
with her sister institutions,—then it was imperative
that at least two new professorships should be established
at once. It was characteristic of the noble frankness,
generous impulses, and broad vision of Charles S. Venable,
—who was one of the principal beneficiaries of the
fee system,—that he not only perceived the positive need
of a return to the maximum remuneration, but actually
proposed that this step should be taken without delay.
The emolument from his professorship, during the session
of 1866–7, assured him, independently of a house
exempted from rent, the sum of $5,065. This amount
was only exceeded,—and that by a small margin,—by
the respective incomes of Professors Minor and Southall
from their classes. At a meeting of the Faculty, held
in June, 1867, Venable submitted a resolution which declared
that "the best disposition which could be made by
the Board of Visitors of the fees accruing in the several

schools, would be, after setting aside an equal and ample
salary for each professor, to devote the surplus to the establishment
of additional professorships." The Faculty
reserved their decision for a few days. When the members
reconvened, Professor Minor, who had always, as
we have seen, insisted upon the professor's legal right to
the fees, under the authority of the original enactment,
submitted a second resolution, by the terms of which the
sum of two thousand dollars was to be annually paid for
the support of the projected chairs, during a period of
five years, by the pro rata assessment of the emoluments
accruing in the different schools. The principle for
which he had so persistently and almost fanatically contended,
was thus preserved for the time being by a wise
compromise on his part.

But even if this offer,—which, as we shall find, only
staved off temporarily the abolition of the fee system,—
should be acceptable to the Board, the Faculty foresaw
that it would still be necessary to raise an additional sum.
In the same report in which they consented to make the
contribution of two thousand dollars, they recommended
that the charges for board, rent, matriculation, and diplomas
should be materially increased. The purpose of
this proposal was to swell the amount rendered available
by the action of the Faculty for launching the new chairs
of applied science. The Board, however, wisely recognized
that the adoption of this advice would tend to injure
the prosperity of the institution by diminishing the
number of students, and for that reason, they were not
disposed to accept it. They were rather of the opinion
that the money needed should be obtained, as formerly, by
the appropriation of the surplus fees of the different
schools; and they, therefore, instructed the proctor to
report to them the amount in that form which each professor

was receiving from the enrolment of his chair.

But it was not until June, 1870, that the Board arrived
at a definite conclusion. In a resolution adopted
at that time, they declared that "the abolition of a
maximum income for the professors by resolution in
1865 had been made under a total misapprehension of
the state of affairs at the University"; and they announced
their intention of restoring the method of remuneration
which had prevailed during the normal years
anterior to the war. Beginning with the session of
1870–1, no member of the Faculty was to receive a larger
sum than three thousand dollars; but this amount, it
seems, was not to be guaranteed to the one whose fees
fell short of it. Should the fees, in any case, run ahead
of that figure, then the surplus was to be reserved for the
use of the University. Under this provision, the pro
rata assessment for the support of the new scientific professorships
was to be cancelled.

The Board soon perceived that this rather illiberal
arrangement was calculated to duplicate the injustice of
the fee system. In June, 1871, they decided to adopt a
rule that would bring about the equalization of the professors'
salaries, whether their fees fell below, or rose
above, the maximum figure. If the remuneration of anyone
turned out to be less than the maximum, because his
fees were insufficient to swell it to that figure, then he
was to be allowed one hundred dollars for every fifteen
students enrolled in his class who had been admitted
without any charge for tuition. If the number of students
who did not pay exceeded twenty, then he was to
receive one hundred and fifty dollars. In no instance,
however, was the salary of a professor to run beyond
three thousand.

The year 1873 was rendered a memorable one by a

disastrous panic in the money market, and the financial
condition of the University was seriously crippled by the
general depression which followed. When the Board
convened in June, its members were convinced that some
plan for readjusting the salaries, while the stringency
lasted, must be adopted. The rule now put in force fixed
the certain remuneration of eight of the professors at one
thousand dollars; of the professor of mathematics at four
hundred and fifty; of applied mathematics at eight hundred;
of natural philosophy at nine hundred; of chemistry
and pharmacy at five hundred and fifty; of international
and constitutional law at one hundred; and of common
and statute law at one hundred also.

How were these sums to be supplemented? In the
following manner. Each professor was to receive the
fees accruing to his chair subject to the provision that,
should the total amount of the fixed salary and the fees
fall below two thousand dollars, then he was to be paid,
out of the fund reserved for the tuition of the State students,
such a sum as would swell his remuneration to that
definite figure. This rule remained in force until June,
1876. At that time, the Board adopted the following
new provision: all the receipts of the University from
matriculation, rents, and the like, together with all the
tuition fees obtained from the several schools,—with
the exception of the professorships of law, and the chair
of analytical chemistry,—were to be thrown into one
fund, and from this fund was to be drawn: first, the sum
necessary to cover all the general expenses of the institution,
including the salaries which were allowed the administrative
officers; and secondly, the sum that would be
required to make up the maximum of two thousand dollars
for each professor in the medical and academic departments.

If any surplus should remain of the original
fund, after these two general payments, that surplus was
to be distributed equally among the incumbents of the
chairs in these two departments. They numbered thirteen
in all. Finally, the professors in the department of
law were to receive each a fixed salary of one hundred
dollars, and in addition, were to be permitted to divide
all the fees accruing from tuition in the two sections of
that department. Under the provisions of this plan, Professor
Minor and Professor Southall were remunerated
in harmony with the original regulation, to which the
former had clung so tenaciously, while their colleagues in
the other schools of the University were rewarded for
their services under the rule of the maximum salary.
This arrangement had been suggested by the Faculty, and
the unfairness of it was probably tolerated by the members
as a body only in order to secure concord in their
recommendation on the subject to the Board.

But the Visitors must have balked somewhat at the
absence of unity and equality in this plan so far as the
department of law was affected by it, for they decided to
adopt it only as a temporary expedient. It was not a
flourishing period, since the depressing influences of the
financial earthquake of 1873 had not yet passed over.
The Board, solicitous to bring some ease to the professors
with the fixed salaries, were compelled to appropriate
for their benefit the interest coming in from a
part of the University endowment. Notwithstanding
the aid thus granted, the Faculty, at one of these meetings,
discussed the question whether or not each of their
number should be authorized to receive eight boarders
at his table in order to eke out the poverty of his income.
But no decisive vote in favor of this proposal was

reached, doubtless because there was an apprehension that
the withdrawal of so many young men from the hotels
would result in closing their doors.

By June, 1877, the Board had come to the definite
conclusion that it was an injustice to the other members
of the Faculty to permit the instructors in the School of
Law to continue to appropriate to their own use all the
fees accruing in their two departments. "Many considerations,"
they remarked very pertinently, "other than
the reputation of the teacher, and also beyond his control,
aid in determining the popularity of a chair."
"And to teach a large chair," they added, "is little more
laborious than to teach a small one." It seems that
the General Assembly had, during the winter of 1875–6,
conferred on the Board the power to equalize the salaries
of all the professors,—a step that had become necessary,
in consequence of the act passed at the same term, which
provided that every academic student from Virginia
should be educated at the University without any charge
for tuition. It was under the authority of these laws that
the Board decided to adopt the rule that the fees from
all the schools, academic and professional alike, should
be thrown into a common fund for the payment of the
professors' salaries in equal proportion. In every instance
in which the fees of a single school would exceed
three thousand dollars, the surplus above that figure
should be expended in repairs and improvements. The
sum of three thousand dollars itself was to be the permanent
limit of remuneration in the case of each instructor.

In June, 1889, more than a decade later, the Board determined
to put a different rule in force, and this was to
apply to all the incumbents of all the academic and professional
chairs, with the exception of those which possessed

an endowment of their own. Under the terms of
the new ordinance, each professor was to receive,—besides
a house free of rent, or a commutation of three hundred
dollars,—the sum of two thousand dollars and all
the fees of his school, provided that the two united should
not be more than three thousand dollars. To this rule,
there might arise an exception of importance: if the number
of students in the University should run beyond four
hundred and thirty, and the fees thus acquired by any professor
should, with his fixed salary, make up more than
three thousand dollars, then he was to be allowed fifty
dollars,—in addition to the sum of three thousand,—
for every ten students above the four hundred and thirty
who had matriculated. The adjunct professors in the
Schools of Modern Languages and Historical Science,
whose fixed salary was fifteen hundred dollars, were to
receive two thousand dollars, should the number of students
in the first school be more than ninety, and in the
second, more than thirty-six; and they too were to be entitled
to fifty dollars additional for every ten students in
the University beyond the basic number of four hundred
and thirty. As no fees were any longer paid by the students
from Virginia in the Schools of Latin, Greek, Mathematics,
Modern Languages, Moral Philosophy, Natural
Philosophy, General and Industrial Chemistry (outside
the laboratory), Historical Science, and English Literature
and Language, the salaries of the incumbents of
these chairs were to be drawn out of the general treasury
of the University.

This new scheme of rewarding their services aroused
discontent among the members of the Faculty, and the
majority petitioned the Board, in anticipation of the
annual meeting of that body in June, 1890, to restore the
rule which had been suspended; namely, that the fees of

every school should be combined with the view of equalizing
the salaries of all the instructors within the limit of
three thousand dollars, while the surplus remaining after
such a payment, should be used in repairs and improvements.
"Not only has this rule," they said, "been accepted
as satisfactory, but it has not caused, as some
feared it would do, a relaxation of effort on the part of
the professors in the discharge of their duties."
"Never," they added, "has better work been done in the
University by student and professor. Each professor,
relieved of all anxiety about his emolument, is able to
devote his whole power and thought to his own progress
and that of his class. He has also been able to give advice
to students seeking it in regard to their studies, not
only without actual bias, but with a candor hardly allowed
to one who has a pecuniary interest in the decision."
"As to the Board's scheme," they continued, "the number
of students in a school is no trustworthy measure
either of the amount of labor of the professor or the
value of the labor. Some subjects will necessarily have
limited attendance, and yet they must be provided for,
and that not by cheap professors. Under the proposed
scheme, the professor of analytical chemistry would get
only $2,330, and of engineering, $2,150, though either
chair requires ability of a high order. The endowed
chairs, (with their fixed salary of three thousand dollars),
would erect a privileged set of teachers in painful
contrast as to compensation with other professors whose
classes are small. This does not exist under the rule
now prevailing."

This petition, so just in its statements, and so reasonable
in its spirit, seems to have been successful, for, in
1895, the system of allowing a fixed salary of three thousand
dollars to each professor was still in force.

XVIII. Library

In a report drafted by the Faculty in 1866, we find it
stated that, during the previous six years, no book of
any importance had been acquired for the library. It
was estimated that, to bring it up to the point of even
moderate usefulness, not less than two thousand dollars
would have to be spent in the purchase of modern works
at once; and an allotment of that sum would have to be
annually made to assure the addition to it, from time to
time, of the principal current publications. The library
now contained thirty-five thousand volumes. The actual
amount assigned to it for its extension seems, in the
first years of reconstruction, to have consisted of very
modest special appropriations. In 1867, the sum so laid
out did not exceed one thousand dollars. Among the valuable
books added to the collection, at this time, were
Boydell's edition of Shakespere, Schoolcraft's History
of the Indian Tribes, and McKinney and Hale's History
of the Indian Tribes of North America. In the
course of 1884, the five thousand volumes which formed
a part of the bequest of A. W. Austin were deposited on
the shelves of the alcoves for use.

Between the years 1872 and 1887, the walls of the library-room
were adorned with several new pictures of
personal interest, if not artistic merit, which had been
presented either by the students, or by friends of the
institution. Among the former were portraits of General
Lee, Professor Southall, and Professor Mallet;
among the latter, one of William B. Rogers,—the gift of
Professor Venable,—of Alexander H. H. Stuart, and
of Thomas Jefferson,—the gift of William D. Cabell, of
Norwood, Virginia. An addition of unusual value, in
1873, was the thirty-five volumes of the London Philosophical

Transactions, the gift of J. R. McD. Irby, an
alumnus of distinction; and in the course of the same
year, the British Government presented several hundred
volumes of the bulletins of the Record Office. A
stimulating example was set at this time by the students
enrolled in the School of Moral Philosophy in subscribing
one hundred dollars for the purchase of books relating
to the themes covered by the lectures delivered upon
that course. A more notable contribution still was the
one thousand dollars which, during a period of five years,
was to be annually appropriated by the Corcoran fund for
the increase of the size of the collection.

In the autumn of 1876, a very important step in the
interest of the library was taken by the Faculty in its
appointment of a committee with instructions to report
such a list of works for purchase as would embrace all
the subjects belonging to those new fields of research which
had been explored since the beginning of the War of
Secession,—a period that had found the University too
impoverished to enlarge its collection of expensive books.
There had been many discoveries in science and archaeology
during these pregnant years, but there were no volumes
in the library to indicate their character or scope.
Besides, there were few works stored away on its shelves
which contained the histories of the great military campaigns
that had occurred since 1848; and there was also
a grave shortcoming in the number of the editions of the
most famous English authors. The library,—this committee
stated in their report,—was in need of many sets
of the English classics. Not a few illustrious writers
in the English language were represented by a single volume
alone. All these deficiencies, they urged, should be
removed by regular appropriations for that purpose.

But little was accomplished at the time by this recommendation.

What appropriations continued to be made
were eaten up by the purchase of current periodicals. In
the point of books relating to the advancing sciences, the
library remained still incomplete.

During the session of 1880–81, its income amounted to
eleven hundred and thirty-nine dollars, the largest part of
which was obtained from the Corcoran special fund,
which was exhausted during the ensuing year. The collection
of books had now swelled to the number of
forty thousand volumes. There were, at this time, small
occasional gifts for some purpose carefully defined by
the donor,—thus, in 1882, W. M. Meigs, of Philadelphia,
gave the sum of one hundred dollars to be expended
in the acquisition of works relating to American
history. In the course of the following year, a bequest
of five thousand dollars was received from the estate of
Douglas H. Gordon; but only the interest, as it accrued,
was to be used. In 1885, the income of the library from
every source amounted to eleven hundred and thirty-one
dollars. During this year, the collection was enlarged by
the contents of twenty-six stout boxes of books,—there
were five thousand volumes in all,—which formed a part
of the Austin legacy. It was however, acknowledged by
the Faculty at this time, in spite of this gift, that the
library was again far from keeping abreast of the publications
which were issued in numerous departments of
paramount importance to the professors and students
alike. By 1886–87, the income had fallen to five hundred
dollars; and during several years, the shrinkage in
the resources of the institution, brought about principally
by the financial stringency in the country as a whole, had
been so acute that this small amount was the entire sum
that could be appropriated.

The number of volumes had grown by 1894 to fifty-seven

thousand; and the shelves were now so jammed
that the usefulness of the books was seriously curtailed.
The Faculty were solicitous that a special fund for the
removal of this drawback, as well as for the purchase of
additional works, should be created out of the Fayerweather
bequest. At the thoughtful suggestion of Professor
Thomas R. Price, now associated with Columbia
University, the rare Hertz collection was bought by the
alumni and presented to the University of Virginia. It
was singularly rich in every department of ancient culture.
This collection contained about twelve thousand
volumes and pamphlets, and its cost ranged between three
and four thousand dollars.

No book, at this time, was shut out of the library on
the ground that it was frivolous in spirit, or even immoral
in tendency, provided that there were special reasons for
its inclusion in the collection. Such a book, however,
could only be given out with the written permission of
the chairman of the committee.

In the first session after the close of the war, the
library was not thrown open to readers during the whole
of the day, but only during two hours in the afternoon.
In the course of the second session, the time was extended
to two hours in the forenoon in addition to the
two after twelve o'clock. Gradually, these hours were
augmented until the doors were kept unlocked throughout
the entire working day,—an average of at least ten in
all. The usefulness of the collection was enlarged by
permitting persons not connected with any department of
the University to have access to it. For this privilege,
a fee of three dollars had to be paid; this was afterwards
increased to five; and fifteen dollars also had to be deposited
to make good either damage inflicted in handling the
volumes, or their possible loss.

In 1881, the venerable William Wertenbaker, after a
life time given up, with conspicuous fidelity, integrity, and
efficiency, to the duties of his several offices, was retired
as librarian emeritus, with his salary undiminished. He
was the last man to be seen on the grounds of the University
who was personally associated with Jefferson; and
even in his old age, he retained all the precise habits
which had marked the social and vocational side alike of
that earlier and more formal age. "He always walked
with a cane, his body leaning slightly forward," says Dr.
Culbreth, who knew him in these declining years. "His
manners were reserved and positive. He was never familiar
or obstrusive; was friendly but strikingly businesslike.
He never seemed idle, and could be found mostly
sitting at his table engaged in writing, which he did
slowly in a cramped, nervous style. He had a remarkable
memory in some directions, especially for the location
of books, seldom having to look in a second place for any
given one. When you asked him for a book, pamphlet,
or manuscript, he referred to nothing, but simply told
you at once whether it was in the library; if out, who had
it; if in, and you desired it, unlocked the case and produced
it. He was very conscientious in the discharge of
duty. He appreciated his position, considered it highly
honorable, and was jealous of its rights and powers.
While the students never placed him on the same level
with the professors, yet they appeared to look upon him
as a kind of paternal spirit deserving all honor and kindness.
I am confident that he never received from us discourteous
treatment; and if that had been attempted, he
would have been quite capable of taking care of himself,
with forceful and contemptuous language. He loved to
talk of Jefferson, Dabney Carr, Madison, Monroe, and
Poe."

During the session of 1876–7, Frederick W. Page,—
who was a member of the distinguished family of that
name in Virginia, and who, in his refined nature and
courtly manners, faithfully reflected the spirit of a more
polished and genial age than our own,—was appointed
to the office of assistant librarian, and in 1881, librarian,
when the health of Mr. Wertenbaker was perceived to be
beyond all hope of restoration. Page also assumed the
duties of secretary of the Faculty. In both capacities, he
exhibited the strictest regard for the most precise business
methods, and yet was unfailing in the qualities of politeness
and helpfulness. In 1882, he was abruptly and
brusquely displaced by the Board of Readjusters, who
came in after the triumph of that political party in the
State elections. With this party, Page had declined to
affiliate. He was succeeded by William A. Winston.
Winston's salary was soon advanced to one thousand dollars;
but a part of this was his remuneration for the performance
of the duties of secretary to the Faculty. In
1886, the Readjuster organization having gone to wreck
on the political rocks, James B. Baker succeeded Winston;
who, in turn, was, in July, 1891, followed by Page
again. Baker, however, remained the secretary of the
Faculty and the clerk of the chairman.

XIX. The Students—Their Number

Down to 1871, the prosperity of the University, as
indicated by the number of students enrolled, showed no
symptom of decline. There were two reasons for the
continuation of the high rate of attendance. First, a
prompt enlistment in the armies of the Confederacy had
stood in the way of the education of many young men,
who, so soon as the conflict ended, matriculated. Had no
hostilities intervened, their studies would have been completed

before the session of 1865–66. Of the two hundred
and seventeen who were admitted in the course of
that session, only twenty-five were in their second year,
twelve in their third, and two in their fourth. Secondly,
during the interval between 1865 and 1871, the colleges
situated in the Southern States, upon which these latter
commonwealths had, before the war, principally relied for
the education of their sons, had, with few exceptions, remained
either entirely unrehabilitated, or so crippled by
lack of money that they were left with few practical facilities
for pushing forward their work. The University of
Virginia, always the most conspicuous institution below
the Potomac and Ohio, was, during several years, almost
without a rival; but after 1871, this position of supremacy
was not so impregnable, owing largely to the progress
towards complete revival which had begun among the
old competitive colleges.

A passing circumstance in 1872 further accelerated
that tendency towards a numerical decline which was
now becoming perceptible in the University's enrolment.
During this year, the income of the Southern States from
the sale of raw cotton was very much diminished by an
unusual shortage in the volume of production, in consequence
of which, as in the era of slavery, the ability of
parents to send their sons to any seat of higher learning
was, for the time being, destroyed. The University of
Virginia suffered along with the rest. In 1871, there
were entered on its books the names of two hundred and
sixteen students who had come up from the other States
of the South. In 1872, the number so entered sank abruptly
to eighty-nine. During the years immediately ensuing,
this numerical falling off continued, largely, however,
because of the existence of two conditions that were
independent of any temporary disaster to crops or the

growth of rival institutions. The impoverishment of the
South, which had begun with the decline of the Confederate
cause, was increased (1) by the predatory governments
so-called of the Reconstruction period; and (2) by
the more or less permanent shrinkage in the prices of the
staple products of its fields. The general financial depression
that prevailed during 1877 and 1878, the outbreak
of yellow fever along the Gulf Coast during the latter
year, a devastating drought in Virginia in the summer
of 1883,—such were some of the other events that exercised
a perceptible influence in reducing the number of matriculates
during the sessions of their respective occurrence.

There were several observers who believed that the
cause of this numerical decline lay, in large measure, in
other conditions besides the low prices of crops, disasters,
or an increasing competition with other seats of
learning. "Our people," Professor James M. Garnett
wrote in the Andover Review for 1886, "have been occupied
with their material interests and have starved
their minds. Young men are growing up all around us
with a mere smattering of education, but as it is sufficient
for them to enter an agricultural, manufacturing,
mercantile, or commercial life, they are satisfied. Education
costs money, and postpones the time for money making."
Professor Garnett was of the opinion that the
number of matriculates seeking a higher academic training
in the institutions of the South was smaller in 1886
than in 1860; and this was quite possibly so, in consequence
of the poverty of those formerly wealthy States
after the war, and the increased need of a thoroughly
practical education.

A thoughtful writer in the magazine questioned the
pertinency of competition as an explanation of the falling
off in numbers. "A seat of learning," he said,

"should be of such a character that its patronage cannot
be drawn away. Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and Texas
Universities, have all sprung into usefulness in the last
ten years. But when we compare the decrease here, it is
so gradual and so slight, during that interval, that we are
tempted to reject the main excuse which has been offered
for our shortcomings. We must look the facts in the
face. That a great University should decline in a new
and growing country cannot be without its causes."

Now what, in this writer's opinion, was the principal
one among these causes? "The instruction is too high
for a college," he said, "too low for a university, too
special for the general student, too general for the special
student. The result of this arrangement is that both
classes of students seek more suitable instruction elsewhere.
In the present condition of affairs, the only class
of students to which the University is adapted consists of
such as have completed college courses, and desire to pursue
them further without becoming specialists."

Some light will be cast upon the correctness or incorrectness
of these remarks by comparing the attendance at
the University of Virginia with the attendance at the
other seats of learning in the State during this period. If
the decline was common to all, then there must have been
some cause affecting all which we must look for beyond
their precincts. We obtain from the records the following
facts: that, in the interval between 1871 and 1886,—
during which at least seven important scholastic institutions
were established or reopened in the other Southern
States,—the patronage which the University of Virginia
derived from its own Commonwealth showed a
slight tendency to increase, while the patronage of the
other colleges in Virginia, from the same source, fell off
at least eleven per cent.; that the patronage which the

University derived from the States of the South beyond
Virginia decreased thirty per cent., while the patronage
of the same colleges from that quarter decreased sixty
per cent.; that the shrinkage of the total patronage of
the University amounted to eleven per cent., and the
shrinkage of the total patronage of the colleges to thirty-two.
These statistics at least demonstrate that, whatever
may have been the origin of the decline in the attendance
at the University at this time, the cause was
common to every seat of learning in the State. "The
University lost less of the patronage than the colleges,"
very truly said the Faculty, "and held it longer."

What were the measures which this body considered
proper for increasing the attendance? First, to improve
the character and broaden the range of the courses of
study; second, to augment the appliances for promoting
health and comfort within the precincts; and third, to
diminish the volume of necessary expenses so far as to
throw open the benefits of the institution to a larger
number of young men.

The remedy urged by the writer of the article in the
magazine which we have already quoted was altogether
scholastic in its character. "The present system of unstable
equilibrium between college and university," he
said, "must be one in reality, giving to the students facilities
for the highest education. At the same time, to
perform its duty to the State of Virginia, it must provide
college education. The two are not inconsistent.
The standard of special education must be elevated; the
standard of general education must be lowered. The
hope of the University,—the Ph.D. degree,—should be
popular because not too exacting. Above all, the University
should recognize the degrees of other colleges,
allowing their graduates to study directly for the degree

of Ph.D. There should be a curriculum for a college
course, to be followed by a university course."

It was not until the session of 1889–90, that the number
of students at the University of Virginia mounted,—
with a shortage of only seven,—to the level of the session
of 1866–67, the most prosperous recorded in the
institution's history in the interval between the close of
the war and 1890. Four hundred and ninety during the
session of 1866–67, it was four hundred and eighty-two
during that of 1889–90. The proportion of matriculates
from Virginia enrolled during the former session
was forty-five per cent. of the whole attendance, while,
during the session of 1891–92, the proportion advanced
to fifty-nine per cent. The centre of gravity had, therefore,
shifted from the other States as a whole to the Commonwealth
within the borders of which the University
was situated. The session of 1891–92 was a remarkable
one, for it was then that the increase in the attendance
began, which, steadily continuing, has now (1919–1920)
swollen to a small army of young men. During the session
of 1894–95,—the last in the Seventh Period,—
there were enrolled a total of five hundred and sixty-two
matriculates.[10]

During the four sessions ending with July, 1870, 1,093
students were entered as in their first year; 431, as in
their second; 115, as in their third; and 29, as in their
fourth. In the course of the twenty-three sessions beginning
with 1871–72, the proportion was 4,993 for the first
year; 2,462 for the second; 1,047 for the third; and 167
for the fourth. It will be perceived, through these figures,
that, during both intervals, one alone of every two
matriculates returned for the second year. The disproportion
became larger and more abrupt for the third and
the fourth year as compared with the first and the second.

The system of State students was only temporarily
interrupted by the war, and its importance after the
close of the conflict was, from some points of view,
greater than it had been previous to that violent course of
events. This was due to the impoverishment that followed
the downfall of the Confederacy, which caused the
sons of so many families of social distinction to apply for
the privilege of gratuitous instruction. Among the students
enrolled anterior to 1876 were many men, born in
famous Virginian homes, who afterwards rose to a high
rank in the learned professions.

In 1875–76, the General Assembly appropriated for
the benefit of the University the annual sum of thirty
thousand dollars, on condition that no charge for tuition
should be imposed upon matriculates from Virginia who
were eighteen years of age at least. This limit was
afterwards lowered to sixteen. The privilege was to be
restricted to the academic schools. There was a very
general apprehension among the friends of the higher
seats of learning in the State lest this measure should have
a depressing influence on the prospects of these institutions
by drawing away the patronage, which, without this
inducement in favor of the University, they would be

certain to enjoy. But time demonstrated that the law
was not damaging to their welfare. On the contrary, the
fact that all the Virginian students were, by its terms, required
to pass an examination for admission to the University
had a direct tendency to increase the prosperity of
the minor schools and colleges by making a preliminary education
more essential than it had been, when entrance to
the higher institution was subject to no scholastic conditions
of any real importance. Where could this preliminary
training be obtained? Only in the subordinate institutions,
public or private.

XX. The Students—Admission of Women

In contemplating the student body as a whole, it will
be necessary to inquire into the history of the movement,
during the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, which had in view
the admission of women to all the advantages of instruction
in the University of Virginia. Apparently, the
earliest recorded incident in this movement was the petition
of Miss Caroline Preston Davis, submitted to the
Faculty in June, 1892, in which she asked permission to
stand the examinations that would be required, during the
ensuing session, of all candidates for the degree of bachelor
of arts, in the School of Mathematics. The Faculty
adopted a resolution in general approval of this novel application,
—with the proviso, however, that the test could
only be taken subject to such conditions as the professor
in that school should consider proper to impose.

The Faculty did not stop with an affirmative response
to this single petition. They referred the broad question
whether women should or should not be permitted to
stand all the University examinations, to a special committee,
which was directed to draft an immediate report.
The general attitude of the Faculty at this time was expressed

by Professor Thornton, the chairman: "It
seemed, on the one hand, unwise," he said, "to overburden
the already overcrowded programme of the academic
department with special lectures to women, and on
the other, inadvisable to adopt the radical policy of coeducation.
It appeared, however, practical and useful
that the University should direct the studies of young
women who were desirous of undertaking University
work, examine them in the courses there pursued, and
award to the meritorious suitable honorary certificates,
adopting thus for the present towards the sex, the rôle of
an examining university rather than a teaching university."

In harmony with this thoughtfully weighed conclusion,
the Faculty drafted the following series of regulations:
First, every woman above eighteen years of age
who could offer an acceptable certificate of good character
and adequate preparation, was to be permitted to register
her name with the chairman as a student in the academic
school which she should select; but she must have
previously obtained the consent of the professor in that
school, and paid a fee of twenty-five dollars. She was
not, however, to have the right to attend his regular
lectures in his classroom. The instruction, it seems,
was to be received in a less public way, and principally
from a licentiate. Secondly, she was to be required to
pass successfully upon the examination papers submitted
to the young men of the school; but this test of knowledge
was not to be made in the presence of the male members
of the class, but privately, under such rules touching
supervision and chaperonage as the Faculty should lay
down. The same studies might be prosecuted by women
residing at a distance. These were to be permitted to
come up to the University at stated times for professional

advice and guidance; but for actual instruction, in preparation
for their examinations, all female candidates so
situated would have to depend chiefly on other schools or
on private tutors. The only award which would be
granted to a woman would be a certificate of proficiency.

Such was the original position taken by the Faculty
and Board in connection with female education through
the agency of the University of Virginia.

In May, 1893, the Faculty met to draw up their annual
report to the Visitors. Thirteen of the professors
were present, and six were absent. Before any opinion
on the question of admitting women was expressed, two
were compelled to withdraw by the unavoidable call of
other business. The general conclusion was, therefore,
left to be reached by eleven members of the body, of whom
at least three or four dissented from the opinion of the
majority, which consisted of only seven or eight voices in
all. It was acknowledged that the opinion of the latter
did not reflect the opinion of the entire Faculty. What
was the substance of the conclusion arrived at by this
majority? That the aid which had been offered to young
women under the original resolution of that body and the
Board had turned out to be "ineffective." There is no
record of the facts which had led the greater number of
the professors present on this occasion to come to this
conviction. The only young lady who had proposed offering
for examination was Miss Davis, and her papers
were to be found a few months later to be so excellent that
the certificate of proficiency was conferred on her. A
minority report recommended that the final decision as
to the manner of admitting women should be deferred for
one year at least, by the end of which time it was expected
that reliable information could be procured to show the
comparative advantages and drawbacks of the annex systern

and the coordinate system of education alike. The
minority report, in the end, seems to have counseled the
establishment of the annex system, while the majority
report again recommended that the academical schools
should be opened only to such registered women as each
professor should consent to receive, and subject to such
regulations as he should impose, with the approval of the
Board.

On July, 20 (1893), the Visitors assembled. They
had before them for consideration: (1) a majority report
of the Faculty; (2) a minority report, signed by eight
professors, who appear to have been Venable, Holmes,
Dunnington, Barringer, Minor, Smith, Schele, and Gilmore;
and (3) a petition, advocating the admission of
women to the University courses of instruction, submitted
by the Society for the Extension of Higher Education in
Virginia. They concluded their deliberations by requesting
the Faculty to formulate the rules for the admission
of women to the academic schools. The Faculty in
September, 1893, appointed a committee to draft these
rules; but this committee does not seem to have reported
until May, 1894. Its recommendations on that occasion
were as follows. (1) That women eighteen years of
age or beyond, should, on presenting acceptable credentials
of good character, and offering proof of adequate
preparation, be permitted to matriculate and enter such
academical schools as they should select, after having paid
the usual fees; (2) that every professor admitting
women to his classes should be instructed to submit for
the approval of the Faculty and Board the specific requirements
which he intended to enforce; (3) that all the
female students should be at liberty to reside with their
parents, guardians, or kinsmen, or in homes approved
by the Faculty; and, finally, (4) that three dormitories

should be reserved for their exclusive use during the intervals
between their lectures.

This report seems to have been signed by Tuttle,
Peters, Smith, Mallet, and Kent. When it was laid before
the Faculty, Professor Fontaine submitted a resolution
that women should not be granted the right of admission
to the University courses; and that all the existing
provisions for their registration and examination
should be cancelled after September 15, 1895. This
resolution prevailed. The members of the Faculty who
supported the substitute were Holmes, Venable, Davis,
Fontaine, Garnett, Gilmore, Humphreys, Barringer,
Kent, Lile, Perkinson, Dabney, Echols, and Christian.
Those who voted against it were Smith, Peters, Stone,
Thornton, Dunnington, Mallet, and Tuttle. The proportion
was fourteen to seven. Minor, Schele, and W. C.
Dabney were absent when the ballot was taken.

The reasons given by the majority for their hostility
to the admission of women on an equal footing with
men were in substance as follows. Women could not
correctly claim that they had a legal right to enter the
University because they were tax-payers; negroes also
were tax-payers; and yet their exclusion was never a
subject of dispute. The right of entry possessed by
women was only a right in equity; but this right in equity
would not be satisfied by admitting them, since the education
obtainable at the University of Virginia was not
one that was suitable for the members of their sex. On
the contrary, it would only serve to draw them away
from those excellencies which made that sex such a power
in the home. Under the arcades they would be certain
to grow boisterous, familiar, and bold in manners,
and perhaps even rudely aggressive, under the influence
of an ambitious rivalry with the male collegians. But

from the broad point of view of race preservation, there
were consequences even more appalling than those which
have been mentioned. "According to medical authority,"
the report of the majority gravely asserted "the
strain on young women in severe competitive work (in the
higher schools of learning) does often physically unsex
them, and they afterwards fail in the demands of motherhood."
And yet the signers of the same report were of
the opinion that there were possibilities of license in this
close association of young men and young women which
not even the most vigilant and constant oversight could
entirely remove or suppress. "Let us not be bullied,"
they exclaim, "into a false position by the clamour of
a noisy majority of the public, thereby breaking irrevocably
with and condemning the University's past. It
would lower our standards to those of co-educational
schools elsewhere. It would require a supervision inconsistent
with the Honor System and the system of discipline."

The final vote of the members of the Faculty on the
question of admitting women to the institution on the
co-educational basis stood in the proportion of four in
favor of the measure to twelve in opposition to it. The
four were Peters, Thornton, Mallet, and Tuttle. The
result of this vote seems to have been reconsidered on
June 4 (1894), but, apparently, without material modification.
A paper drafted by Professor Davis was incorporated
in the report as ultimately adopted.

The Board, a few days later (June 11), demonstrated
by their action that they were in sympathy with the
views of the large majority of the Faculty. They declared
themselves to be earnest advocates of the higher
education of women, and expressed their regret that
there should be no adequate facilities in Virginia for its

acquisition; but in spite of these feelings, they said, they
found it impossible to believe that co-education was in
harmony with the character and situation of the institution;
and they were also convinced, they added, that
such an innovation had not been contemplated by its
founder. Not satisfied with simply refusing to admit
women to the different classes, the Board rescinded all
the regulations then in existence, which threw open indirectly
to members of that sex some of the benefits of its
instruction. Camm Patterson was the only Visitor who
advocated the establishment of an annex at some distance
beyond the precincts, where the female students
might receive lessons from the professors attached to
the academic department of the University. This was
perhaps the first official suggestion of coordinate education,
which, at a later day, was to become the heated
centre of opposing opinions.

XXI. The Students—Their Expenses

What were the expenses which had to be met by the
students during the long interval now under review
(1865–1895)? First, let us consider the fees. The
tuition fee in the academic department remained unchanged,
—admission to three schools still imposed a
total charge of seventy-five dollars or twenty-five dollars
respectively. The fee of the department of law
was advanced from eighty dollars to one hundred,
and the fee of the department of medicine, from one
hundred and five to one hundred and twenty (1895).
In the engineering and agricultural departments, the tuition
fee continued stationary. It was still one hundred
dollars. The general fees showed some fluctuation;
thus, during the session of 1872–73, the matriculation
fee was thirty dollars; in 1889, it sank to twenty-five, and

remained at that figure until the session of 1895–96,
when it rose to forty. The contingent fee neither advanced
beyond nor fell below ten dollars. The infirmary
fee declined from seven dollars and a half to
seven; the total matriculation, contingent and tuition
fees of the academic student, at the end of the Seventh
Period (1895), was one hundred and twenty-five dollars;
and the like fees of the student of law, agriculture and
engineering, one hundred and fifty; and of the student of
medicine and pharmacy, one hundred and seventy.

At the beginning of the session of 1865, a general
regulation that each student should find a room within
the precincts was adopted. The only exceptions allowed
were in the instances of young men who had been actually
maimed in battle, or had suffered a serious impairment
of health through exposure in service or through wounds.
On the threshold of the session of 1866, several persons
asked to be licensed as keepers of outboarding
houses, and as the number of matriculates enrolled during
the session of 1865–66 had turned out to be unexpectedly
large, these petitions were acceded to, on condition
that the charges should not be higher than those
of the University hotels. In 1872, when the attendance
had begun to fall away, the Board required that no student
should be permitted to obtain a room outside the
bounds so long as there should be a vacant one within;
and this was their attitude also with respect to board.
In 1883, the matriculate who resided in an outboarding
house had to make a deposit of fifteen dollars for dormitory
rent. At the end of the session the amount due
for unoccupied apartments was added up, and this had
to be paid by the students lodging outside. In no instance,
however, was any one of them to be liable for
more than fifteen dollars.

Among the hotel-keepers at the beginning of this
period, the most prominent was, perhaps, Miss Ross.[11]
She complained, during the session of 1865–66, that she
had lost a large sum in consequence of her failure to
require the payment of board by the quarter. William
Jefferies suffered equally as much for the same reason.
By the session of 1875–76, the number of hotels had
been cut down from three to two. Many of the students
now curtailed their expenses by joining in messes. This
system of boarding had been suggested as early as 1869,
owing to the poverty of the hotel-fare during the previous
session. The Faculty approved of its trial, and recommended,
in their report to the Board, that the young
men should be permitted to form dining-clubs, on condition
that these clubs should always be subject to the
proctor's supervision. In 1873, there was organized a
club with eight members; and this was said to have reduced
the cost of the table to its members to ten dollars
a month as the maximum. So satisfactory was the working
of the two existing messes in 1874–75, that, at the
end of this session, the Visitors offered to reserve the
hotel at the south end of East Range entirely for such
associations, which were to pay a moderate rent for
its use. This hotel was no longer open.

The advantage of the clubs already established having
been fully proven by June, 1876, the Board authorized
the Faculty to inaugurate a general system of messing

at the beginning of the next session, provided that
a sufficient number of young men should be willing to
participate in it. The dormitories on Carr's Hill were
assigned as the place for testing the projected scheme.
It seems to have been attended with success, for, during
the session of 1876–77, there were fifty students enrolled
in two different messes in that quarter, both of which were
managed by the same caterer. At the same time, there
was a messing club which occupied rooms in Dawson's
Row. It was reported that the monthly amount which
each member of any one of these messes had to pay did not
run beyond fifteen dollars as the maximum. This sum
embraced the charges for the rent of the room, furniture,
fuel, lights, and servants' hire as well as for food.
The daily cost of the latter,—which also included the
rations for the attendants,—was estimated at twenty-five
cents. In 1878, the total charge in the mess for nine
months was in the neighborhood of one hundred and
three dollars, while the total charge for the student who
boarded at a hotel was eighteen dollars for thirty days,
or one hundred and sixty-two for the session. If he
resided in a licensed outboarding house, the cost to him
during the same period was one hundred and thirty-five
dollars.[12]

During the session of 1879–80, there were one hundred
and fifty young men procuring their meals in the
hotels, eighty in the messes, and ninety-nine beyond the
precincts,—a proof that mere cheapness did not influence
the majority to desert the more expensive tables.

The same condition was observable during the session
of 1881–2: of the three hundred and twenty-seven
students enrolled in the University, fifty-eight preferred
the mess and one hundred and twenty-five the several
hotels, while the remainder were scattered among the outboarding
houses and the private homes. A decline in
the popularity of the messing system had become distinctly
preceptible by 1882, although there was no complaint
of the quality of the fare that was served, and none
also of the higher charge for it, since the cost of food
was known to have advanced. There was, however,
dissatisfaction over the imposition of a tax of twenty
cents monthly on each member of a mess.

But that the Faculty were determined to make the
messing system a permanent feature of the University,
in spite of this fluctuating feeling, was shown by their
recommendation, in 1887, that a kitchen and diningroom
should be provided for Dawson's Row; and these
additions were actually completed, during the session of
1888–89, at a cost of fifteen hundred and sixty-four dollars.
The like additions were made on Carr's Hill by
October, 1888. These measures were successful in effecting
the purpose which they had in view, for, during
that session, there were at least eighty students enrolled
in the mess of Dawson's Row alone. Twelve
months afterwards, the Faculty recommended to the
Board that the following regulations, in modification of
the existing rules bearing upon the subject of board,
should be adopted: (1) that each student should be at
liberty to select his own hotel, boarding-house, or messing-club,
without regard to the locality of his room;
(2) that every one of those taking their meals within the
precincts should be required to deposit the amount of
his board each month in advance in the hands of the

proctor; (3) that no one among them should be permitted
to abandon his seat at a hotel or mess table
without giving thirty days' notice, unless he was about
to withdraw permanently from the University.

In 1893, the young men boarding within the precincts
petitioned the Faculty for the deferment of the dinner-hour
from one to two o'clock; but their request
was refused. In their indignation, they ironically suggested
that the following rules should be proclaimed by
the college authorities: that no student should possess
the right to eat between his meals, or dance, or play
cards, or perform on any instrument whatever, except
the bass-drum and the Jew's harp; and that no student
should be privileged to smoke more than three pipes of
tobacco in the course of a day, or to retire to bed without
a professor's written consent, or to carry a cane, unless
it were a holiday. Immediate expulsion was to be the
penalty for his absence from his room after ten o'clock
at night, or for daring to be seen with a cigar in his
mouth.

During the session of 1890–91, it was estimated that
the total annual expenses of a matriculate in the academic
department, if enrolled from Virginia, were two hundred
dollars as the minimum; and if from another State,
two hundred and seventy-five. In the department of law,
on the other hand, the minimum expense by the year
was calculated to be two hundred and eighty dollars;
and in the department of medicine, three hundred and
ten. In the School of Pharmacy, the general expense
of the matriculate from Virginia was put down at two
hundred and eighty dollars; of one from another State,
at three hundred and twenty. The general expense of
the latter student in the department of engineering or
agriculture was nearly the same; namely, three hundred

dollars. The matriculate from Virginia, on the
other hand, was called upon to pay only two hundred
and fifty dollars in the department of engineering, and
two hundred in the department of agriculture. In all
these cases, the figures given indicated the minimum general
expense in the several departments. The maximum,
in each instance, was represented by an addition of one
hundred dollars. The corresponding figures for all the
departments had risen appreciably by the beginning of
the session of 1894–95.

A contributor to Corks and Curls, in 1895, considered
the Faculty's estimates previous to that year
to be far too modest in amount. It was the conviction of
this writer that not many students could pass an entire
session at the University without paying out at least six
hundred dollars; and, in the opinion of the same observer,
one thousand dollars was not an unreasonable
sum for him to spend, provided that his whole time was
not absorbed in text-books. As it was, he said, the expense
of one State student who matriculated during the
session of 1872–73, had demonstrated that the collegian
could reduce his outlay to a figure as low as one hundred
and forty dollars.

XXII. Publications

On the 21st of October, 1865, just three weeks after
the opening of the first session that followed the war,
a committee of the Jefferson Society, with all the formality
that marks the admission of a petitioner to the
bar of the House of Commons, appeared on the floor
of the Washington Hall, and delivered a resolution
which had been adopted by their own members asking
the sister body to consider at once the advisability of
cooperating in the revival of the magazine. In compliance

with this request, a committee was promptly appointed
to confer with the visiting committee on the
subject. But it was not until November 4 that their
joint report was submitted. It declared that the time
was not yet ripe for the resuscitation of the periodical.
Notwithstanding this conclusion, two other committees
went through the same thoughtful deliberations in October,
1866; and again the same decision was reached.
In the spring of 1867, the Washington Society announced
that it would undertake to reestablish the magazine
should the Jefferson Society consent to share the expense.
It was determined, however, to postpone the
issuance of the first number to the autumn; but, in the
meanwhile, a committee was named, with the power
to arrange for all the practical details of the printing.
It was not until December (1867), that the magazine
was actually revived. The editors then chosen to supervise
its preparation and publication were W. O. Harris
and Joseph Bryan. Bryan had been a member of Mosby's
partisan troop, and was destined in after-life to
become a citizen of conspicuous usefulness.

The delay in restoring the magazine was principally
attributable to the fact that the students, during the sessions
of 1865–66 and 1866–67, were too much employed
in equipping themselves for the impending task of
earning a livelihood to be willing to turn aside and devote
a portion of their invaluable time to the byplay of a periodical.
Nor were these men in a pecuniary condition
to contribute the very respectable amount that would
be required for its support. By the autumn of 1867–
68, a younger set of students were beginning to matriculate,
and it was through them that the normal college
spirit was to be again established, and the old interests
brought back to their regular channels. "Although the

magazine comes," said the editors of the first issue in
their somewhat florid salutatory, "when the convulsive
throes of a great revolution have left society lacerated
and torn and even almost deaf to everything save the
tale of their own woes, it is both the cause and effect
of brighter days. Its once familiar face reminds a
stricken people that the noblest institution of a once
proud commonwealth has girded up her loins to undertake
afresh the duties of peace." Not only did the
magazine have a literary duty to perform, they declared,
by offering an opportunity to the young men to acquire
the art of composition, through the use of its pages,—
it had also a political duty to perform. "It is beyond
question," they continued, "that we are held mildly, it
may be yet firmly, in the talons of the American Eagle.
We wish to counsel the students lest any offense thoughtlessly
or even unintentionally given by them to any agent
or officer of the United States Government may result
seriously to the institution."

Not long after the reestablishment of the magazine,
the Young Men's Christian Association requested that
they should be permitted to contribute to its support to
the extent of one-third of its expenses; and in return, they
asked for the right to share in its management. This
offer was accepted, and the privilege allowed. It was the
anticipation of the association that the influence of their
own body would be increased among the students by
participation in the publication of the only college organ
then in existence at the University. But notwithstanding
this new buttress to its resources, the magazine soon
began to languish. "We venture to assert," said the
editors somewhat acidly, in the number for November,
1870, "that we are the only college periodical in the
country that is not self-supporting. In spite of all our

efforts, we have succeeded in getting but two hundred
subscribers out of four hundred and thirty-six students
at college." But an unexpected improvement in income
occurred before the end of the session (1870–71), and
the scholastic year closed in prosperity.

At this time, there was a different group of editors
for the autumn term and the Easter term. It was
supposed that this was a cause of weakness, for one set
had hardly acquired experience of their duties before they
were called upon to retire from the sanctum, and give
room for another set, who were acknowledged to be entirely
raw. As a means of improving the quality of this
changing board, a scholarship was granted annually to
the group which had shown the greatest capacity in editing
the magazine. As a further means of raising its
character, there was a proposal that a business manager
should be selected to take charge of its practical interests.
But a more useful provision consisted of the appointment,
about 1871, of a board of six editors, who were to continue
in office through all the terms. Hitherto, as already
mentioned, only three had been chosen for each
term, at the end of which they retired. The new board
was composed of five literary editors and one managing
editor. The right of election was enjoyed alternately
by the two societies. "It is evident," remarks a writer
in the number of the magazine announcing this change,
"that five men can do the work much better than two.
The division of the labor gives a variety not possible
under the old system. As the editors are elected for
such a long time, they will have an opportunity for improvement,
and the advantage of experience."

In 1881, the two societies entered into an agreement
that the entire control of the magazine, in its literary
and business interests alike, should be centered in the

ed tor-in-chief. To him was to be reserved the duty of
allotting the tasks of his associates; and he alone was
to be responsible for the acceptance and rejection of
contributions. An assistant manager was now added,
in order, by more active canvassing, to increase the circulation
of the magazine, and to swell the number of advertisements
printed in its pages. Notwithstanding these
practical measures, its income, during the session of
1882–3, fell short of the outlay by the sum of three hundred
dollars. It required nine hundred at least to maintain
the solvency of the periodical. Its income at this
time was derived from two hundred subscribers who paid
two dollars apiece, and from advertisements to the value
of two hundred dollars.

Not long after the magazine was revived, a medal was
decided upon, by the joint action of both societies, as
the award for the most meritorious prose article that
should appear in the numbers for each session. In June,
1888, it was announced that J. J. McCaleb had instituted
a prize of fifty dollars for bestowal on the student who
should contribute the most remarkable poem during the
same period; and, in the like spirit, a similar prize was
established in 1891 to go to the author of the most
excellent story to be printed in the same pages in the
course of each year. The object of this prize was to
stimulate the production of imaginative writing by the
young men. It was hoped that these different awards
would arrest the decline in interest in the magazine
which had set in so soon as enthusiasm for the sports
of the athletic field had begun to cast a shadow over every
form of intellectual recreation. The founding of Corks
and Curls and College Topics made it still more necessary
that all available means should be employed to
maintain the position which the magazine had won, and

which, in these years, it only retained through the support
of a few faithful students. The editors for the session
1894–5 were very much in favor of introducing
college news in its columns in order to revive its popularity.

If we examine critically the general contents of the
magazine throughout the Seventh Period, 1865–1895,
it will be perceived that they varied very radically in
merit, not only from year to year, but also from month
to month. A single number always touched both extremes.
In one of the earliest reports drafted after the
war by the committee appointed to award the medal,
which was composed of Professors Gildersleeve, Holmes,
and Schele, they dwell upon the absence of "serious
effort," on the one hand, and on the other, of "definite
thought." They said very frankly that the pages reflected
a spirit of indolence and vacuity, and that even
the graver articles were disfigured "by high-flown rhetoric,
false syntax, mixed metaphors, and college slang."
The most remarkable contributor at this time was Alamby
M. Miller, who died prematurely. His articles alone
seem to have won an unreserved commendation. The
report for the session of 1868–9 was equally disheartening.
Only two articles in the issues for this year impressed
the accomplished and fastidious committee favorably;
and these apparently only because they were not
tainted by "feverish fancies, misplaced metaphors, and
other rhetorical extravagances." "What was needed,"
they declared, "was more resolute effort, more patient,
and more persevering labor, a clearer and more cordial
communion with classic models, more regard for clearness,
precision, and neatness of language, for logical
perspicuity and coherence, for comprehension, for more

sedate habits of reflection, and more subdued modes of
exposition."

This somewhat drastic criticism seems to have had a
stimulating, not a debilitating, influence upon the ambition
of those who were looked to for the improvement
of the magazine, for, at the end of the following session,
the committee of professors for that year, with
palpable satisfaction, declared in their report that the
merit of the periodical, during the previous nine months,
had been quite equal to the high quality of the numbers
issued before the war, when the larger attendance of students
had allowed a wider latitude as to literary ability
in the choice of the editorial staff. The report of the
committee for 1877–78, which was less encouraging, was
written by Professor Price, whose classical taste must
have been shocked by many of the pages which he was
conscientiously called upon to read. "The chief fault
of the poorer pieces," he asserted, "seems to have arisen
from either triteness of subject or bigness of subject.
When the subject matter is too large for magazine treatment,
the effort to deal with it leads either to dreary
generalities and platitudes, or else to disproportion or
mutilation of argument. When the subject matter is
too old, it is impossible to avoid commonplace. Many
of the articles have failed for the one cause or the other."

However just these comments may have been, this
can be undeniably affirmed of the magazine of that day:
that previous to 1894–95 not a single session went by
without the contribution of at least one article of such
conspicuous merit,—whether from a sentimental or a
critical point of view,—as to deserve the gold medal
which was annually awarded by the two societies. What
was said of one of these articles by the committee of the

year in which it appeared, may be quoted as substantially
pertinent to them all: "There was a perfect balance
between its substance and its style. The words were of
the heart as well as the mind. There was the ardor of
feeling tempered by the coolness of the reason. The
style was simple, unaffected, smooth, and harmonious."
Among the prize articles that fulfilled all these searching
requirements were Old Letters, by R. T. W. Duke, Jr.,
Marlow, by W. W. Thum, The Ancient Mariner, by
Thomas A. Seddon, and an extended list of companion
pieces of the same quality which might be mentioned.

During the Seventh Period, as the Arcade Echoes so
brilliantly discloses, there were numerous poems of very
unusual merit contributed to the pages of the magazine.
The principal writers in this department during that interval
were R. T. W. Duke, Jr., Armistead C. Gordon,
James L. Gordon, Howard Morton, Charles W. Coleman,
Francis R. Lassiter, and T. L. Wood. Among the
members of the editorial board were men who were destined
to rise in after-life to positions of usefulness and
influence in their several callings by the force of their
talents. Such,—to bring up only a few representative
names,—were Lyon G. Tyler, Robert M. Hughes,
William P. Trent, Walter S. Lefevre, E. W. Saunders,
James C. Lamb, Linden Kent, E. H. Farrer, A. T.
Strode, J. W. Wayland, Stuart McGuire, L. M. Machen,
L. P. Chamberlayne, J. Allen Watts, R. Walton Moore,
F. R. Lassiter, R. H. Dabney, Walter E. Addison, P.
F. DuPont, J. B. Henneman, Oscar W. Underwood,
George Gordon Battle, and H. Snowden Marshall.

The number of members contributed by Virginia to
the editorial board was one hundred and fifty-two, and
by the other States, one hundred and fifty,—an almost
equal division. The largest proportion, omitting Virginia's

from view, was from the State of Maryland,
which was represented by twenty-three at the editorial
table. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas followed with
eighteen respectively.

Anterior to 1887, the magazine was without a rival to
compete with it for the patronage of the University's
readers; but in the course of that year, the periodical
known by the highly original title of Corks and Curls was
launched.[13] During a subsequent session, the first copy
of College Topics was published. These two organs
limited the province of the magazine more strictly than
ever to pure literature.

The scheme of College Topics had its origin in the
inability of the magazine, owing to its more or less
special character, to take in every one of the subjects
which made a crying appeal to the tastes and aspirations
of the students. All genuine collegiana, it was not incorrectly
said, was out of place in the latter's pages.
The founders of College Topics had first suggested that
the Jefferson Society, and afterwards, that the University
at large, should establish a racy local college journal;
but a majority of the students were of the opinion that
such a project would, if attempted, end in financial failure,
and quietly refused to support it. It was finally
undertaken by five young men of talent and energy, who
were willing to make the venture at their own risk.
These were Legh R. Page, S. M. Beard, A. C. Carson,
Hunt Chipley, and John G. Tilton, and they formed the

first board of editors. The earliest issue appeared on
January 8, 1890, and the periodical was successful fromthe
start,—in no small degree, because it always proved
itself to be a steadfast defender of the rights of the students,
and an intelligent promoter of their best interests
in the mass. During the session of 1890–91, the General
Athletic Association took over its proprietorship,
and it thus became the organ of that influential body.
Its aims, under the changed ownership, were to nourish
the healthy growth of athletic sports; to arouse enthusiasm
in the annual events; to act as the watchful friend
of the young men; and, finally, to serve as their mouthpiece,
should they fall into disputes with the Faculty and
the Visitors. One set of editors was elected for the
autumn term, and another for the spring. Virginia contributed
forty-nine members to these boards previous to
1894, and the other States,—fourteen in all,—forty-five
members.

XXIII. Debating Societies

The Washington Society seems to have been the first
to reorganize after the close of the war. This occurred
on October 14, 1865, following a suspension that had remained
unbroken during an interval of four and a half
years. The earliest step towards resuscitation was
taken by John H. Lewis, J. S. Harnsberger, W. M. Perkins,
and A. F. Fleet,—all of whom were students enrolled
from Virginia. When Lewis was called to the
chair on the occasion of the first meeting, he spoke with
pathetic eloquence of the smallness of the number of
members then present as compared with the number that
used to assemble under the same roof in the prosperous
days of the past; and he paid a tender tribute to the
memories of those who had perished on the battlefield.

At the second meeting, held seven days afterwards,
twenty-eight new members were sworn in. From this
time forward, a monthly orator was chosen. In November,
with the assistance of the ladies of the University,
this society collected a fund sufficient to repair
their hall and to furnish it properly.[14]

The Jefferson Society had quickly followed the example
of its contemporary in reorganizing. Many urbane
and kindly messages passed between the two bodies
during these first years of revived activities,—thus in
October, 1866, the Washington Society addressed its
sister association in these stately words: "We congratulate
the Jefferson upon the brilliancy of its past
career, and especially of its recent session; upon its present
high position, and its bright prospects for the future;
and we hope that it may ever continue its good work.
The Washington remembers, with deep pleasure, the
happy relations of courtesy and friendship which have
heretofore existed between the two societies, as they
have labored together hand in hand in the great field of
literature."

One of the earliest of the joint transactions of the

two bodies was the drafting of a petition to President
Johnson in behalf of Mr. Davis, whose release from
prison was sought; but in the end, this document was
ordered by both to be laid on the table indefinitely.
This event occurred in January, 1866. No doubt, the
practical uselessness of the petition was perceived. In
May of the following year, the societies had the acute
satisfaction of adopting a joint resolution offering Mr.
Davis their congratulations on the recovery of his freedom,
and inviting him to be present during the exercises
of the approaching commencement. They even went so
far as to express a desire to collect a fund for his benefit.
The warmth of their patriotism was further demonstrated
by the earnestness with which they supported
the proposition to raise in the University cemetery a
suitable monument to the Confederate dead. A committee
having been appointed to canvass for subscriptions
in the local community, it was determined to set aside
for the same pious object whatever surplus should remain
in the two treasuries at the end of the session.
One student was named for each State of the South, who,
during the vacation, was to solicit contributions of all
the alumni residing within its borders. The Washington
Society suggested that the decorations so lavishly strewn
about at the finals should be dispensed with, and the
money which would have gone to their purchase, diverted
to the building of the memorial.

The narrowness of their quarters at this time seemed
to have been irksome to the members of this society,
and in June, 1867, they petitioned the Board of Visitors
to grant to them, in common with the members of the
Jefferson, the use of the chapel as a debating hall. But
this must have proved unsatisfactory, for the Washington
Society discussed for some time whether they should not

apply for the possession of the large apartment situated
in the Temperance Building on the floor just above the
postoffice. In 1869, the same society petitioned the
Visitors for pecuniary aid in enlarging the area of their
hall. There was in their treasury about thirteen hundred
dollars, but they needed five hundred more. This
additional amount was appropriated by the Board, and
the hall, in consequence, was extended. Owing to the
abuse by strangers of the privilege of attending this
Society's weekly debates, a proposal to shut them out
on such occasions seems to have been adopted.

The spirit of partisanship in the elections of both the
Washington and the Jefferson, had, by 1870, grown so
intemperate as to draw the disapproving attention of the
Faculty. The University Magazine itself vigorously
censured the prevailing electioneering methods, and called
upon the members of both bodies to frown upon the
flagrant favoritism that was shown so unblushingly in
the support of the different candidates. It was said,
without overstatement, that the race for honors was
not decided on the floors of the two halls, but in the
secret caucuses assembled in the dormitories. An odd
custom prevailed in the Jefferson Society at this time.
Partly in a spirit of earnestness, partly in a spirit of jocularity,
perhaps, a special committee annually investigated
the record of each member, and if it was found to be
without blemish, he received a formal and elaborate
certificate of upright character.

It was estimated, in 1871, that, of the five hundred
students who had matriculated during this session, only
one hundred and sixty had permitted their names to be
entered on the rolls of the two societies. Not one fourth
of these came forward to take any share in the proceedings
of the meetings. The controlling motive of those

who did join was usually to increase the chance of success
for some aspirant for honors. But it was not always
the most popular student who won the prize,—
so soon as it was perceived that a candidate was backed
by a powerful combination, all the smaller factions united
their strength to defeat him.

The three honors which were held in the most exalted
esteem were the debater's medal, the final oratorship, and
the final presidency. These honors were ordinarily distributed
by a shrewd manipulation of votes. One fraternity
would give the most energetic assistance to a candidate
for the medal who belonged to another fraternity,
on condition that the latter fraternity would uphold the
former's candidate for the oratorship; and this compact
having been signed, the two associations would join in
canvassing for a candidate for the presidency in return
for his fraternity's support of the two candidates for
the medal and the oratorship. It was admitted by all
that the extent of the wire pulling and vote swapping
which preceded these elections had a demoralizing and
distracting influence on the currents of University life.
By 1872, the intermediate celebration had been abolished,
and in consequence, the importance of the presidency
at the final exercises was very much enhanced. It
called for a candidate of special characteristics to carry
off the laurels of success in a campaign for this office.
"The position," said Dr. Culbreth, "exacted a man
with a social and friendly nature, clever and frank manners,
and abundant time for indulging these qualities,—
always urbane and polite, but avoiding excessive demonstration."

The Board of Visitors, about 1872, arrived at the
conclusion that the addresses of students in the public
hall, on the occasion of the commencement, were, as a

rule, singularly impoverished in thought and flat in expression,
and they instructed the Faculty to allow no
speech to be delivered there by a collegian which had
not first been strained in the sieve of a professorial committee.
The Faculty themselves had, for sometime,
been fully aware of the acute need of some form of revision.
In their annual report, drafted in the spring
of this year, they had commented on the immaturity of
mind, and the deficiency in culture, which were reflected
in the structure of most of these utterances; and they had
recommended that no student should be permitted to
declaim from the rostrum, unless he could show diplomas
acquired in at least two of the academic schools. In
addition, they had counselled that no address should be
allowed to extend beyond thirty minutes in the time of
its delivery.

It was not simply the unripeness of intellect, and
the faultiness of taste, which were displayed in the compositions
of so many of the young men who spoke, that
made the Board and Faculty so solicitous to clip these
orations before they should fall on the ears of a public
audience. The animosities that had been aroused by the
war were never more acrimonious than during the session
of 1871–2, for, by that time, the policy of reconstruction,
so ruthlessly enforced in the South, had reached
its highwater mark of infamy. It was but natural that
youthful orators coming from such States as Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, should have
felt an uncontrollable desire to give full voice on the
platform to their indignant resentment over the conditions
then prevailing in their native commonwealths.
But the Faculty, more farsighted than these young men,
were not to be seduced from their determination to shut
out of the public hall the utterance of such bitter political

emotions. "The story is told," says Dr. Culbreth,
"that, previous to the final of 1872, one of the orators
called on Professor Holmes (chairman of the pruning
committee) and laid before him the pages of his proposed
speech. 'I hope,' said the Professor, 'you have
not condescended to select a subject of low order, particularly
one pertaining to the late bitter strife, and one
that might compromise our institution.' 'Far from it,
Professor,' said the student, 'I have not touched a single
thing on this mundane sphere. I have restricted myself
entirely to a celestial topic: the night brings out the
stars'."

It was the general impression, at this time, that the
two societies had failed to carry out the purpose for
which they had been revived after the war. The editors
of the magazine complained that no one took any
part in the current of so-called debate in these bodies,
unless he had written out his speech and committed it
to memory. The members who possessed the leisure
and energy to prepare such elaborate discourses were
few in number, and it followed that the proceedings were
meagre in thought and curtailed in extent. Indeed, so
impoverished did these proceedings, by 1873, become in
both societies,—for the same condition was to be discerned
in both,—that it was suggested, apparently by
the students themselves, that the principal awards should
be made by committees of the Faculty. It was proposed
that one committee should be assigned to each society;
and that each committee should attend at least
three debates, in the course of each session. "As matters
now stand," said the editors of the magazine in
January, 1874, "if we are determined to allow personal
feelings to warp our judgment, why not call things by
their right name, and to the man who makes most friends

present a token of friendship instead of a debater's
medal?" And yet, it may be pointed out parenthetically,
that it was, during the existence of this very system,
with all its abuses, that commanding speakers like A. P.
Humphrey, John W. Daniel, Isidor Rayner, and
others hardly less distinguished, were trained after the
war; while before the war, it had been the nursery for
such noble orators as Robert Toombs and John S. Preston,
and such keen dialecticians as Alexander H. H.
Stuart and Robert M. T. Hunter.

The Faculty too had arrived at the conclusion that
the societies were dragging their anchors, with the more
disturbing prospect of ultimately drifting on the rocks
At a meeting of that body in November, 1874, they determined
to alter the manner of choosing the debaters
and orators. They now adopted the rule that, in each
recurring November, two committees of the Faculty
should be appointed, to consist of three members respectively,
—one of these committees was to undertake the
duty of selecting the best debater and the best orator
among the participants in certain prearranged discussions
in the Washington Society, and the other to perform
the same duty in the Jefferson. These committees
were instructed to attend at least four debates, of which
one was to come off in January, one in February, and
two in March. The number to be attended was afterwards
reduced, first to two and subsequently to one.

The new rule did not swell the audience as much as
was expected. The number of young men present was
small, the number of candidates insignificant,—at least
at first,—but during the session of 1875–76, as many as
twelve aspirants offered themselves in the Washington
Society alone.

A resolution was submitted in the Jefferson in November,

1888, that a medal should be awarded to that
member, who, during the year, had shown the highest degree
of improvement in debate. Definite nights were
to be assigned for the speaking, and each candidate was
to be required to enter his name in a list to ensure his
recognition on the floor in his turn. The decision as to
the successful competitor was to be left to a committee
of five members of the Society. This resolution was
adopted, and was still in force after 1889. Another of
the conditions to be noticed in the Jefferson, at this time,
was the observance of the earlier custom of appointing
a monthly orator. Thus we find that, during the winter
of 1883, addresses were delivered in the hall of that
society by prominent members like W. P. Trent and
Walter S. Lefevre, and in harmony with their after
careers as professors, the subjects which they selected
were purely literary. In 1885, the office of critic was
established. It was the duty of its incumbent to submit
periodical reports, in which, by judicious censure, he was
expected to raise the general level of the speaking.

During this session, there seems to have been a recrudescence
of interest in both societies, for each could
now boast of the possession of a larger membership than
had fallen to its lot for many years. This revival was
thought to be principally due to the excitement of the
contests for final president. During one month of 1889,
eighty-six additions were made to the roll of the Jefferson,
under the influence of the active electioneering canvass
then going on. It was acknowledged, at this time, that
the interest in the literary exercises of both societies
was very languishing; and how far this had gone was
rather curiously revealed in the fact, that, when, in
February, 1892, ten members came forward at a meeting
of the Jefferson to take part in the debate, it was said

that such a sight had not been observed for at least a
decade.

The popularity of the two societies had, during this
period, been very much damaged by the growth in the
University of the taste for athletic sports. It was noticed
that, when the night for a debate coincided with
the night for a gymnastic tournament, the attendance
in the Jefferson and Washington Halls alike was not
sufficient to make up a quorum. On the occasion of one
meeting of the Jefferson Society at this time, a member
arose and proposed that the sum of five hundred dollars,
—which then happened to be reposing in the treasury
as unappropriated surplus,—should be presented, as a
token of appreciation, to the General Athletic Association.
By the end of the ensuing two years, this spirit
of prodigality had brought about such depletion in the
funds of this society that it was compelled to petition
the Board of Visitors for pecuniary help in order to
maintain its existence. An important innovation had
now been adopted by both societies in relation to the
medals. Formerly, the orator's was awarded to the
speaker who turned out to be only second in merit in the
set debates, but, afterwards, it was bestowed upon the
one who was decided to have delivered the most striking
address in a purely oratorical contest. Occasionally, as
many as seven aspirants would contest for the honor.
This award also was made by a committee of the Faculty.

The members of this body were still dissatisfied with
the formal speeches delivered by representatives of the
societies during commencement week. In 1893, Professor
Venable suggested that the choice of final orators
should be limited to the candidates who had been recipients
of title degrees. This indicated an extraordinary
falling off in merit in comparison with the times when

the most distinguished alumni were not the men who had
won these degrees, but the men who had received the
medals of the debating societies.

During many years, an energetic rival of the Jefferson
and Washington Societies was found in the Council of
Friends of Temperance. There was a report, in 1873,
that, at every meeting of its members,—who consisted
in the main of students,—there was an animated and
suggestive discussion. "The Temperance Hall," said
the editors of a contemporary number of the magazine,
"promises to be one of the best places in which to cultivate
the budding flowers of rhetoric, and to learn the initial
flights of oratory." It was thought that its representatives
carried off the laurels of superiority in the
oratorical display at the commencement of 1876. The
association had elected for that occasion an able president
and two very brilliant orators, and its medalist,
Charles W. Dabney, was a vigorous debater, who was
destined, in after-life, to occupy numerous posts of high
scholastic distinction. The membership was now large
enough to allow room for the selection of young men
of talent for all the leading parts on the public day.
During the session of 1883–84, its enrolment was as
long as that of the Washington Society, and in 1884–85
fell short by twenty names only of that of the Jefferson.
At this time, the number of its members ran ahead of
the number entered in the list of the Washington Society.

XXIV. Fraternities and Clubs

When the currents of the University resumed their
normal flow after the close of the war, the versatile activities
of the fraternities were also renewed. They
became at once factors of importance, especially in the

province of college politics. It is calculated that, between
1865 and 1897, at least twelve new chapters were
chartered. Among the first of the old to struggle to its
feet again was Eta of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, which,
through the initial exertions of Kinloch Nelson, James
M. Garnett, and Hugh R. Garden, jumped almost at
once into a position to recover the full tide of its former
prosperity. These men were assisted most zealously
by Crawford H. Toy, who, at that time, was a teacher
employed in a private school in the town of Charlottesville.
Perhaps, its principal rival at the start was the
Phi Kappa Psi, which, like the Delta Kappa Epsilon itself,
had drawn into its membership many youthful veterans
of the Confederate army. Every man in the Delta
Kappa Epsilon fraternity, with the sole exception of
John Scott, had been an officer or soldier in the ranks.

Perhaps, the most unique of all the secret associations
in existence during these years, was the one which was
popularly known by the first letters of the words of its
motto. This association was the Dedils. Its members
were ordinarily spoken of by the somewhat cryptic title
of "Nippers." They were said to belong to a "very
straight sect," but the meaning of this designation is
somewhat obscure, as they were often seen returning
from their place of assembling in a state of such tipsiness
as to cause them to pursue a very crooked line. On
one of these occasions, their secretary, who had been
drinking liberally, dropped his book of minutes in the
snow without being aware of its loss. There it was
found next day, and a few hours afterwards, it was in
the possession of the inquisitive and unsympathetic Faculty.
The contents of the volume must have been displeasing,
for the fraternity soon disbanded, after an
intimation from the indignant authorities that the conduct

of the organization had strongly tended to lower
the moral atmosphere of the University.

Among the ten chapters founded before the year 1889,
were those of the Kappa Sigma, Sigma Chi, Phi Theta
Psi, Pi Kappa Alpha, Alpha Tau Omega, and Sigma
Nu. During the session of 1869–70, there flourished
within the precincts of the institution not less than fifteen
secret societies, with a membership,—if we add the
Sons of Confucius,—of approximately one hundred
and forty-six students. The Chi Phi and Delta Psi
counted sixteen names on their respective rolls. The
Delta Kappa Epsilon followed with twelve. In March,
1874, there were about sixteen fraternities in existence,
with a combined list of one hundred and fifty-two
members. During the session of 1891–92, there were
eighteen, with two hundred and fifty-two members.
During the session of 1891–92, there were still eighteen,
with two hundred and forty members. The most prosperous
in the point of number at this time were the Phi
Kappa Alpha and the Phi Gamma Delta. In the meanwhile,
a number of secret associations had, after the
manner of a star, passed their meridian and disappeared
below the horizon.[15] Unlike the Nippers, most of these
bodies seemed to have fared rather scantily. "During
this early period," says John S. Wise, "banquets were
unknown. The fraternity meeting took place in the

room of some member of the fraternity, and the entertainment,
if there was any, consisted of the most frugal
sort of food,—crackers, cheese, or sardines."

In addition to the fraternities which challenged attention
during the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, there
were numerous associations known as ribbon societies.
The most conspicuous of these was the Eli Banana, and
it was also the earliest to be founded at the University.
It was said to have been first organized during the height
of the season at the White Sulphur Springs.[16] The object
which it had in view, after its transplantation to
other soil, was grandiloquently described by itself as one
that was both "useful and ornamental." There had
been observed a tendency among the members of the
conventional fraternities to withdraw from every branch
of social life within the precincts which was not directly
linked in some way with the activities of their own particular
bodies. On the other hand, it was openly asserted
that the Elis aspired to lead the general society
of the University, whether connected with themselves or
not; but it was not long before this laudable ambition
had spread to other provinces of a very different character.

The members of this association first endeavored
to obtain the mastery of the Jefferson Society, and afterwards,
to dominate the football governing board. By
the session of 1887–88, they had grown to be the most
powerful body in the circle of the college life. Previous
to this rise in influence, the students at large had possessed
a complete control over all the University dances. Any
one among them who wished, could attend these dances,
which were held in the Washington Hall, in the course
of the session,—with a ball, of a more brilliant setting,
at the final exercises in June, to close the series. In
1888, the Elis determined that they would not be present
at the regular german that was given in the Washington
Hall at Easter, but would hold a ball of their
own on April 6 in the town-hall of Charlottesville. In
the magazine for October, 1888, there was printed an
announcement that a "german club had been formed
to take charge of the dancing to be done this year."
This club had been organized by the Eli Bananas alone.
Its first ball was given in the Washington Hall for its
members' exclusive pleasure, and the rest of the student
body were compelled to use the town-hall for their own
separate german. Afterwards, the balls of the Elis,—
which always signally overtopped the rival balls of the
outer set,—took place in the gymnasium.

By the session of 1888–89 this society had become so
influential that they were successful in electing one of
their number the president of the football board, and
also two others as members of the same directory. They
could also count on their roll one member of the baseball
board; and furthermore, point to that roll as containing
the names of several winners of degrees. Starting
out with the proclamation of their intention of preserving
the best traditions of the University, by admitting

to their distinguished ranks only the most attractive
and accomplished students, they gradually slackened
in conduct until they fell under the just displeasure of
the University's authorities. On the occasion of their
election of new members at Easter, they always celebrated
the event with a parade, in which questionable
transparencies were borne aloft, and bacchanalian and
ribald songs were sung. As early as 1890, the Faculty
had warned them that, if their boisterous behavior
was not discontinued, and a more quiet bearing assumed,
they would be ordered to disband their organization.
The Elis were able, however, without materially altering
their carriage, to avoid this extreme penalty for several
years; but in June, 1894, the Faculty determined to
apply sterner methods for suppressing their spirit of
lawlessness; and with that purpose in view, they adopted
a rule that no student who was a member of this society
should be permitted to matriculate until he had given
his written pledge that he would not renew his connection
with it. In order to surmount this barrier, the Eli
Bananas, at the beginning of the next session, organized
under the name of "The Elis" only. The Faculty declined
to recognize this professedly new body, as the
membership was really the same as formerly, and the
symbols also. "Poor old Eli," exclaimed a writer in
Corks and Curls in 1895, "for nearly twenty years, its
followers frisked with drum and fife, sported a blue ribbon,
gave a german every Easter, and sang a bold song."
This seems to have ended the career of the society for the
time being.

When the Eli Bananas began to fall into disputes with
the authorities, a new society, the T. I. L. K. A., was organized
(1889); and during several years, this association
shared the honors in the social, political, and scholastic

life of the University with the Elis. The Lotus was
also founded. The O. W. L. was already in existence.
The membership of this body was drawn from the circle
of the editors of the magazine, Corks and Curls, and
College Topics. The magazine medalist was also included
in the membership, as well as the authors of the
most meritorious prose article and poem published in
each number of that periodical. In 1892, the Zeta society
was organized. The Zeta was supposed to have
skimmed the cream from the membership of both the
Eli Banana and the Tilka societies, and, by this method
made up an association that was thought to be of a
quality altogether incomparable. Three years later,
O. N. E. was established.

The social character of these organizations was graded
in the University circles in the following proportions:
only twenty per cent of the membership of O. N. E.
could be considered to be "in society"; forty per cent
of Tilka; sixty per cent of Eli; and ninety per cent of
Zeta. Three societies only were said to be composed
of young men of social importance, while the remainder
were reported to be chiefly composed of students who
were conspicuous in athletic sports. It was claimed that
all social distinction was restricted to the ribbon societies,
for they alone comprised a membership drafted with discrimination
from all the fraternities. "These young
men," said the editors of Corks and Curls, in 1895,
"were brought together by the common object of being
exclusive. The air of mystery about these ribbon societies,
the prominence of their members, the beautiful and
artistic badges upon their bosoms,—all conspired to
make an election to one of them the great object of every
man the moment he matriculates. Such an election is
considered to be the highest honor in college."

There was a large number of associations of less social
prestige than those which have been mentioned, such
as the Army and Navy Club, Thirteen Club, West Range
Spooks, Black Cat Club, Dramatic Club, P. K., D. S. G.,
New Club, Camera Club, Chess Club, Algonquin Club,
and the Anti-Calico Club. There were also clubs which
had been formed by the students who had come up from
the same college or high school. These latter were
known by the names of the institutions in which their
members had received their preliminary training:—thus
there was a Hanover Academy Club, a McCabe University
High School Club, a Norfolk Academy Club, a
Richmond College Club, and so on throughout the long
list of preparatory schools and colleges. In the same
spirit, every State in the South, and at least one in the
North, was represented by a club. There were the
Louisiana Tigers and the Georgia Crackers, for instance.
Each club adopted its own colors, flaunted its own motto,
and uttered a yell and sang a song that were altogether
its own. The musical clubs in which the banjo, the
mandolin, and the guitar, were played, were among the
most popular of all the associations. There were also
class organizations, with officers to preside at their meetings
and to supervise their affairs. The members of
the Faculty also supported two associations: the Philosophical
Society, founded, in 1889, for the promotion of
original research, and for the reading of original papers;
and the Mathematical Club, which seems to have been
at first simply a section of the Philosophical Society.
Its object was to encourage mathematical investigation,
and to keep its members informed of the most advanced
scientific thought and achievement throughout the world.
These organizations were maintained with spirit, and substantially
advanced the University's scholastic reputation.

XXV. Offenses

During no period in the history of the University of
Virginia was the spirit of the students so methodcal and
so sober as in the course of the first session that followed
the close of the War. This was attributable,—partly
to the presence of so many matured men, whose education,
whether academic or professional, had been deferred
by the call to arms; and partly to the atmosphere of
seriousness that prevailed in every Southern community
during the critical days of reconstruction. The Faculty,
in their report for the session of 1865–66, stated
that, throughout these first nine months, there hardly
occurred a single incident involving the conduct of the
young men that merited censure; and that they had
shown, almost without exception, a quiet and studious
temper. The gravest delinquency charged against them
was a rare absence from roll-call, for which there was
usually an acceptable excuse. A correspondent of the
Richmond Enquirer, writing in January, 1866, remarked
that "the extent of the good order surpassed belief";
and that it was "without a parallel in the history of the
institution." A student who matriculated at the beginning
of this session has recorded that, throughout its
entire length, he did not witness one act, or overhear one
word, that would have shocked the most delicate sense
of modesty.

During the session of 1866–67, which witnessed the
entrance of many younger men whose dispositions had
not been sobered in the school of the camp and the battlefield,
a spirit of less self-restraint began to reveal itself.
For instance, in April, 1867, a large number of the
smaller trees growing on the Lawn at that time were
either mutilated or completely uprooted. This damage

was done at night by a small band of collegians who
were returning from an excursion to town under the
irresponsible influence of liquor. In the course of the
following year, there was at least one affray within the
precincts in which knives and pistols were used, but without
any serious consequences.

It was in the conflicts between the students and the
recently emancipated negroes that the most turbulence of
action was displayed. In March, 1869, a prominent
collegian was summoned to court for beating a freedman
who had been insolent to him; and three years afterwards,
there was a sudden interruption of a negro ball
by the young men, in which numerous pistols were fired
off, and a forest of sticks wildly flourished,—the commotion
ending, as was probably designed, in the hasty
dispersion of the sable pleasure-seekers. It was, however,
in the course of the electoral contest between Hayes
and Tilden that the most angry passions were aroused.
At that time, the students were in the habit of visiting
the town in a body, at a certain hour, in order to learn the
latest news brought by the telegraph and posted on the
public board of the local newspaper. They always went
fully armed on these occasions to repel an attack.
"More than once," says Dr. Culbreth, "I have seen in
the dim-lit hovel, slightly remote from the roadside, colored
men prostrate on their stomachs on a bed, or
crouched near the window, raised sufficient to permit
the passing of their guns, ready to be discharged upon
the least provocation, in the form of some slight demonstration
from us of the cause we espoused, such as a hurrah
for Tilden, Hendricks, and Reform. I shall never
forget the two or three nights when the students had to
call out the Monticello Guard to escort us back to the
University, for upon reaching the triangle at the brow

of Vinegar Hill, we found hundreds of negroes armed
with deadly weapons, including good sized pieces of macadam
rock,—of which, loads had been dropped for repairs
to the road."

During these early sessions, the police force of Charlottesville
consisted of two men only,—a chief and one
assistant. This chief had been cursed with the loss of
an eye, while the assistant was somewhat sluggish in his
movements, owing to excessive corpulency; and he was
also quite far advanced in years. Both of these men,
aware of their physical infirmities, and also of their numerical
paucity, were not disposed to be too strict or
too firm in dealing with the University boys who swaggered
on the streets. On the contrary, they were very
cautious and discreet, and winked at many offenses that
would have justified the laying on of hands, if not actual
imprisonment. An experience which the fat assistant
had with a party of mischievous students on one occasion,
which may be mentioned as being not entirely abnormal,
demonstrated the shrewd wisdom of this custodian
of the peace. "One night, after a rather late
supper," we are told by Judge R. T. W. Duke, Jr.,
"some of us were rather noisy, and the old man tried
to arrest the crowd. He was seized, put under a drygoods
box, and the boys sat on it, and drummed with
their heels until he surrendered. He was released under
promise of taking a drink, and a complete amnesty for all
our offenses. He submitted to be punished with good
grace and kept his promise."

But a more ignominious punishment than this sometimes
overtook him. On at least one other occasion, he
was led away to Monroe Hill and there thrust into a
coal-box, and the lock of the box turned upon him in
spite of his wheezy protests. The successor of this

famous policeman once attempted to halt a student, who,
in passing down the street, was singing boisterously and
defiantly. "Arrest me, Sir!" exclaimed the young fellow,
pausing in his song, "arrest me! I dare you. I
wish you to understand, sir, that I am a graduate in
international and constitutional law,[17] and beg to inform
you that I am under no law of any nation, commonwealth,
or municipality. Can I be arrested for singing on the
street?" "This," says Judge Duke, who tells the
story, "finished the minion of the law, and the delinquent
went on his way, singing of 'massa in the cold, cold
ground'."

On another occasion, about eleven o'clock at night,—
it was in February, 1877,—a band of fifty students
assembled on the Lawn in front of the Rotunda, and after
many blasts upon their horns, set out for town in a procession.
All were clothed in startling garments. Some
were enveloped in flowing shrouds, some in nightgowns,
some in the flamboyant finery left over from a college
minstrel concert. As they drew near to the borders
of Vinegar Hill, a squad of the town policemen were
visible in the dim light of the flickering town-lamps, apparently
firmly prepared to bar all further advance by
the liberal use of their cudgels. But, in reality, they
were too nervously apprehensive to trust to these weapons
alone. As the procession came on with a heavy
military tramp, the policemen first blew their whistles
to summon assistance, and then waved their sticks; but
as the enemy was not in the smallest degree intimidated
by this movement, they fell back, with some confusion,
down the slope of the street to await reinforcements.

A detachment soon arrived to support them; but this too,
after halting for a few minutes, prudently, though slowly,
retreated. A second detachment marched up in haste,
and with this addition, the body of the defenders felt
themselves strong enough to hold their ground, but this
expectation quickly proved delusive. A determined assault
upon their ranks drove them as far down Main
Street as the railway station.

Here they reformed, and as the collegians were now
somewhat scattered, a few of the latter were soon arrested.
This fact seemed to arouse the valor of the
students to a furious pitch, and a battle with sticks began
that would have filled with fervent joy the breast of
old Homer or the most pugnacious citizen of Kilkenny.
For a time, the young men remained in the ascendant,
but they were ultimately compelled to begin a strategic
retirement on Vinegar Hill, and their retreat was conducted
with such a firm and determined spirit that the
town constabulary thought it wisest to follow them at
a respectful distance. At the top of the hill,—the scene
of many a heroic deed in University annals—they
pushed forward and attacked the students again. A
second mêlée now occurred, and the young men, probably
by this time thinned in their ranks, were driven back,
and eight of their number captured and rushed off to
the town-jail. Their trial was held before the mayor
on the following day, and the entire body of students in
the University marched to Charlottesville to be present
as it. But so great a number could not find admission
to the interior of the court-house, and many of those
who were left on the outside obtained some alleviation
for their disappointment first in a dog fight, and afterwards
in violent fisticuffs with negroes, who had ventured
to approach too near to the court-house door.

This conflict seems to have made a deep impression
on the nerves of Charlottesville's authorities. Whenever
thereafter a dramatic or musical performance took
place in the town-hall,—which always attracted to the
spot a large number of students,—the side passageways
were patrolled by extra constables, who watched every
movement of the boys with suspicion. "The touch of
a student's foot on the floor, or the sound of a student's
voice," complained the editors of the magazine at this
time, "caused them to seize him with threats of expulsion
and arrest."

The most interesting of all the contemporary guardians
of the peace was the trumpeter who was stationed
on the road between Charlottesville and the University,
with stern instructions to sound a note that would arouse
the shrouded dead just so soon as the van of the University
marauders should come in sight on their way to
the dark and bloody ground of Vinegar Hill. In order
to test the courage of this local Roderick Dhu, a party
of fun-loving collegians purchased an enormous horn, and
concealing themselves at night in a corner situated within
short distance of the town herald's post, blew a blast,
which was said to have been loud enough to be heard as
far as Monticello. The town trumpeter responded with
an outburst equally as blatant, and then quickly retired,
accompanying each nervous and hasty strategic backstep
with another defiant blast on his instrument. Not
many minutes passed before the entire fighting force of
Charlottesville, such as it was, hurried up to his support,
only to find that the alarm had been premature, for,
in the darkness, the laughing mischief-makers had managed
to escape without being discovered.

Apart from these conflicts with the town police, there
seems to have been only an occasional departure from

tranquil conduct on the part of the students. During
the session of 1878–79, with one exception,—and this
of no special importance,—there was the most exemplary
observance of all the ordinances. "The conduct
of the young men as a body," said the Faculty, "was
characterized by remarkable propriety, and by great regularity
in the pursuit of their studies." During the following
four sessions, the most serious offense was a too
liberal patronage,—at long intervals, however,—of the
town bar-rooms. Such derelictions seem to have been
principally confined to the first hours that followed a
general examination or to the finals. In June, 1885,
five honor men were suspended, and their diplomas
withheld, because they had been guilty of this offense;
but they were readmitted to their normal rights as soon
as they had given a pledge of good behavior. How rigid
the Faculty were in their attitude towards intoxication
was demonstrated by their dismissal, for this reason, of
one of the foremost students of the law department, in
1895, and their refusal to permit him to receive his
diploma at the closing exercises. It was not until Professor
Minor firmly protested against the severity of this
sentence that it was modified. Again and again, in their
annual reports to the Board of Visitors, during the last
years of the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, the same body
comment, with warm approval, on the students' punctuality
in attending lectures and examinations, and also
on their orderliness, diligence, truthfulness, and unfailing
regard for honor. It was said, during these years, that
it was only in the dining-rooms that the young men would
sometimes push their exuberant spirits too far and indulge
in rough horseplay. "Going into dinner once
late," we are told by an alumnus of this time (1887), "I
heard a hubbub of stamping, yelling, whistling, and beating
of plates and glasses. Not thinking that they were
greeting me, I smiled at the confusion, and at once the
noise increased. In other words, I was grinned. Bread
was thrown about quite freely."

There was, in 1884, a violent suspicion that a duel
was to be fought by two prominent students, one of
whom, in recent years, has risen to extraordinary distinction
in the political affairs of the nation. Steps were
taken by the Faculty to interpose, and the plan of exchanging
shots, if it was ever seriously adopted, was
effectively nipped before it could be carried out.

The Faculty displayed a kindly and conciliatory spirit
towards the students, in 1888, in proposing that two committees
should be appointed for a frank conference whenever
differences between them should arise,—one to
represent the Faculty, the other, the students; the students'
committee to consist of three members, one of
whom was to be drawn from the law class, one from
the medical, and one from the remainder of the collegiate
body. All three of them must have been associated
with the University during a period of three years at
least. It was hoped, that, by this method of cooperation,
the ties that already bound the young men and the authorities
together, could be rendered still more intimate
and helpful; and that the spirit of order and sobriety
now prevailing could be the more easily sustained.

Another influence that encouraged good habits
throughout these times arose from the persistent labors
of the Council of Friends of Temperance, which was organized
during the session of 1868–69 under the presidency
of Professor Minor. This zealous association
had sprung up in Virginia after the close of the war, and
had spread throughout the Southern States, to the gradual
exclusion of its rival, the Sons of Temperance, which

had come into existence as far back in the past as 1842.
Its purposes were proclaimed to be: (1) to shield its
members from the evil of drunkenness; (2) to prompt
them to offer assistance to each other in case of sickness;
and (3) to improve their characters as men. During the
first three months following October 1, 1868, not less
than sixty students enrolled their names in its minute
book. Encouraged by this remarkable accession so
soon after the Council was established, Professor Minor,
William Wertenbaker, and seven other earnest supporters
of the cause, "flung to the breeze," as they themselves
described it, a banner with the shining motto,
"Faith, Temperance, and Charity." The officers of
the Council were, as we have seen, farsighted enough to
combine regular debates with the normal work of the
body. By furnishing orators and medalists to the commencement
exercises, they increased the dignity of the
organization in the eyes of the University; and by the
bestowal of a scholarship in the academic department,
they created an additional incentive for the students to
join its ranks.

A few years afterwards, the Council determined to
surrender its charter and disband in order that another
society, to be known as the University Temperance Union
might occupy the place which it would vacate. It was
expected that this new organization would be more successful
than its defunct predecessor, because, from the
start, it would be able to throw off entirely that ban of
secrecy on its proceedings which was thought to have so
gravely hampered the efficiency of the Friends. The
public at large were now invited to be present at the meetings.
The new membership was distributed under three
heads,—the honorary, the active, and the registered.
The registered member signed the pledge, but was relieved

of the duty to show himself at roll-call, or to take
part in the debates. He was, moreover, not subject to
the payment of fines or fees. On the other hand, the
active member was required to attend with regularity,
to participate in the discussions, and to settle all indebtedness,
in the form of fees and fines, with promptness;
but, as a compensation for all these obligations, he alone
was to be eligible as a candidate for the different honors
and prizes which the Union annually awarded.

Temperance Hall had now fallen into the possession
of the University, and was under the eye of the superintendent
of the buildings and grounds. The Faculty had
recommended at one time its transfer to the impoverished
Young Men's Christian Association in order that
the rents of the various apartments might be appropriated
for its benefit. There was an impression too that
the Faculty's assumption of control over the hall would
bring about a more successful performance of the original
purposes of the trust established many years before
by General Cocke and his associates.

XXVI. Diversions

During the whole of the Seventh Period, 1865–95,
the equality between the students, whether they were in
their first, second, or third year, or even in their sixth,
was never disputed. This condition arose at the very
beginning, in consequence of the University's elective
system; and from decade to decade, it was maintained
without any perceptible modification. The claim to
superiority supposed in our own day to be justified by
mere length of time passed in the institution, had its seed
in ideas that had stolen in from without. The collegiate
body,—during the first seventy-five years certainly,
—was a thoroughly democratic body in the recognition

of personal equality at least. The student might be a
member of a senior class or of a junior; he might be
pursuing the undergraduate course or the graduate; he
might belong to the academic department, or the department
of law, or medicine, or engineering, or agriculture,
and yet none of these differences of grade and class and
school exercised any influence whatever on his social
status. It was as if all the young men were registered in
their first or sixth year, and in the same school, and in the
same department. Every artificial and traditional line of
demarcation, for the one reason or the other, was completely
discarded. The student occupied the place in
the ranks to which his character, talents, and industry,
—not the length of his connection with the University,
—entitled him. The possession of wealth carried, in
such a detached atmosphere as this, no perceptible weight.

One of the results of this equality of bearing was to
create an appreciable degree of personal isolation.
There was no class system, as in the curriculum colleges,
to draw the student voluntarily or involuntarily into constant
intercourse with a large body of his fellows. His
social relations were usually confined to the circle of his
fraternity, or, at most, to his quarter of the University;
and his acquaintanceship was narrow at best beyond the
bounds of those two contracted spheres. This condition
of restriction, while it tended to foster in him a
spirit of virile independence and self-reliance, tended also
to impoverish his social life. A distinct formality in
the general mingling of the students as a mass was its
most obvious consequence. The only strong ties were
the ties of small groups, which might or might not represent
the richer side of the University commonwealth.
This spirit was particularly conspicuous in the interval
between 1865 and 1875, when the poverty resulting from

the war led the great majority of the young men to concentrate
their powers upon their books to a degree not
observed in later years. "There seems," says a writer
in the magazine for March, 1876, "but one idea in the
mind of every student at the University, and that is a
diploma. We are lamentably deficient in divers deviltries.
There have been one or two initiations into the
Sons of Temperance, two wretched attempts at playing
funny by hoisting an old wood-wagon on to the roof of
the chapel, and, finally, an organized expedition of fifteen
men to tie a poor unoffending calf to a professor's door.
bell."

There was now no college song, no college cheer. A
coarse yell or a cat-call seems to have been the only vocal
expression, on public occasions, of collegiate loyalty and
enthusiasm.

The extraordinary increase in the interest shown in
athletic sports had a tendency to draw closer the personal
associations of the young men by creating a pastime
that appealed equally strongly to all; but it also
had a tendency to alienate them from the society of the
families residing in the same community by making them
independent of its charm. "I believe," says Professor
Raleigh C. Minor, in his recollections of the eighth
decade, "that the student of our day is not quite so
versatile in conversation, nor so well read, nor so
thoughtful, as was his average predecessor. He is certainly
not so much addicted to 'calico'."[18]

If there was a perceptible narrowness in that earlier
student's social round, it was not attributable to the absence
from the general University life of this period of

opportunities to gratify every taste. Was he of a religious
cast? Then he had the Young Men's Christian
Association, the Wednesday morning prayers, and the
Friday evening services, to soothe his sense of piety.
Did he have a passion for athletic games? Then there
were the gymnasium, the track-walk, and the football
and baseball fields, in which to demonstrate his physical
prowess. Was his propensity for the oar? Then, during
many sessions, there was the Rives Boat Club to
harden his muscles and test his lungs. Was he fond of
dancing, and acting, and music? There were the entertainments
of the German Club, the Dramatic Club, and
the Musical Club,—not to count the balls in private
houses,—to throw open to him, hour after hour, the
most delightful recreation. Was his taste for reading?
There was the library to furnish him with books of
amusement, and the newspaper and magazine room to
supply him with the latest periodical literature. Did
he like to leap into a debate? There were the two societies,
with their weekly sessions, to give him all the
occasions he could wish for to discuss all sorts of knotty
questions to the limit of his verbosity. There were also
a billiard hall with refreshments, and a temperance hall
without them, and in one or the other, he could follow
whichever happened to be his personal leaning—a temperate
indulgence or a total abstinence. To those who
preferred the society of their elders, or were not averse
to flirtations with young ladies, the families of the professors,
with their stream of guests, together with the
social circle of the neighboring town of Charlottesville,
offered all the inexhaustible pleasures of the most refined
and cultivated drawing-rooms.[19]

Let us look more closely, in a general way, into the
character of these varied diversions. Apart from the
social gratifications of their periodical meetings, the
members of the several fraternities enjoyed the high
frolic which always accompanied an initiation of
"goats." A portion of this ceremony took place in the
public eye, which gave it an increased fillip. Thus, in
the initiations to the Pi Mu Society, composed of medical
students, the closing scene consisted of a torch-light
parade from one end of the precincts to the other, in
which the old members, enveloped in immaculately white
gowns, marched at the head of the procession, followed
by the "goats," robed in the most sombre black vestments,
relieved only by a white skull-and-bones badge.
Floating high above these picturesque figures, there was
visible the transparency of a large coffin decorated with
numerous symbols. Every right hand grasped a flaming
and smoking firebrand; and in addition to the wavering
light from this source, there were the constant flashes
from the exploding Roman candles and cannon-crackers,
which were carried along to give the animation of a
mighty noise to the moving picture. A stag cotillion in
the portico of the Rotunda, dimly illuminated by the
rays of the dull red torches, terminated the drama of the
night.

The banquet, as the fraternity's supper was grandiosely
called, was an occasion of unrestrained mirth and
enjoyment. The room in which it was usually held,
during the eighth decade, was an apartment in Ambroselli's
restaurant. This establishment possessed a great
local reputation for the excellence of its oysters and waffles;

and under the same roof was a full bar and a billiard
hall. Here each of the more prosperous fraternities
foregathered once a fortnight, the cost of the eating
and drinking being defrayed by every member in turn.
Friends of the banqueters were often invited to take part
in the feast and the fun. "These suppers," says Judge
R. T. W. Duke, Jr., in his recorded recollections of these
times, "were delightful. There were no songs, but a
lot of chaff and wit and humor. No speeches were allowed.
Discussions in history, classics, French and German
literatures, or geology and astronomy, followed.
There were some good talkers. Occasionally, a joyous
member led us astray. Once we did decorate various
professors' houses with signs borrowed from Charlottesville
stores. They were applied to fit each case. A
barber's pole adorned Schele's. He was unusually careful
with his dress and used pomatum. A hardware and
cutlery sign was put over the door of another—a man
whose cutting satire did not spare the dull and idle, although
at bottom he was of a tender heart. When he
met his class that afternoon, he said, 'That was a very
small shot perpetrated last night, gentlemen, and this remark
is not intended to be irony even if it does come
from a dealer in hardware.'" Over the doorway of
Holmes's pavilion was raised a sign filched from a small
Hebrew shop, and inscribed with the following legend:
"Cheap dry goods sold here." The professor of history
and literature, with all his enormous erudition,—
or, perhaps, because of it,—made no pretension, in the
rusty garments that hung about his tall, lank form, to
that exquisite fitness considered indispensable by the
disciples of Beau Brummel. Maupin habitually wore a
long black coat, and it was, therefore, thought pertinent
to place above the entrance to his pavilion the figure of
a crow, which had previously perched on the pole of a
barber's shop.

If we accept as true the testimony recorded in the
most famous parody ever printed in the Virginia University
Magazine, the parody of Ulalume entitled,
"That Evening at Ambro's," some of these club-men
were not in a physical condition to carry tradesmen's signs
as far as the Lawn. The heroes of this particular episode,
having drunk a "bumper titanic" of Ambroselli's
headiest bourbon whiskey, followed up by a "duplicate
horn" of the same exhilarating spirits, wandered off, on
very wabbly legs, in search of the home, not the tomb,
of Diana,—the daughter, in this instance, of a professor.
Her face and form had been rendered doubly
lovely by the artificially inflamed and distorted imaginations
of the youthful and tipsy knights-errant.

There was a flavor of whimsicality in the amusements
of some of the social clubs. Thus the members of the
Samuel Johnson Club, which assembled as often as three
times a week, instead of spending their hours of meeting
in grave, and exhaustive, and philosophical discussions,
as was to have been expected from their association's
ponderously intellectual name, limited their conversation
to the less elevated, but perhaps more lively, topics of
horse-racing, dog-fighting, and local politics. The Ugly
Club was reorganized in March, 1872. Again was the
pair of boots presented to the homeliest student in college,
the hat to the prettiest, the slippers to the most conceited,
and the enormous stick of candy to the most diminutive;
and again the recipients, in return for these
symbolical awards for their personal characteristics, delivered
very humorous and eloquent speeches of appreciation.
In 1873, a club was organized to celebrate in
a flamboyant manner the arrival of Christmas. The

Faculty, in anticipation of that festival, having positively
refused to grant a longer interval of suspension
of lectures than twelve hours, the most resourceful of
the young men conspired to make this particular holiday
forever memorable in the University's annals. A
miniature reproduction of the New Orleans Mardi Gras
was the device adopted. The participants, dressed in
the most fantastic costumes, and with their horses correspondingly
decorated, rode around the precincts in a
tumultuous procession, gesticulating, and contorting, and
shouting, and blowing horns, as they moved forward
from point to point on their predetermined route.

The Calathumpian band was reorganized after the
war; but it failed to win the full measure of its former
prominence, although, on the night of Christmas, 1868,
it seems to have thrown the University into a state of
the most alarming commotion. "The young gentlemen
who conducted this affair," said the editors of the magazine
at this time, "made more noise in the world than
they will ever make again." By the session of 1870–71,
the boisterous Calathumpians had been merged into the
congenial ranks of the mysterious Nippers. The Nippers
appear to have been a purely bacchanalian association,
who, when inflamed by strong potations, did not scruple
to damage the property of the University. This was
illustrated in the instance, already mentioned, of their
destroying the young trees on the Lawn. The proctor
had planted on either side of that part of the precincts a
row of rare spruces. These flourishing shoots they
ruthlessly pulled out of the ground one night, and having
piled them up in front of the proctor's door, tacked the
following doggerel lines to its panels:

XXVII. Diversions—Continued

But the Nippers in their turn,—no doubt, in consequence
of such disreputable acts as the one just described,
—ultimately sank into desuetude, and were succeeded
by the dykers. A profound question, which has never
been satisfactorily answered, has long been this: What
was the origin of the word dyke? The editors of the
magazine, in one of the numbers for 1877, discussed
this question with learning, and with moderation also,
for even previous to that time, it had often been a subject
of hot debate under the arcades. Unhappily, the
conclusion which they reached was not decisive, since
they were able, with equal plausibility, to trace the elusive
word back to two possible fountain-heads. It was
derived, they asserted, either (1) from Van Dyke, the
limner of portraits, in which the costumes were remarkably
elaborate and conspicuous; or (2) from the Greek
verb deiknumi, which meant to show, to make a show.
The word is said to have been first used by a daughter of
George M. Dallas, of Philadelphia, while visiting the
family of Judge Henry St. George Tucker, at the University
of Virginia.

The only purpose of the dyke seems to have been to put
out of countenance a collegian, who, having adorned his
person with his most becoming clothes, was on his way
to call upon some friend among the young ladies,
whether residing within the precincts, or in Charlottesville.
It was a very expanded form of the grinning ordeal
through which so many belated students had to pass
before reaching their seats in the lecture-hall or the
dining-room. "Our feast," says Judge Duke, in describing
one of these dykes, "was interrupted by a pandemonium,
—horns, drums, and coal scuttles thumped

with a poker, accompanied by a babel of noises. We
knew that it meant some youth had been caught on his
way to see his fair one. Lit by the glare of improvised
torches, the beau, with a fixed and set smile on his face,
walked ahead, a torch-bearer on either side, while behind
came the howling mob. Once we followed it to a female
school. The dykee was to visit a cousin there.
The principal implored them to depart. 'Two young
pupils have fainted,' he cried, 'and two are about to
faint.'"

It was some incident of this kind, perhaps, that
aroused to the boiling point the indignation of a certain
indiscreet Charlottesville editor of that day, and caused
him imprudently to censure all participants in a dyke,
without any discrimination whatever. He was an unmarried
man; and a few nights afterwards, it was rumored
along the arcades that he was calling upon a
young lady in the University. Before the visit was
concluded, one half of the entire body of students had
gathered in front of the pavilion; and there they patiently
waited for him to emerge. A profound silence
was observed, in order not to alarm him, as it was feared
that, if his suspicions were excited, he might endeavor to
escape by the backyard. When, hat in hand, and smiling,
and happy, he appeared on the threshold of the
opened door, accompanied by the young lady, ready to
wish him a pleasant walk to town, the very heavens
seemed to be shattered by the awful din that simultaneously
burst forth from several hundred vigorous
throats, and rapidly beaten drums and scuttles, and
fiercely blown tin-horns. At once a procession to Charlottesville
was formed, the editor at its head, with a long
escort of young men behind him, some of whom were
still in their dressing-gowns and slippers, some without

coats, cuffs or collars,—so great was their eagerness to
take part in the dyke,—and all with flaming torches in
their hands. The deafening noise was kept up until the
national bank in town was reached. There the procession
halted. The editor was forced to ascend to the
top step of the building and deliver a speech. This he
did in a spirit of humorous resentment, and its most
pungent paragraph was the one in which he contrasted
the cackling of the feathered geese that saved Rome in
an historical emergency, with the cackling of the unfeathered
geese in front of him, who could not be depended
upon to save the University in any crisis whatsoever.

It is said that, in the course of the eighth decade, when
the dyke had entered upon the stage of its highest popular
favor, no student ever left his dormitory to call upon
a young lady that he was not fearful of being followed
by a motley tail of horn-blowers and drum-beaters.
Long before he crossed his own threshold, on his way
out,

When a ball was about to take place in one of the professor's
pavilions, every student invited was perfectly
aware, while standing before his mirror preparing for
the festival, that he would be accompanied to the door by
all his less lucky comrades, eager to shake his self-possession
before he entered the drawing-room. "The
guests in their best garb," says Professor Raleigh C.
Minor, "would scurry to their destination like frightened
rabbits, and take to the alleys and dark roads. If
caught, the visitor was required to furnish a sample of
his oratory from the Rotunda steps. Having made his

speech, he was escorted to the door. There he had to
run the gauntlet between rows of hooting students; and
hastened by paddles and pushes, he would land within
the mansion breathless and disheveled."

In 1872, a contributor to the magazine ventured to
assert that the popularity of the dyke was falling away,
and the reason which he gave for this opinion proved
that he was a nice observer. He affirmed that he had
noticed of late that the participants in these noisy demonstrations
were not willing to accompany their victim
further than the gate at the postoffice. This was the
limit of the precincts on that side of the grounds. The
writer regretted this evidence of languishing interest, because
he was convinced that the dyke had, as he said,
"the happy effect of bringing the students together,
and knitting them in the bonds of a common feeling."
This boisterous recreation was about to pass into the
province of an intermittent, if not entirely defunct, custom,
when its fading coals were fanned into a new flame,
—certainly for the time being,—by the introduction of
what was admiringly called the "Big Horn of the
Range." This mighty instrument of blatancy has been
made famous in the University's annals by one of the
most brilliant poems that was ever printed in the pages
of the magazine. A few lines quoted from these stanzas
will give a more accurate impression of its size and the
terrifying scope of its sound, than any prose description
which can be offered for the same purpose.

But not even with this Goliath among horns to increase
the delightful pandemonium of the dyke, could
the custom be kept from falling away. An incident
that occurred in 1888 seems to have precipitated the
coup de grâce. "One night," we are told by Professor
Raleigh C. Minor, "a dyke being in progress, the
hunters, gathered around the place of entertainment,
snatched a man from his girl, leaving her alone within
the door. There was a fight next day. But the indignation
of the student body was aroused by this breach
of decorum; and by a mass meeting, the custom of the
dyke was solemnly abrogated." After this event, every
endeavor to get underway a demonstration of this character
ended in failure.[20]

The Sons of Confucius were not more compactly organized

than the dykers; and as with the dykers also,
their single object was to bring confusion into the mental
machinery of some unlucky victim. This society was revived
in 1867, and held its meetings,—whenever there
was an occasion for one,—in the basement of the Rotunda.
It assembled always under the veil of darkness,
and only for the purpose of initiating a green new member.
The "goat," blindfolded, was first led around the
grounds with the view of mixing up his impressions of
localities; and when this end had been accomplished, he
was brought into the rear of the Rotunda. Here the
order was loudly given, "Take your shoes off, sir, for
this is holy ground"; and when the "goat" had done
this, with fumbling fingers, he was pushed along the corridor
uniting the Rotunda with the Annex. In this passageway,
where every footstep resounded, and where the
Sons who had not served as an escort had gathered, with
dim lights, beforehand, the ceremony of initiation was
held. The initiate, still blindfolded, shoeless, and sockless,
was compelled to listen to a preamble which set
forth elaborately the terrifying penalties that would fall
on him, should he disclose the awful secrets of the order.
A coal scuttle was then placed on his hatless head, and he
was sternly commanded to answer a series of unearthly
questions. His guides would prompt him with equally
ludicrous and preposterous replies. If he hesitated to
repeat them, the chief officer would call out "Reverse
him across the sword of justice." The grand scribe recorded
each answer, but before doing so, would strike
two coal-scuttle blowers violently together. One of the
interrogatories put to him was: "Do you believe that
the union of the American red bug with the African elephant
will produce a dilemma, which will inevitably rival
the authorship of Junius?" When the series of questions,
all of the same tenor, had been exhausted, the order
was given: "Remove the helmet (the coal scuttle),"
and as soon as the initiate could discover what was
around him, he found himself confronted by a living
donkey. In the midst of yells and screeches, the lights
were suddenly extinguished, and the crowd, with a rush,
dispersed.

XXVIII. Diversions—Continued

But there were more rational amusements than these
for the recreative hours of the students. As far back as
1867, amateur plays were acted by them. In the course
of that year, a committee requested permission of the
Faculty to perform the Lady of Lyons in the town of
Charlottesville, the net proceeds of which were to be bestowed
on the Albemarle Memorial Association; but
consent was positively refused, on the ground that the
time wasted in preparing for the play would inevitably
lead to a neglect of studies. During the same year,
however, the Faculty offered no opposition to a concert
to be given in the public hall for the benefit of the same
association by amateurs chosen among the collegians.
At a somewhat later period, a band of light-hearted University
minstrels was organized by George D. Fawsett,
afterwards an accomplished actor, and like Yorick, a
man of infinite jest and fancy, even in his youth. There
were some very amusing performances by them in the
townhall without the disapproval of the professors; and
there was also an occasional reproduction there of plays
like the Mikado of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The strictly professional entertainments that took
place in this hall were not of the highest histrionic or
musical quality. The editors of the magazine, in 1873,
remarked rather querulously, but not unjustly, that "no

great orators or singers ever delight our ears and eyes.
The proof of the great want is the immense success of
any small, insignificant, and paltry troup that comes to
town." The aspect of the interior of the old townhall
was enough by itself to discourage any artist of high
pretensions and unusual talents. The walls were dull,
chipped, and battered; the benches rude and hard; the
floor begrimed with dirt; and the audiences noisy. In
the course of the eighth decade, Blind Tom appeared
on its boards; and Brignoli, Janauschek, and the Swiss
Bell Ringers, all popular behind the footlights in their
own times, following at long intervals. The advertised
performance there of Uncle Tom's Cabin by a touring
company, in 1894, brought a fierce protest from a
mass meeting of the students; but on the cool advice of
Colonel Peters and Professor Thornton, their hostility
was limited to a boycott, which reduced the receipts of
the play to a few lonely dollars. Readings from Dickens,
Thackeray, Hood, Poe, Sheridan, and Shakespeare
were given on at least one occasion by Mr. Siddons in
the Washington Hall. Mrs. Scott-Siddons had a similar
entertainment in the town.

In 1878, the students wished to organize an association
for the single purpose of inviting the principal
lecturers of the country to speak in the public hall of the
University; but the majority of the Faculty discountenanced
the suggestion, on the ground that it might open
up an opportunity to indiscreet orators to utter objectional
sentiments about politics and religion; and also
about science, so far as it bore on the origin of man
and the age of the world,—questions which, at this time,
were, owing to the Darwinian theories, constantly under
discussion.

In 1871, the editors of the magazine complained that
the University was lacking in musical clubs, although it
was acknowledged that there was no want of trained
singers and skilful violinists in the ranks of the students.
A glee club was, during this year, organized by the young
men who boarded at the Cabell House. In the course
of the session of 1874–75, there appeared a small band
of troubadours, who amused themselves with serenades,
by moonlight, under the windows of the ladies of the
University and Charlottesville. This was known by the
poetical name of the Claribel. Another club, which was
in existence at this time also, was composed of students
who played on the piccolo, bass viol, violin, guitar, flute,
and hand-organ. It went by the concise name of the
Instrumental Club. It was distinct from the Claribel,
but often cooperated with it in giving serenades and social
entertainments. Subsequently there sprang up several
additional musical associations, such as the West
Range Sextette, the F. K. V. and the Banjo, Mandolin,
and Guitar Club. The latter association could boast of
a complete set of officers, seven performers on the banjo,
four on the mandolin, and twelve on the guitar. This
association seems to have broken up into two clubs in
1893, although they joined in having the same president,
but not the same leader. There was a resolute attempt,
during the session of 1893–4, to place the musical clubs
on a permanent footing. This had been suggested by
the success of their professional visits to Richmond and
other cities. Ultimately, the Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin
Club was organized, with Bernard Moore as its president
and Harrison Randolph as its director. This
club, like its predecessors, obtained the ready permission
of the Faculty to give concerts beyond the confines

of the University; and in several instances, they travelled
as far afield as Nashville, in Tennessee, and Louisville,
in Kentucky.

As has already been mentioned in the account which
we have given of the fraternities, numerous cotillions
were danced in the Washington Hall. These occasions
were attended, not only by the students, and by the belles
of Charlottesville and the University, but also by many
young ladies who happened to be visiting the families of
the professors, or the citizens of the town. The Board
usually refused to grant the use of the library-room to
the German Club except when the final ball was to take
place; but a splendid leap-year ball was held in this
apartment in April, 1892. The participants came with
their hair powdered, and their figures set off in the costumes
of the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The
large pillars that ran around the galleries were wrapped
in pink bands, and the arches and galleries themselves
were adorned with the same brilliant draperies. Across
the face of the ceiling, there were strung from the upper
railing, wires, from which masses of roses were suspended;
and in the midst of the flowers, there glowed
hundreds of gas-jets, that cast over the spacious room
and its contents a softly tinted radiance. All the ladies
wore pink gowns, with bouquets to match, while the
waistcoats and the inner lining of the coats of the beaux,
were of the same delicate color. The scene, with the
fairy lights and shadows, the brilliant garments of a romantic
and gallant age, the multitude of lovely faces
and manly forms, the animation of the waltz, and the
sound of inspiring music, was one that has rarely been
surpassed even in our own age of beautiful social spectacles.

During the following year, there was held in the public

hall what was always spoken of as the cotton ball.
A broad curtain, dyed orange and blue, hid the platform
from sight. When this was drawn, a tableau of motionless
figures was revealed. At the wave of a wand,
eight sleeping beauties, disguised as enormous cotton
blooms, started from their slumbers, and at the same moment,
an equal number of beaux rose to their feet, and
filing to the floor with their partners began to dance.
Within a brief while, the rest of the company were
joining in the pastime.

During the first years that followed the war, the principal
event was the final ball, which took place in the
library-room. This event, at that time, drew to the
University representatives of all that was socially distinguished
in the ancient commonwealth of Virginia.
Hither came the belles of the different cities, whose
beauty, charm, and wit were, in some cases, celebrated
throughout the Southern States.[21] Here too was to be
seen many a stately matron, who was attending the final
exercises in order to be present at her son's graduation.
As one looked down from the galleries on the moving
and talking crowd below, the eye caught sight of some
famous orator, who had, that morning, addressed the
alumni. It might be John S. Preston, Thomas F. Bayard,
John W. Daniel, Henry W. Grady, George H. Pendleton,
Allen G. Thurman, Henry Watterson, R. M. T.
Hunter, or Father Ryan. The Governor of the State
was the never failing guest of the University on that
occasion. Perhaps, it was the handsome Walker, or the
gallant Kemper, or the scholarly Holliday, or the dashing
Fitzhugh Lee.

The Faculty had forbidden the morning germans in
the library-room because it interfered with the ceremony
in the public hall at the same hour; but this deficiency
only added zest and distinction to the ball at
night. All the tables and chairs were summarily removed
to open up the entire area for the use of the
dancers and promenaders, while the lecture-rooms below
were reserved as withdrawing rooms for the ladies.
The several tiers of galleries and the alcoves on the
floor, were packed with excited spectators, who were
enjoying the brilliance and the animation of the splendid
scene, now lighted up from above by rows of gas-jets
running around the entire front of the galleries. All
the neighboring porticos were filled with seats for the
convenience of those couples who should wish to retire
from the floor during the intervals between the
dances. Wertenbaker, very naturally, was primarily solicitous
for the safety of the books, and he was, therefore,
inclined to grumble about the dangers which the
flaring of so many gas-jets undoubtedly created; but the
Board of Visitors refused to be influenced by his apprehensions.
"As far as the visiting people and the young
men are concerned," they said, "the annual ball is one of
the chief items of attraction of the session, and it is peculiarly
proper that the handsomest hall at our command
should be used for the occasion."

But the final ball was not the only brilliant episode of
the commencement week. Each of the debating societies
held its closing celebration on a separate night.
This celebration, whether it was of the Jefferson or the
Washington Society, drew to the illuminated hall and
Lawn an even larger concourse of eager people than the
final ball, for the public was now admitted to the precincts
without discrimination as to person or costume.

The following description of the ceremonies of the Jefferson
Society at the end of the session of 1873–4 has
been preserved, and it is worthy of quotation in full as
smacking so sharply of the social flavor of those distant
times. "The air was balmy, the night, beautiful," says
the writer of this reminiscence. "From the far outskirts
of Charlottesville, from all the adjacent neighborhoods,
came father and mother, came daughter and son,
came belle and beau, came home-folks and visitors on
foot, on horseback, in buggies, in carriages, any way,
every way. From McKennieville, and Michieville,
from Booneville, and Andersonville, from Morea, from
the University hotels, from the professors' houses, came
folks from afar and folks from anear, came young folks
and old folks, high folks and low folks, rich folks and
poor folks, people in white and people in black, people in
pink and people in blue. The whole hall was filled with
a grand array, in which beaux in broadcloth and belles
in silk preponderated. We got up in the gallery and
looked down upon the scene, over which the one thousand
gas-jets played fitfully, and we sat enwrapt,
charmed, fascinated, thrown into interminable palpitation,
as our eye ran from fair forms to fair faces, and
back again from fair faces to fair forms. Fans fluttered,
beaux whispered, fair ones smiled; the young were
happy, the old seemed kindled anew with the spirit of
years long gone. Afar and anear, throughout the hall,
all was mirth and merriment. At half past eight
o'clock the band began to tune up in the orchestra.
There was a momentary lull, and then the tramp of the
marshals and committeemen was heard at the door, and
soon, along the aisles, they came, escorting the professors,
the Board of Visitors, and other distinguished persons.
The ceremonies having closed and the band
played, the audience was dismissed to the Lawn. The
Rotunda porch, the long arcades, the triangle, the musicstand
in the middle of the Lawn, were all aglow with the
innumerable Chinese lanterns of all colors artistically arranged.
The night is still beautiful. Around and
around, the promenaders go. Tall ones and small ones,
blondes and brunettes, hanging on low arms, looking up
into dark eyes, looking down into light ones, talking and
laughing, walking and standing, sitting down or stooping,
sitting out under trees, talking of watermelons, dances
and love; talking of ma and pa, the children, and love;
talking about sleigh rides and boating and love; talking
about music, camp-meetings, and love."[22]

This reference to love-making on these occasions was
very much to the point, for there was no other place in
Virginia where so many matches had their beginning.
It was an earthly paradise of youthful lovers.

In June, 1884, the Faculty, in their report to the Board,
recommended that the custom which had sprung up of
holding the morning as well as the evening germans of the
commencement in the library-room, should no longer be
tolerated; and the reason which they gave was that these
entertainments, coming as they did in the most brilliant
part of the year, shut out, during many hours, the body of

the students and visiting strangers from the most beautiful
apartment in all the buildings. The Board assented
to the propriety of this view, and the privilege was withdrawn.
This proved ultimately to be a heavy blow to
the social distinction of the closing week,—not many
years passed before Easter flowered into the gayest season
of the session. The erection of the gymnasium provided
a spacious apartment for the students' balls and
germans; but the brilliance of the former dances in the
library-room has not so far been duplicated under another
roof; nor is it likely to be so long as the final exercises
fail to draw to the University a throng of distinguished
alumni and general visitors resembling the one
that gathered within those stately precincts during the
commencements of an earlier period.

XXIX. Athletics—Baseball

During the first session of the new order, 1865–66,
baseball was the only game which was able to secure any
foothold in the esteem of the students. "On the Lawn,"
says John S. Wise, in the Lion's Skin, "a contingent were
in the habit of assembling, in their short intervals of leisure,
and amusing each other with discussions of their
favorite sport." By this time, that sport had risen to
such popularity beyond the precincts that the clubs of
several communities formed what were known as leagues
for the purpose of instituting contests between the numerous
competitive nines. In the course of the session
1866–67, the Monticello Club was organized. This was
always spoken of as the "great nine," because it drew its
membership from the subordinate and inferior ones. No
strict rules were adopted by the Monticello Club, and no
uniform was used by it as a means of distinguishing the
sides, although games were now played by it as far afield

as Washington. The Potomac Club was, on at least
one of these occasions, beaten by the Monticello Club;
and so was the Arlington Club of Lexington.

But how cold still was the attitude of the students as
a body towards this branch of sport was demonstrated
by the magazine's sneering description of the enthusiasm
exhibited by some for the game as "strange and unnecessary."
This enthusiasm had now begun to spread
throughout the precincts. By 1867–8, the Lawn, the
Ranges, Dawson's Row, and Carr's Hill, had each organized
a club of amateurs, and after a series of games, the
local championship narrowed down to East Lawn and
West Range. There is no record of the ultimate winner.
In the meanwhile, the Monticello Club had continued to
maintain its separate existence. In 1870, there was a
match game between this club and a nine composed of
the most expert players to be found in the rolls of the subordinate
nines of the University. So many were the
scores recorded at this time between the different clubs,
that the Monticello team, as the principal one,—being
made up, as already stated, of members selected from the
ranks of all,—must have possessed a fair degree of competence.
"The baseball clubs are organizing," said the
editors of the magazine, during the session of 1870–71,
"and several games are played every week. A large
number of students visit the grounds near the cemetery to
witness the skill of the players." And yet, according to
this periodical, in its issue of the same date, there was,
at this hour, "no regularly organized club or even a
University nine,"—by which it only meant that there
was no club in existence that year which was acknowledged
to represent the entire institution. There was now
heard the complaint that the grounds in use were unfit
even for the old-fashioned pastime of town ball; and

there were many voices raised in favor of the Faculty's
allowing a field to be reserved for athletic sports alone.

During the session of 1871–72, the rivalry between the
Monticello Club,—which, if it had been disbanded in
1870–71, had now been revived,—and the club of Washington
and Lee University began; and it was to be nursed,
with intervals of relaxation, during many years. The
first series of games was played with the Shoo Fly Club,
in which those champions of the seat of learning at Lexington
were defeated by a close margin.

During the following sessions of 1872–73 and 1873–
74, the interest in baseball at the University of Virginia
seems to have fluctuated,—now it was pronounced the
favorite sport of the students; now it lost its popularity to
such a degree that the Monticello Club was not reorganized.
When, in March, 1874, a challenge was received
from the team of Washington and Lee University,
the magazine remarked, in commenting on it, that
"college duties had been too pressing so far to leave any
time for such manly and invigorating exercise as baseball."
It was not until 1875 that another match game
was played by the two institutions, and the upshot again
found the University of Virginia the winner in the contest.
Sometimes, these games were played at the latter
place on a field not far from the residence of Professor
Mallet; sometimes, in Lexington. When the turn came
for a game in Lexington, the excursion thither was full
of excitement, since the University club, on these occasions,
was always accompanied by a large number of rollicking
students. First, they traveled by cars to Staunton,
where the short interval of waiting was enlivened by
flirtations with the pretty school-girls, who swarmed like
bees in that beautiful town. From that place, they continued
their journey by coach to their point of destination.

There they were always received with a great
demonstration by the students of Washington and Lee
University and the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute;
lectures in both institutions were suspended; and the
inhabitants of the town and the surrounding region assembled
to watch the innings of the game.

The University club was successful down to 1878 in
beating their Lexington opponents. Indeed, the unbroken
round of victories had begun to assume a monotonous
complexion. On May 9, of that year, the rule of
alternation required the Arlington Club to face their rivals
on the University grounds. The University team took
their places at the bat and in the field with a feeling of
smiling confidence in their superiority over their adversaries.
But this state of serenity was soon rudely upset.
The ball left the Arlington pitcher's hand apparently on
the usual straight line, and without turning over as it
flew to its mark. It reached the plate and was struck,
but instead of being driven far afield, as was expected, it
whirled aloft and fell lamely into the hands of the Arlington
catcher, as he crouched behind the batter. The
first man at the bat was quickly knocked out, the second,
the third. The University club was thrown into a state
of paralyzing consternation. What was the matter with
the ball? Why could it not be squarely hit? Why did
it gyrate with such abnormal curvings? Why did it persist
in going crooked? The explanation was soon disclosed.
Sykes, the Arlington pitcher, had given a twist
to the ball when it left his hand, and it was impossible
for it to be struck in the usual manner. By the end of
two hours, the University club had not a single run to its
credit, while the Washington and Lee club was able to
count twelve. The championship, in short, had passed
to that organization,—only to be recovered by the University

players when they had learned the same sleight
of hand.

By April, 1877, the University club had been put on a
more effective working footing by the election of a president
and board of directors. A keener interest in the
sport followed the adoption in 1880 of formal rules of
government, one of which required that each aspirant
should have played at least ten times between March 10
and April 1, the date of organizing the nine for that year.
The magazine remarked in its May issue that "the baseball
fever had broken out with a violence which seemed
to give great promise of success." It was noticed, during
this decade, that the number of amateur players on the
grounds was sufficient for the formation of two nines; and
that they were not devoid of genuine skill was proven
afterwards by the fact that their leader, Fergusson, won
the reputation of being the most expert professional
pitcher in the United States. The games played were
often in response to a challenge from one fraternity to
another. Thus a match game came off in the spring of
1881 between two nines chosen from the membership of
the Delta Kappa Epsilon and the Chi Phi.

In March, 1882, the baseball association was reorganized
with thirty-seven members, and promptly began to
show a more energetic spirit. First, it challenged a nine
belonging to Charlottesville, and, afterwards, its old adversary,
the nine at Washington and Lee University. A
stride forward was taken in the autumn of this year,
when the association was again formed, with a complete
roll of officers; but, for the time being, the nine under its
management seems to have been satisfied to struggle for
victory with the nine organized at the Pantops High
School, situated not far from town on the southeast bank
of the Rivanna. There was a series of games with the

batters of this school in 1884 and 1886; and during the
latter year, the University club even ventured to play with
a nine that had been recruited in the village of Gordonsville.
The fact that its members were now unwilling to
challenge more dangerous competitors than these is an
indication that the games, during this year, were played
by men who were lacking in confidence in their own skill.
Indeed, it was admitted in May, 1886, that the sport had
fallen into a condition of somnolent lethargy. But this
spirit does not appear to have lasted very long. In
1889, under the management of Felix H. Levy, a series of
games were played with nines belonging to Richmond
College, Washington and Lee University, Episcopal High
School, United States Naval Academy, Virginia Military
Institute, and Johns Hopkins University. The pastime
of boating having lost its flavor, the interest in other
branches of sport revived, and from this time forward,
baseball was able to retain its reestablished hold on the
hitherto fluctuating predilections of the students.

Instead of seeking support in voluntary contributions
by the student body, the board of directors,—who controlled
the affairs of the club,—borrowed money and
erected an enclosure around a field and charged a small
fee for admission. This new ground for the games was
inaugurated in 1888–89 with a fierce tussle between the
University team and the team of Charlottesville. In
the spring of 1890, it was found that a skilful pitcher
was needed to complete the nine. One of the members
of the club visited Richmond and persuaded Murray M.
McGuire, a recent graduate, to return with him and assume
that office. Through the ability and energy of this
alumnus, the club reached such a degree of efficiency that
its reputation spread far and wide. In 1888, the University
team had been satisfied to contest with the neighboring

Pantops High School nine; in 1891, it was winning
victories over nines belonging to the foremost colleges
of the North, long celebrated for their successes in
every province of athletic sports. "No one," said the
editors of College Topics at this time, "did more than
McGuire to give the University its enviable position (in
this province); and during his stay here, no one did more
for athletics in the University." It was asserted that all
the talk of the arcades was now given up to the one inflaming
topic of baseball. Fifteen games were played
with the nines of the Boston Association, Dartmouth College,
Virginia Military Institute, Washington and Lee
University, the University of North Carolina, Johns
Hopkins University, Swarthmore College, Cornell University,
the Olympia Club, of Louisville, the Pastime Club,
of Baltimore, the Old Dominion Club, of Richmond, and
the Columbia Athletic Club; and in eleven of these contests,
the nine of the University of Virginia demonstrated
its superiority by scoring the highest number of innings.

W. M. Nash, of the Boston League, was employed in
1892, as the coach for the University team. During the
baseball season of this year, sixteen games were played
with the nines of Vermont, Princeton, Washington and
Lee, North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, and Vanderbilt
Universities, and Dartmouth, Lafayette, and Lehigh colleges,
and the Boston Association, and eight of these were
won by the University of Virginia. There were ten
games played during the Spring of 1893, and the University
of Virginia was the successful competitor in six.
Harvard University had been challenged in 1893, but apparently
had not been defeated. The record for 1894
was not so gratifying,—only one-third of the games
played during the Spring of this year were won. The
record for 1895 was more successful.

XXX. Athletics—Football

"One afternoon in November, 1870," we are informed
by the editors of the revived magazine, "the junior mathematical
class, on going to their lecture-room, found that
there would be no lecture, and returned swearing across
the Lawn. Soon a rough-and-tumble game of football,
gotten up then and there, began. Since then, the game
has become very popular with the students, and is played
every evening on the ground between the orchard and the
laboratory." At this time, there was apparently no step
taken to organize this sport scientifically, but nevertheless
it seems to have been pursued with a remarkable display
of ardor. "I was strolling down to the postoffice," says
the philosopher of the magazine, in 1872, "when I saw a
crowd of coatless youth engaged in what seemed to us the
insane sport of rushing together, and trying to kick each
others' hats off. Ever desirous of gaining information,
we asked of a friend near us what was the matter. He
replied, 'Football,' and we, without any other information,
dashed off burning to enter into the glorious sport.
We entered. A friend kindly offered to take us on his
side. We thanked him and took our position, and were
kicked on the shins and on the knees."

It was asserted, in 1873, that not less than two hundred
students participated in the free and easy, go-as-you-please
games that were played during that year. It was intimated,
—probably in the spirit of irony,—that the members
of the medical class had exhibited peculiar aptitude
for these games, from the quickness with which they were
able, through the knowledge acquired in the class-room,
to bind up their broken skins and apply curative salves to
their ugly bruises. By the year 1874, a team had been
organized; and it began its sporting history by playing a

series of games with a club that had been formed by the
large English colony now settled in Albemarle county.
And not satisfied with this initial venture, it sent off a challenge
to the football team of Washington and Lee University.
The ground on which these games, as a rule,
took place was situated in the immediate neighborhood
of the new house occupied by Professor Mallet; but the
lot on which now stands the Brooks Museum was also
used. So keen was the interest which was felt at this
time even in the preliminary practice, that it was said
that the members of the club [23] were not to be deterred
by rain, or snow, or wind, from hastening to the field so
soon as they were at leisure. The style of their playing
was of a very inexact and loose character, although
the magazine had printed, for the benefit of the club, the
rules which had been adopted by the principal football
association of the country, which was composed of Yale,
Rutgers, and Princeton students. "About half past four
in the afternoon," we learn from Dr. Culbreth, "a few
young men with the ball would gather. They would divide
into sides and begin to kick. A signal would be
given for those near to rush in and form, while other recruits
were captured from the passersby, until a couple
of hundred were engaged in the field. There were goals,
and there were captains, but few, if any, regulations."

It could not be properly expected that this unmethodical
style of practicing would develop a team so skilful as
to be capable of successfully competing in an intercollegiate
test of superiority. As late as the autumn of
1881 there was no really scientific football organization
in existence at the University. The team selected for
that season seems to have been chosen by a committee.

But it was an encouraging sign that the interest of the
students in the sport was now steadily growing. In the
autumn of 1883, a club comprising a large membership
was formed, and every afternoon before the winter set in,
there were many furious struggles in the field. At the
end of a few years, the players,—who had, in the meanwhile,
been contending with obscure local opponents,—
thought themselves sufficiently trained to meet the team
of Johns Hopkins University, but this impression proved
to be misleading, for, in 1888, the score between the two
antagonists was twenty-six to zero in favor of the Maryland
institution. The University players were constrained
to satisfy their chastened ambition with the defeat
of the team of the Episcopal High School. The
University club had been regularly organized during the
previous session; but that no rigid standards of selection
were employed is demonstrated by the report of the following
conversation which has survived. The committee,
we are told, interviewed Robert Massie. "You are
chosen a member of the team," they laconically informed
him. "But I never played in my life," he protested in
his astonishment, "and know nothing about it." "Nor
do we," they replied. But whether Massie at that time
was too modest or not in his low estimate of his knowledge
of the game, he was afterwards elected to the responsible
post of captain.

The football club, like the baseball club, did not become
independent of precarious contributions by the students
until the shrewd suggestion of Felix H. Levy, a member
of the department of law, that the grounds should be enclosed
and an entrance fee demanded, was adopted. Of
the eleven regular players taking part in the games during
the session of 1889–90, not less than five had been recipients
of professional degrees. It was asserted, without

contradiction, that "the best members of the team had
been among the best students of the University." During
this session, one of the departments of the University,
the department of engineering, organized a football club,
membership in which was rigidly confined to its own
classes. But a sectional club like this had too small a fold
to draw on to possess a high order of skill. The University
team, on the other hand, had reached such a pitch
of efficiency by the autumn of 1889 that it was able to vanquish
the team of Johns Hopkins University by a score of
seventy-eight to zero. The challenges now sent out indicated
the aggressive confidence which its members now
felt in their own competency. During the months of October
and November, 1889, in addition to the game
with Johns Hopkins, they competed with the champions
of the Naval Academy, Lehigh University, Georgetown
College, and Wake Forest College. Of the six games,
the University team was successful in four. In 1890,
that team played six games with the picked men of Pennsylvania,
Princeton, and Washington and Lee Universities,
and Lafayette, Trinity, and Randolph-Macon College.
The University team succumbed to the team of
Princeton by a score of zero to one hundred and fifteen,
and to the team of the University of Pennsylvania by a
score of zero to sixty-two; but, in 1891, they sharply retaliated
by defeating the team of Princeton by a very
large margin. There were five games played in the
course of this year. In addition to the victory over
Princeton University, the University team defeated the
champions of St. John's College, and tied with those of
Lafayette and Schuylkill. There were played, in 1892,
six games, in four of which the University of Virginia was
successful. The team, during this year, was beaten by
the team of the University of Pennsylvania, and also by
the team of the University of North Carolina; but was
triumphant in a contest with the respective teams of
Georgetown College, Trinity College, and the University
of the South.

The autumn of 1892 will always be a memorable one
in the history of football at the University of Virginia.
It was then decided that every candidate for membership
in the team should be required to pursue a strict course of
training in the gymnasium. The practice in the field began
on the 15th of September, and, during an interval of
three weeks, the energies of the players were confined to
the acquisition of the rudiments of the game. Johnson
Poe, a former halfback of Princeton, was the coach.
How many high qualities were fostered by this drastic
system of instruction were eloquently recounted in an extract
which College Topics printed, with approving comments,
in its pages. "Football means brains as well as
brawn. It tells of temperate lives, well nourished bodies,
and well controlled nerves. It calls for coolness as well
as courage, for alert attention, quick wit, readiness of resource,
and all manliness of soul." Although the University
of Virginia was overwhelmed in its first game
with the University of Pennsylvania by a score of thirty-two
to zero, yet its team soon demonstrated the effect of
the remarkable training which they had received from
Johnson Poe.[24] During the autumn of 1893, there were
eleven games played with foreign competitors. The
score stood two hundred and forty-four to seventy-eight

in favor of the University team. During the spring of
1894, the score was four hundred and fourteen to
thirty in their favor. One of the most distinguished
members of this efficient team at this time was Addison
Greenway, whose skill in the field was said to have been
phenomenal.

By the session of 1894, the game of football had risen
to undisputed predominance among the athletic sports of
the University of Virginia, in consequence of the successes
of the team abroad. The following is the record
for this year of the scores made by the teams of the principal
seats of learning: Yale, sixteen games, points 485;
University of Pennsylvania, seventeen games, points 400;
Harvard University, thirteen games, points 334; Princeton
University, ten games, points 202; the University of
Virginia, ten games, points 414. The average for the
University of Virginia was 38.40; for Yale University,
29.50; for the University of Pennsylvania, 22.35; for
Harvard University, 22.15; and for Princeton University,
15.80. It was altogether justifiable, in the light of these
comparative figures, that the editors of the magazine
should have remarked in its pages with unconcealed satisfaction,
"Our career in football this year is very glorious.
The University of Virginia is beginning to take a high
place in college athletics."

XXXI. Athletics—The Gymnasium

Immediately after the close of the war, D'Alfonce,
who had served as an officer of cavalry in Sheridan's command,
and as such had passed with the Federal troops
through Charlottesville on the occasion already described,
returned to the University, and asked to be restored to his
former position. In doing this, he exhibited the spirit
of a soldier of fortune, who does not allow himself to

be influenced in his acts by any sentiment of bitterness
about the past; but while he seems to have obtained the
appointment again, he must have become aware, after a
few weeks, that the atmosphere of his old quarters had
grown frigid; and that his teachings were not followed
with the kindly attention and hearty respect of former
years. Indeed, it is quite probable that he was really
boycotted, not the less effectively because the attitude towards
him was free from any overt discourtesy. Only a
foreigner could have expected that his reception, after
the terrible events of the war,—especially after the
devastating campaign in the Valley, in which he had taken
part,—would be sufficiently cordial to permit of his giving
lessons to his classes with his former success, and
with undiminished personal popularity. As he walked
about the University grounds, passing at every step men
who had been recently fighting in the Southern armies,
many of whom had been maimed for life, he must have
gradually perceived that his presence was not in harmony
with his environment; and that there was small likelihood
that, at an early day, he could so far overcome the
prejudice which he aroused as to be able to regain a
profitable pupilage. He very naturally declined to accept
a reappointment for the second year.[25] His final
disappearance occurred before the opening of the session
of 1866–7, for, during that session, Frederick Hildebrand
was the incumbent of the position which he had occupied.

Hildebrand was appointed for a term of only five
months. His first act seems to have been to ask the
Faculty's permission to use the basement of the Washington

Hall as an apartment for gymnastic exercises during
foul weather. He remained within the precincts throughout
the session of 1867–8, and appears to have gone to
some expense in fitting up professionally the room in
which he gave the practical lessons in his art. His claim
for reimbursement on this account was rejected by the
Board of Visitors in June, 1868, at which time he probably
terminated his official connection with the University,
for his post was vacant during the ensuing session.

The students with a taste for gymnastic performances
were now constrained to turn to the bars and rings which
had been erected, during previous years, in the shadow
of each group of dormitories. "We are happy to notice,"
said the editors of the magazine in the number for
January, 1871, "that, in several parts of college, the
students have, in a small way, solved the problem of a
gymnasium. Monroe Hill and West Range have the
same little conveniences they had last year. East Lawn
and East Range have combined and built for their mutual
profit a substantial little gymnasium. Dawson's Row
and Carr's Hill have had their old ones renewed."
These primitive gymnasiums were simply clusters of horizontal
and parallel bars, swings, and poles. They were
located on the open ground under the trees, where they
were exposed to all the vicissitudes of the weather, both
hot and cold, wet and dry. During the session of 1874–
75, the young men who roomed on Monroe Hill, and in
the houses of Dawson's Row, were conspicuously active
in the use of these outdoor rings and bars,—in the autumn
and spring, they gathered here daily in the interval
between dinner and half-past three o'clock, and also in the
interval between five o'clock and supper, and engaged,
with great earnestness, in "skinning the cat" and making
the great swing.

In June, 1875, James V. Carr applied for permission
to instruct the students in the science of the new gymnastics;
and the question of his appointment seems to have
turned on his ability to obtain a suitable apartment.
There was now such a palpable need for a gymnasium under
roof that a student who had matriculated during the
session of 1875–76,—Edward H. Squibb, of Brooklyn,
—offered very generously to purchase the requisite appliances,
if the University authorities would furnish the
rooms in which to erect them. A meeting was held in
March, 1876; an organization was effected under the
name of the Squibb Gymnasium Association; and the customary
officers selected. By April, the enrolment embraced
as many as eighty students; and by June, one hundred
and ten. The hotel situated at the south end of
East Range, which had been long locked up, was assigned
to the association. Here parallel bars, rings, trapeze,
rowing machines, striking bags, Indian clubs, and dumbbells
were soon available. The new gymnasium became
at once popular.

In March, 1885, after several years of successful operation,
—in the course of which there had been many
contests, and numerous prizes awarded,—the editors of
the magazine suggested that the gymnasium should be
placed under the control of the Faculty; and that no fee
should be charged for the use of its apparatus. They
also proposed that a physical director should be appointed
to stimulate its further development. There was now
heard much criticism of the defects of the apartment in
the hotel building,—the ceiling was low; the ventilation,
imperfect; the appliances worn in quality, and insufficient
in quantity. These comments, however, failed to impress
the Board of Visitors, for, in the following July,
when they held their annual meeting, they simply instructed

the Faculty to permit the students to organize a
gymnasium club,—the members of which were to pay a
considerable fee,—while they refused to assign more
suitable quarters for the apparatus. The same hotel
was to continue to house the various contrivances and instruments
in spite of its inconveniences. One concession,
however, they were willing to make, which tended to increase
the importance and dignity of athletics in the University,
—two days in November were to be exempted
from recitations, during which interval, the competitive
exercises were to take place under the public eye.

In October (1885), the Squibb Gymnasium Association
transferred to the Faculty's possession the entire set of
appliances which belonged to its members. The Faculty,
in their turn, announced that thereafter all the fees paid
by the students under the original ordinance of the Board
were to be used in repairing the old apartment, in furnishing
new apparatus, and in defraying the expense of
the necessary fires and servants. The hall was to be kept
wide open every day, except the Sabbath, from six in the
morning to eight in the evening. The gymnasium from
this time forward was accepted as an essential part of the
University system, to be supported, like every other part,
as indispensable to the prosperity of the institution.[26]

The first instructor of physical culture appointed was
E. C. Huntington, who had been selected in accord with a
resolution of the Board of Visitors passed in 1888.
After serving one year, he was called to Vanderbilt University.
Z. W. Coombs succeeded him, in 1889, and in
turn was succeeded by John S. Hitchcock; and Hitchcock
by Dr. William A. Lambeth, who had given special attention
to the study of the subject of anatomy, a knowedge

of which was imperative in his new post. During
the superintendency of Huntington, who received a salary
of one thousand dollars, the following course of instruction
was pursued: (1) class exercises with light dumbbells;
(2) a class drill with chest weight; (3) class exercises
with the Indian club. Each student admitted to
the gymnasium was physically examined and measured
once a year. Guided by this physical test, a handbook
of developing exercises was given to him, with those emphasized
which had been found to be exactly adapted to
his particular bodily deficiencies. This system was continued
under Dr. Lambeth, who was soon successful, not
only in broadening it to a conspicuous extent, but also in
making it more attractive to the students. When he
took charge of the gymnasium, its appliances in use embraced
twelve chest machines, one horizontal bar, one
pair of parallel bars, fifty pairs of Indian clubs, fifty pairs
of dumbbells, thirty pairs of fencing sticks, two pairs of
boxing gloves, besides swinging rings, trapezes, inclined
and horizontal ladders, one rowing machine, and a punching
bag. Not only was this equipment inadequate but the
apartment in which it was housed was too contracted for
its purpose.

The need of a new gymnasium steadily grew as the
number of matriculates increased. On the 5th of October,
1891, Professor Peters suggested, at a meeting of
the Faculty, that a part of the Fayerweather bequest
should be set aside for the erection of such a building
after the most convenient model. The motion was tabled
on that occasion, but on the 26th of the same month,
it was taken up and referred to a committee of five members,
who, a few days later, reported in its favor. An
estimate obtained of the proctor put the cost of the proposed
structure,—which was to be large enough to take

in five hundred students comfortably,—at twenty thousand
dollars. This was to include the expense of the
necessary apparatus and also the outlay for hot and cold
water baths. It was recommended that each matriculate
should be required to pay a gymnasium fee of five
dollars annually, which was to be employed in preserving
the building and its contents. The Board of Visitors,
having carefully examined the report, decided that it
would be the safest course to wait until the necessary
funds had fallen in before they should make a definite appropriation;
but, in the meanwhile, they instructed Professor
Echols, now superintendent of buildings and grounds,
to advertise for plans and specifications for a structure
capable of accommodating five hundred young men, and
adapted to the use of the most modern gymnastic appliances
that could be purchased. The style of architecture
was to harmonize with the scheme of Jefferson, and
the edifice itself was not to cost in excess of fifteen thousand
dollars. The Faculty, however, were of the opinion
that an appropriation of twenty-five thousand would be
required; and in the end, the Board of Visitors were compelled
to reserve the sum of twenty-eight thousand for the
purpose. A site on the eastern slope of Carr's Hill was
chosen for the projected building.

The Fayerweather gymnasium was thrown open in September,
1893. Its total cost had leapt up to thirty thousand
dollars. It was the largest and most thoroughly
equipped establishment of its kind in the South. The
building was strictly classic in its proportions, with a Corinthian
portico, fluted columns, and carved capitals of
solid stone. So great was the appreciation of Dr. Lambeth's
services in his office of director that, in order to
retain them, a house was erected for his occupation not
far from the new gymnasium. The Fayerweather Gymnastic

Association was organized in the following year
with a view to a still higher training of the gymnastic
powers of the students,—by which means only could a
team be fitted to participate with success in the annual
tournament of the colleges. The daily attendance had
increased by this time to one hundred and ninety individuals;
and there were from forty to seventy-five entries in
the regular classes. Valuable prizes were now awarded
to stimulate excellence in performance. Professor James
A. Harrison contributed the sum of twenty-five dollars
annually, during five years, for this purpose. Professor
Peters gave fifteen dollars and the Anderson Brothers,
of the University, fifty, to the champion gymnast of the
year. The association distributed an additional one hundred
dollars among the competitors.

There had been, during several years, an expanding
need of a campus which would be level and spacious
enough to embrace a track, tennis courts, and a football
playground. The only area near the University which
appeared to offer the width and breadth required was
a swampy sink that lay just north of the present Madison
Hall. A survey was made of it in 1888; but in spite of
the indefatigable efforts of Professor Noah K. Davis to
interest the students in its purchase, no progress was made
towards collecting among them the sum that was wanted.
Refusing to be discouraged, he interviewed the International
Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association,
and through their influence, Cyrus McCormick was
led to give seventeen hundred dollars for the acquisition
of the land, the title to which was thereafter, for a time,
vested in trust in the local Young Men's Christian Association,
for the benefit of the students. An additional
acre,—making five in all,—which was needed for the full
realization of the plan for the campus had already been

bought through the liberality of the alumni residing in
New York City. By the continued exertions of Professor
Davis, further subscriptions were obtained; and with
the generous assistance of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway,
which gave sixteen carloads of Basic City brick, the
campus was completed by June, 1892, and the title finally
transferred to the Board of Visitors.

During several years anterior to the acquisition of this
campus, there had been numerous trials in track athletics
held on Ficklin's race-course near Charlottesville, under
the auspices of the gymnasium association. The inauguration
of these games was principally attributable to the
energy of DeCourcy W. Thom, a student from Baltimore.
The 18th and 19th of April, 1879, were always
remembered at the University of Virginia for the events
which took place on those two days. The field then used
was in the shape of a rude oval, with a circumference one-quarter
of a mile in extent. The programme embraced a
short dash, a half mile run, a one mile run, a one hour run,
throwing the baseball, throwing the hammer and a hurdle
race. The conspicuous performers on this occasion were
Thomas N. Carter, C. B. Walker, D. W. Thom, J. P.
Crawford, S. H. Smith, and Samuel Porcher. Subsequently,
this programme was enlarged so as to include putting
the shot, the running hand jump, the running high
jump, one quarter of a mile run, three mile run, two hundred
and twenty yards dash, potato race, sack race, three-legged
race and pole-vaulting. It was said, at the time,
that these games were played with a skill equal to that
to be observed in the colleges of the North, which were
able to select their performers from amongst a far larger
number of young men.

In the Spring of 1881, there was to be descried in the
open area of ground under the shadow of Professor Mallet's

house a sight, which, we are told by Professor W.
H. Echols, stirred up an emotion of lively astonishment
in all who witnessed it,—at least, as mere lookers-on.
"It was the spectacle," he said, "of a group of real men
seriously occupied with batting a ball with snow shoes at
a fishing seine." There were many Englishmen domiciled
in the county of Albemarle at this time, who characteristically
persisted in playing the games to which they
had been accustomed at home before they went out to
Virginia. In a remarkable test of eye and hand, which
occurred in November 29, 1885, the laurel of victory
was won by two young men of this nationality, who were
competing with the perfectly raw novices of the University.
So great was the interest now felt in lawn tennis,
in consequence of these games, that clubs were formed
in the several groups of dormitories, and the students,
for the time being, threw themselves, with all the ardor of
their English rivals, into this imported pastime. During
the session of 1888–89, there were as many as five clubs in
existence within the precincts. At least two of the fraternities
had organized tennis clubs in the circles of their
respective memberships,—these were the Delta Kappa
Epsilon, and Phi Kappa Psi. During these years of active
interest in the game, tournaments of singles were
played in the autumn; and in the spring, tournaments of
singles and doubles. The University club, during 1893–
94, could claim an enrolment of nineteen members; and
this number, by 1895, had increased to forty. There
was a general tennis association in existence at this time.

XXXII. General Athletic Association

During the first years subsequent to the close of the
war, each of the sports just described was pursued by
separate clubs, which were held together by no association

with admitted authority over them all. Very frequently,
in the course of one session, there was more
than one football club; more than one baseball club too;
but not only was there no central power to control all the
football clubs and all the baseball clubs, which were
formed one after another, but there was no single power
to govern all the football clubs as distinguished from all
the baseball clubs, or all the baseball clubs as distinguished
from all the football clubs.[27] In other words,
there was no Olympian overseer either for the separate
branches of sport, or for all the branches brought together
in one group. The system that prevailed,—if
methods so laxly employed could properly be termed a
system,—was one which deserved only the old-fashioned
designation of "go-as-you-please." But while the organization
that had been adopted,—if organization it could
be called,—was only sufficient to hold each club together
temporarily, and not very firmly at that, it would be an
error to presume that the interest taken in football, baseball,
and track events was as feeble as the interest felt in
athletics before the war by the majority of the students.
The very intensity of this interest, however unscientifically
gratified as judged by the highly developed modern
standards, was the very factor that suggested, and finally
demanded, the organization of all sports at the University
of Virginia on the permanent footing which they already
occupied in the Northern colleges.

The earliest practical advance towards converting the
more or less disjointed clubs, whose existence usually
ended with each session, into a single vigorous and allembracing
entity, was made in the spring of 1881, when

the name of the Squibb Gymnasium Association was, after
the adoption of a new constitution and by-laws, altered to
the University Athletic Association. This was the forerunner
in a contracted form of the General Athletic Association.
There had, during several years subsequent to
this event, been an increasing sentiment in favor of bringing
all the subordinate departments of athletics under one
centralized management, which, however, was not to interfere,
as was specifically stated, with the small matters
relating to each department. At first, the proposal failed
to gain the necessary degree of support from the students,
who had not yet been educated up to the point of looking
on athletic games as of any more importance than mere
pastime for an hour of leisure in an autumn or spring afternoon.
But this view was gradually modified, chiefly in
consequence, perhaps, of the extraordinary enthusiasm exhibited
by the sister colleges for athletic sports. A spirit
of rivalry was aroused. At a mass meeting held in the
public hall, in October, 1888, what was spoken of as the
Grand Association was formed, and a committee nominated
to draft a constitution. This was submitted at the
ensuing meeting. It contained the following two leading
provisions: (1) the power and supervision of the
association were vested in a president and executive committee;
(2) upon these officers was imposed the duty of
appointing sub-committees to take charge of the affairs of
the different subordinate branches of athletics and athletic
sports. The president was T. L. Rosser; the vice-president,
Jonathan Bryan; the members of the executive committee,
J. D. Fletcher, E. W. Robertson, L. C. Barley,
and George Gordon Battle.[28]

It was now hoped that, through an active and vigilant
general association, there would be created in the University
of Virginia that intense spirit of unity and cooperation
which had already enabled the curriculum colleges
of the North to win so many victories in the province
of athletics. Any student might become a member
of the organization. By a subsequent amendment, the
executive committee was to consist of the president and
vice-president of the general body and the chairmen of
the boards of directors of the subordinate baseball, football,
boating, and tennis clubs. Each of these secondary
boards was to be composed of three members, to be appointed
annually by the president of the general association.
The directors in each department of sport saw to
the training of each candidate coming forward in that
department. They also chose a manager who had exclusive
control of the team. Under the working of this first
association each branch of athletics was carried on by a
separate club for all practical purposes. Each remained
distinct in itself. The members purchased their own
suits and other special paraphernalia, and paid the expenses
of their own athletic exercises.

The General Athletic Association, known hitherto as
the Grand Association, adopted a new constitution in October,
1892, which embraced in its scope all the interests
of the football, baseball, track, and tennis clubs. Its
object was to bring about a still more intimate relation

               

Felix H. Levy, 1888–9	M. P. Robinson, 1896–7
J. D. Fletcher, 1889–90	Paul L. Cocke, 1897–8
J. B. Robertson, 1890–91	Eugene Davis, 1898–9
J. C. Blackford, 1891–2	B. C. Nalle, 1899–1900
J. B. Robertson, 1892–3	A. W. Moore, 1900–01
E. Hope Norton, 1893–4	B. C. Willis, 1901–02
Fred Harper, 1894–5	B. Lankford, 1902–03
W. D. Dabney, 1895–6	J. B. Pollard, 1903–04

between the different branches of athletics at the University,
as the most certain means of increasing their popularity
and promoting their success. In 1894, a charter of
incorporation was obtained, and, in 1897, by-laws were
drafted. The membership was composed of the entire
body of matriculates, the professors, and the alumni. No
dues whatever were demanded, and no obligations of
any kind imposed. The affairs of the reorganized association
were at first conducted by an executive committee,
which comprised the president, vice-president, two
students picked out from the body of the University at
large, one member of the Faculty, and two alumni chosen
by the committee itself. This committee possessed an
exclusive authority over the coaches; its decision as to the
eligibility of players was final; and it also decided upon
the number of games to take place between the University
teams and the competing teams of rival colleges.

The association had to contend with two highly obstructive
disadvantages: (1) its only income was derived
from the receipts from games and from voluntary contributions;
(2) the brevity of the average student's sojourn
within the precincts threw its management, each session,
as a rule, into the hands of new men, with small
knowledge, and still less appreciation, of what had been
done the year before. As has already been mentioned,
College Topics was acquired by the association. The editor
of that journal was thereafter appointed by the executive
committee; and this committee also reserved the
right to reject any one or all of the five sub-editors nominated
by the senior editor.

In the beginning, the Faculty were disposed to frown
upon the almost feverish interest exhibited by the young
men in all athletic sports. The reputation of the University
of Virginia was founded upon the supreme attention,

which, under its system, had always been given to
study; and that conscientious body very naturally felt
that it was their duty to maintain this tradition by all the
influence which they could command. But the flood of
athletic enthusiasm rising beyond the precincts made such
a profound impression upon the student-mind of the University,
that the professors, in the end, were constrained
to admit that it could not be successfully resisted. "The
experience of the last three sessions," said Chairman
Thornton, in his report for 1891–2, "has enabled the
Faculty to gauge, in a practical way, the merits and demerits
of college athletics. Balancing the one against the
other, that body was decidedly, though not unanimously,
convinced of their value as an element of the college life.
In cultivating the college spirit and college pride; in discouraging
and even forbidding drinking, and other unsanitary
or vicious habits; in developing a vigorous physique
and a manly temper,—they are most salutary. The
drawbacks are: they occasion often a waste of time and
energy, which, in the case of the more enthusiastic devotees,
tend not seldom to serious excess. They call for
considerable aggregate outlays in money, which, although
distributed over the student body, produce an appreciable
item in the expense of college life. It is possible, by
judicious suggestion and direction, to mitigate some of
these evils and correct others entirely."

The Faculty endeavored, by the adoption of searching
rules, to exercise a strict control over the association:
(1) only a matriculated student was permitted by them
to become a member of a team; (2) his connection with
that team had to be severed, should his examinations demonstrate
unmistakably that his attention had been diverted
from his studies; and (3) no trained instructor in any
branch of sport was to be engaged without their approval.

A prize of a silver cup was established by Professor Barringer
in 1891, to be awarded to that department of athletics,
whether football, baseball, or track, which should
be able to show to its credit the largest number of points
in a single year.

A Southern Intercollegiate Association was organized
in 1892. It embraced in its membership the University
of Virginia, the University of North Carolina, Wake
Forest College, the University of the South—which
was afterwards succeeded by Vanderbilt University,—St.
John's College, Johns Hopkins University, University of
Tennessee, and University of Alabama. Each of these
institutions was to furnish a football and a baseball team.
Strict regulations were adopted to shut out every form
of professionalism. In order to arrange more conveniently
for the games, the area in which the participating
colleges and universities were situated was divided into a
northern and a southern section.

XXXIII. Rives Boat Club

Perhaps, the most remarkable record of sport in the
open air at the University of Virginia, during the Seventh
Period, 1865–1895, is the one that constitutes the history
of the Rives Boat Club. We propose to give the main
incidents in this record entirely apart from the annals of
the General Athletic Association, because, after a short
but really brilliant career, the club passed out of existence,
and has so far never been revived. Its first appearance
was meteoric in its suddenness and unexpectedness; but,
like the wandering aerolite, after blazing in the eyes of
admiring men, it faded away, leaving nothing of its former
presence behind but a tradition of vanished glory.
The story of the football, baseball, and track clubs, separate
at first, but afterwards combined, is the story of

organizations which have pursued a regular and orderly
course of movement, passing, from decade to decade, into
a still more advanced stage of development as part of a
fixed and enduring system of athletics. The recreation
of boating at the University would have followed out the
same line of steady growth from its inauguration had not
the obstacles, not simply to expansion, but to actual existence,
been almost insurmountable from the start. That
this branch of sport rose so soon to such a height of success,
though it afterwards fell back to nothing, was due
to the enthusiasm, energy, determination, and practical
ability of a few men whose names will, for that reason,
occupy a conspicuous niche in the history of athletics in
the University of Virginia.

Early in the seventh decade of the nineteenth century,
the art of rowing had become a very popular form of
sport in all those Northern colleges which were so lucky
as to be situated in the vicinity of streams with width and
depth of water enough to allow of constant practice with
the oar. There was more than one alumnus of the University
of Virginia residing in that part of the Union who
openly lamented the fact that his alma mater was not
in a financial position to rival these aquatic associations
of the more prosperous seats of learning. It was not
until the autumn of 1876, that one of these persons came
forward with opportune generosity and offered to defray
the expense of establishing such a club on the Rivanna.
This was Francis H. Rives, of New York City, a son of
William Cabell Rives, the distinguished statesman. Mr.
Rives had been born on the southeastern slope of the
mountains which overlooked that picturesque river. His
liberal act found an immediate response in the hearts of a
little company of University students, whose plucky spirit
was not to be daunted by the remoteness of water from

the precincts. By March, 1877, a committee, which
comprised James C. Lamb, A. G. Stuart, DeCourcy W.
Thom, W. J. L'Engle and J. M. Macfarland, had been
formed; and on their writing to Mr. Rives to announce
this fact, he sent them a check for one thousand dollars
with which to purchase the equipment in boats, oars, and
housing, which was indispensable. In April, at a meeting
held in the Jefferson Society Hall, a permanent organization
was effected by the election of A. G. Stuart to the
presidency, and of George D. Fawsett, to the vice-presidency.
J. C. Lamb was appointed secretary, and W. J.
L'Engle treasurer. A crew was at once chosen. Its
members were DeCourcy W. Thom,—who was elected
captain,—W. J. L'Engle, Charles Steele, and J. M.
Macfarland.

Such were the names of the men who proposed to convert
into a positive fact that dream, which, as we have
seen, had so persistently haunted the minds of so many
students before the War of Secession, but without the
smallest approach to realization. So far from the members
of the new organization being depressed by the prospect
of ever recurring tramps to the banks of the Rivanna,
two and a half miles away, they, in the spirit of the
blithest philosophy, actually pronounced the necessity for
traversing that distance to be one of the principal advantages
possessed by the club. Did it not put them through
a course of training on land for hardening the muscles
of their legs, which was almost as indispensable as the
course on the water for hardening the muscles of their
arms? As to the narrowness of that turbid river, although
it might bring a smile of supercilious derision to
the faces of some of their Northern rivals, nevertheless
had not Professor Mallet, an Englishman, been heard
to say that the reach of water furnished by the Rivanna

was superior to that offered by either the Cam or the Isis,
the classic rivers of the most redoubtable college oarsmen
in the world?

A boathouse was soon erected, a second-hand racer purchased,
and a new four-oared cedar gig ordered. The
course for the training exercises stretched from the free
bridge down stream about two miles in length. It resembled
the letter S, in harmony with the windings of the
river, and, in consequence, the crew, one half of their
time, were pulling against both the rudder and the current.
Almost before they had learned to handle their
new oars with respectable skill, they showed their ardent
confidence by sending off a challenge to the Tobacco City
Club for a race with a four-oared shell to be held on the
James River at Lynchburg. The Faculty so far entered
into the enthusiastic spirit of the club, now composed of
forty members, as to remark in their report to the Board
of Visitors: "It is not apprehended that the additional
means afforded the students for engaging in varied and
pleasant exercise and amusement will interfere materially
with their studies."

The first trial of skill[29] ended in discomfiture for the
club,—as it has done for many a future winner of the
Derby, and many a great parliamentary orator,—but
there was no reason for discouragement in the upshot, as
the failure had its springs in an accident that could not
have been anticipated before the race began, or remedied
at the critical moment in its progress. On June 30
(1877), not less than three thousand eager and excited
people crowded the bluffs of the James at Lynchburg, to

look down upon the scene where the two rival crews were
about to compete for the trophy of victory. A grandstand
had been erected at the head of the course, which
reached over a long, sluggish sheet of water. From this
spot, the start was made. The two boats at the signal
swept forward, and for some distance, there was no apparent
superiority in skill or muscle on either side. The
crews, in reality, seemed to be evenly matched; and this
equality of effort continued unbroken to the stake which
indicated the first turn in the course. After both crews
had swiftly circled about this conspicuous marker, and
were heading for the starting point, with all their powers
stretched to extreme tension, there seemed, for the moment,
to be no difference whatever in the rapidity of their
movement; but soon the crew of the Rives boat began
to lag behind, as if in a state of some distress; and this
involuntary dilatoriness only became more and more perceptible
as the race continued, until, in the end, they floundered
in about one minute and two seconds in the rear.

The explanation of their unseasonable plight soon became
known. In turning the stake, the occupant of
seat number 2 had put forth so much strength that this
seat had become dislodged from the restraining rails,
leaving the rower to slide backwards and forwards involuntarily
on the sharp steel-runners. The oarsman at the
bow, in consequence, was unable to pull in harmony with
the regular stroke. Practically, two men were to all
useful intents paralyzed by the accident, and the unlucky
sequel was unavoidable. The crew had been indirectly
crippled and defeated by the careless workmanship of an
unconscientious boat-builder.[30]

On the threshold of the new session, in the following
autumn (1877), it became necessary to reorganize the

club. J. C. Lamb and J. D. Emmet were elected respectively
president and vice-president, Willoughby
Walke, secretary, Thomas N. Carter, treasurer, and
Charles Steele, captain. Steele was succeeded by Charles
Lee Andrews, who threw an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm
into the performance of the duties of his office.
A skilful and indefatigable coxswain was found in John
Redwood, of Baltimore. Before the club could recover
from the disquiet of its first defeat, it was confronted by a
second misfortune,—an unprecedented flood in the Rivanna
swept away the boat-house, the boats, and the boating
paraphernalia.[31] So acutely was this calamity felt by
all, that friends came forward promptly to offer assistance.
The club was quickly restored by a second gift
from Mr. Rives, swelled by the contributions of the students,
and also by the proceeds of a fair given by the
ladies of the University and Charlottesville in Washington
Hall, and of an entertainment held in the town-hall,
in which the chief actors were Fawsett, Steele, Emmet,
and McGowen. The training began anew in the spring
(1878), under the coaching of Mr. Redwood, and the enthusiasm,
which soon revived, was, as we shall see, amply
justified by the series of triumphs which the club continued
to win during the next succeeding years.

In June, 1878,—just twelve months after their defeat
by the baldest accident on the course at Lynchburg,—
the Rives Boat Club, competing with the same skilful and
resourceful rival, on the same sheet of water, was victorious
with ease by seven lengths. In the very teeth of
this conspicuous triumph, a picked set of men, organized
by the Eli Bananas from their own society, had the characteristic
audacity to go into vigorous training for the
purpose of ultimately beating the victor. The interest

aroused in the oar had, by this time, reached the pitch of
an unprecedented enthusiasm, which crystallized in the
formation of a State Rowing Association for the more
elaborate prosecution of the sport; but not even this
powerful concentration of effort to increase the skill of
the different competitors was able to remove the pennant
of superiority from the flagstaff of the Rives Club. In
July, 1879, by ten lengths, and again in July, 1880, by an
interval almost as great, that club, on the reaches of the
Rappahannock at Fredericksburg left all its rivals behind[32] ;
and it repeated these victories over four competing
crews at Richmond in July, 1881,[33] and over the same
number of rivals again at Fredericksburg, on the same
date, in the following year. After this triumph, the
faithful coxswain, John Redwood, was unable to continue
the training, and, in consequence, the club was beaten at
Lynchburg on July 4, 1883, by the Appomattox crew of
Petersburg. Its career began with a rout and ended with
a rout, for it did not survive, as a vigorous organization,
this blow to its prestige. It is true that there was a feeble
endeavor to resuscitate it in February, 1888. A crew appears
to have been then sent to Alexandria to take part in
the race to occur there; but they declined at first to do so,
because they had not had the time to row over the course
before the hour set for the pistol-shot. At a later hour,
they consented to enter the race; but refrained when an
objection to their participation was offered. In the end,
the assets of the Rives Club passed into the possession of
a youthful association organized by a rival club in Charlottesville.

How had the Rives Club been sustained financially during
the latter years of its existence? Precisely by the
same means which had rehabilitated it after the destructive
flood of 1877: by the generous contributions of the
students, supplemented by the gate money of the fairs
which the ladies held for its benefit, and also by the proceeds
of concerts given by a band of collegians in the
town-hall and opera-house. On at least one occasion, the
Jefferson Society presented the crew with the sum of fifty
dollars.

Major Seth Barton French, formerly a citizen of Fredericksburg,
afterwards of New York, made a gift to the
General State Association of a challenge-cup that cost as
much as five hundred dollars. It was manufactured of
silver and stood twenty-two inches in height on a pedestal
of ebony. The base of this imposing cup was, we are
told, adorned with encircling silver shells and sun-fish.
A marine scene was engraved on the surface of either
side; and around the borders of each scene was a delicate
tracery of sprigs of coral and seaweed. The handles of
the cup were shaped like curved dolphins. Seashells clustered
about its brim, while old Neptune, with his uplifted
trident, crowned the whole, with other dolphins desporting
themselves about his feet. Such was the beautiful

trophy which the Rives Boat Club was able to retain in its
possession for so long a period by the skill, strength, and
enthusiasm of its crew.

But perhaps the principal claim of that crew to distinction
did not lie simply in competitive successes, however
brilliant. It lay rather in the spirit of the men who won
these victories. "With a boat-house on the Rivanna a
mile or more below Charlottesville," says Professor Raleigh
C. Minor, "without street cars to aid them; with
no means of reaching the boats except on their ten toes;
procuring money only with the greatest difficulty to keep
their boats in order; without rooters to witness their efforts
or arouse their enthusiasm,—they doggedly toiled
through the spring for the love of the sport itself. They
found their reward in their own bounding pulses, and in
the wild excitement and heartbreaking strain of the annual
regattas on the James, and Rappahannock, and other
streams."

A more feeling tribute still which the fine spirit of
these crews elicited, was paid by the coxswain, John Redwood,
who, under the influence of his friendship for the
members from Baltimore, his home, had volunteered his
invaluable assistance as an experienced trainer without
charge. No one had so perfect an opportunity as he to
gauge the characters, and sound the dispositions, of these
men with the nicest accuracy. "When I look back upon
the time spent with them," he said in a public speech, "my
heart beats high and warm at the recollection. For there
never was a regret recorded by failure in discipline or by
the suggestion of a single instance lacking in the most
genuine appreciation of his work on the part of every man
with whom I was thrown. The flood of memories comes
strong upon me as I recall the bright and manly faces I

knew, and the many hospitalities and winning Southern
courtesies always uppermost and prevailing in the social
atmosphere of the dear old University."

In addition to the competitive races on other waters,
in which the Varsity or Rives Club took part,—to which
alone we have referred so far,—there occurred on the
Rivanna a series of what was described as bumping races,
which were participated in by ordinary crews.[34] The
project of such races had been borrowed from England,
where the streams are often so narrow that the boats
can not be propelled abreast. The most highly trained
crew in a bumping race was always placed at the end of
the line, and the positions of the others ahead of it were
always graduated by their comparative efficiency,—the
least skilful occupying the position at the front. No actual
bumping took place; but so soon as the bow of a boat
passed the stroke of another, the latter would lie by and
allow its successful rival to shoot forward, and then would
take the last place in the rear. The event of a bumping
race was one of the most important in the local calendar.
Each crew was upheld by its own clique of enthusiastic
supporters. "The banks of the river on these occasions,"
we are told by a contemporary witness, "were
lined with vehicles and riders, who dashed pellmell after
the flying boats and cheered their favorite crews. The
spectacle was worth remembering,—the shining stretch
of water winding its sinuous way between the verdant
slopes, the incomparable panorama of mountain and forest
which made up the background, the fair girls in their
first spring frocks standing in the carriage-seats and waving
scarfs and kerchiefs as the crews flashed past, the men

supporting their enthusiasm with lusty yells of encouragement,
while the whole scene was flushed with the sunset-glow
and bathed in the fragrant vernal air."

The course traversed in these bumping races reached
over one mile and a half of water. Four boats, as a
rule, took part in them, and three afternoons were appointed
for the accomplishment of the entire programme.
"I recall one race," says Professor Raleigh C. Minor,
"in which one member of the crew knew nothing about
swimming, and still less about rowing. We had practised
for the race, but it seemed impossible to teach this
fellow to pull his oars at the right time, and not to catch
crabs. He would constantly dig his oars into the back of
the man in front of him, or else himself, catching a crab,
would fall backward so rapidly, and so far, as to dig his
back into the oar of the man behind him. But the confusion
of this was worse confounded on the day of the
race, for our oarsman, being eager and unskilled, almost
at the instant missed the water altogether on the stroke,
and promptly left the boat in a wholly unpremeditated
fashion. He emerged from the tawny flood, and gasping,
demanded to be once more deposited in our midst, saying
that, with his help, we could win out yet. We took a
different view, and to show our disapproval of his inconsiderate
conduct, we towed him to the boat-house attached
to an oar."

XXXIV. The Honor System

The apprehension was felt by many, that, as the number
of students should increase,—with its attendant decline
in homogeneity, and its diminished opportunities for
a general intercourse,—the Honor System would develop
a tendency to languish, if not to fall entirely into a condition
of desuetude. Although it was spoken of as a system,

it was, in reality, less a system than a spirit; and for
that reason, some persons anticipated that it would undergo
a perceptible change as new circumstances arose
with their accompanying new atmosphere. But the very
fact that it was a spirit, and not a system, offered the
soundest assurance that it would be preserved.

The tone of the University was the tone of the Southern
States. The South had recently emerged from a conflict
with a record for courage and fortitude unsurpassed
in the history of any people, ancient or modern. The
chivalrous sentiment that had always flourished in its most
refined communities had been tested by the hardships of
the camp and the march, and by the supreme sacrifices of
the battlefield. Never were the high qualities of the
Southern people, men and women alike, more vigorous
than during the harsh trials that followed the war. The
impulse which had caused them, while the fighting lasted,
to throw upon the altar of their country everything that
was precious to them, continued to sustain them long
after that conflict had ended. The young men who were
admitted to the University of Virginia during the Seventh
Period, 1865–95, were the sons of parents who had
passed through the ordeal of fire; they had been reared in
homes which still valued the recollections of the old regime
as the most blessed of inheritances; and unconsciously,
from their earliest boyhood, they had learned to
revere those principles of honor and chivalry which had
been inculcated in their forefathers as the indispensable
characteristics of a gentleman. At no time since the establishment
of the Honor System at the University of
Virginia, had it ever been maintained there with such
fidelity, such jealousy, such just intolerance, as during the
first thirty years that followed the birth of the new era.
And the explanation of this fact was to be found in that

singularly fine atmosphere of manly sentiment and high
impulse which still lingered in the South, not in spite of
its misfortunes, but largely on account of those very misfortunes
themselves.

If there was a possibility that an increase in the enrolment,
would, by lessening the points of contact, weaken
the force of the Honor System, this contingency did not
at once arise, because, as the years passed, the attendance
at the University was inclined, during a long interval,
to fall off; and it was only towards the close of the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, that the annual number of
matriculates began to approximate the number admitted
anterior to the War of Secession.

That the sentiment condemning cheating at examinations
was as strong at the end as at the beginning of this
period, was demonstrated by the indignant astonishment
which was expressed by the editors of College Topics, in
1895, when they learned that one of the students, detected
in this crime, had had the effrontery to remain within the
precincts longer than twenty-four hours after his exposure.
So threatening, in consequence of this fact, became
the attitude of the other young men, that he, in a state
of unconcealed alarm for his own skin, shook the dust
of the arcades from his feet. This reprobate, being of a
pugnacious temper, had, at first, endeavored to escape
the penalty for his dishonest conduct by fighting for
every inch of ground that would enable him to stay on in
college; but the only result of this persistence was that, in
the end, he was literally drummed out of bounds by his
fellow students, who felt that they had been trifled with
in his delay in taking his departure. He was even compelled
to surrender the diplomas which he had won during
the previous year, as they were presumed to be tainted by
his subsequent rascality.

The keeper of the boarding-house where the cheating
student had lodged had imprudently advised him to defy
the hostile sentiment that had been aroused. When the
editors of College Topics were informed of this fact, they
administered to the officious counsellor the following emphatic
rebuke: "It would be well for such as he to
learn right now that any interference with their action will
not be brooked by the students." These darkly significant
words, no doubt, made that rash and very thoughtless
boarding house-keeper quite tremulous about the
knees.

How far did the Honor System go? Did it embrace
every kind of misdemeanor that might be committed by a
student? It certainly included cheating at examinations.
Did it also include cheating at a private game of cards?
There was a good deal of fine-spun metaphysical discussion
on this point. Ought students who did not play
poker to insist that a player of that game, discovered
with an ace up his sleeve by his companions at the table,
should be driven out of college? or should their condemnation
only take the form of social ostracism? The
editors of College Topics, always the exponents of the
loftiest public sentiment among the young men, declared
emphatically in April, 1894, that those of their number
who had amused themselves with the wanton destruction
of the University's electric globes should be brought to
trial by their follow-students, and compelled to leave the
precincts. The culprits, in the opinion of these editors,
were just as discredited as if they had been detected in
obtaining aid from books in an examination. The Honor
System does not appear to have been ever pressed so far
as this; but it at least created a feeling so hostile to a
young man guilty of a serious delinquency other than
cheating that it brought about his complete isolation,—

a condition that, in the end, always forced him to withdraw.
Frequently, it led to his immediate expulsion.[35]

At the beginning of the enthusiasm aroused by athletic
sports, there was a keen apprehension that it would
have a tendency to debilitate the Honor System.
"There is an impression," said the editors of College
Topics in January, 1895, "that the rise of the athletic
spirit has been accompanied by a proportionate decline
from an ethical point of view." And why? "Because,"
they asserted, "the introduction of dirty ball has encouraged
the habit of taking the utmost advantage of an
opponent by all sorts of tricks and stratagems." It was,
however, admitted that the vices of drinking and gambling
had fallen off with the increase in the interest taken
in athletic games, and there was, in reality, no tangible
evidence that the strength of the Honor System had, in
the slightest degree, been weakened by it.

Before the close of the Seventh Priod, 1865–1895, a
few of the more prominent seats of learning in the Northern
States had adopted the Honor System, which had,
during so many years, and with so much success, formed
one of the main pillars of the social polity of the University
of Virginia. Amherst College and Wesleyan
University led the way. Princeton University followed.
As Brown University, in turning to an elective course of
studies before the War of Secession, was held out by
its president, trustees, and friends, as the pioneer, the
forerunner, in bringing about so great an innovation,—
although the University of Virginia had already been

governed by that unwritten law for a generation,—so
now the Honor System introduced at Princeton, largely,
it was reported, at the suggestion of an alumnus of the
sister Southern university, was acclaimed by that institution
as the New Princeton System, as if its adoption
there was entirely without precedent in the annals of
American colleges!

XXXV. Health

There was a recurrence of typhoid fever more than
once during the Seventh Period, 1865–95. The number
of cases in the interval between February, 1875, and
April of the same year, was so alarming that the outbreak
threatened to reach the full sweep of an epidemic. Fifty
of the young men,—a very large proportion of those who
had matriculated,—were stricken with the disease, and
five of them succumbed to it. It was the general opinion
that this wave of sickness had its springs in the location
and construction of the sewers, and a plan was adopted
for the removal of the worst defects of these drains.
The University had, during so many years, been so free
from serious distempers that the former board of health,
composed of members of the medical faculty, appears to
have sunk in abeyance; but in July, 1875, it was revived
by the Visitors. In addition to the medical professors,
the professor of chemistry was appointed to
membership in the new board. These officers were empowered
to recommend to the executive committee whatever
sanitary measures they should consider expedient or
imperative; and they were also authorized to protest, if
they should be convinced that the proctor was acting unwisely
in any step which he should see fit to take to conserve
the health of the students. Fortunately for the
comfort of the latter, there was in existence at this time a

fully equipped infirmary; and they were entitled, by the
payment of a definite fee at the beginning of the session,
to enjoy the gratuitous services of a physician, and also of
nurses, should their condition obviously require it.

Although the sanitary condition of the University was,
on the whole, satisfactory after 1875, yet there was
still some debate among the members of the Faculty as
to whether the existing system of sewerage ought not to
be abandoned in favor of a more modern one; and this
view was apparently justified by the cases of typhoid fever
that continued to show themselves from time to time.
There was, for instance, during the session of 1883–84, a
slight recrudescence of the disease. As the cases that
now occurred,—about five in all,—had come to the surface
in but a single Range, and that too in one section
only, where there had been at least one case the year before,
it was thought by the board of health that the disrepair,
now more or less flagrant in the aspect of all the
dormitories, was the possible cause of the distemper that
had broken out in this particular Range. There had,
however, been no deaths in the ranks of the students
during the previous three years. Sanitary alterations
were now made in several of the pavilions on the West
Lawn and also in two of the hotels on West Range;
but it was not until July, 1886, that the general sewerage
works which had been projected were completed
and put in use and such a volume of water added as to
render practicable the constant flushing of the pipes.

At last, in 1888, the committee on health was able to
predict in their report to the Board of Visitors that
"with the abundant supply of pure water, the good sewerage
and drainage, the effective policing of the grounds,
and the well-equipped infirmary which we now have, disease
need not hereafter be feared." This was undoubtedly

a correct anticipation if a serious epidemic alone
was thought of, but sporadic instances of fever continued
to occur. During the session of 1892–93, there were several,
which had been produced by germs from a contaminated
can of milk; and two years later, there were
five, which were traced to water from an infected spring.
The alarming epidemics of the past, however, were not
again to be repeated, and this was due to the clearer
perception of the origin of the disease which had now
been obtained by the medical profession, and to the
skilful employment of the preventive measures suggested
by the researches of modern science. It is indicative of
the more liberal attitude of the Faculty that they were
now strongly of the conviction that the ardent cultivation
of athletics by the mass of students had brought about
a very satisfactory improvement in the condition of their
general health.

XXXVI. Religion

What was the religious condition of the University
during this period of reconstruction and reexpansion?
The predominant question in that connection which most
interested the minds of the authorities during this interval
was the acquisition of a new place of worship. Through
many years, the services continued to be conducted in
one of the former gymnasia; and occasionally the doors
of the public hall were thrown open to the worshippers.
Of the fund for the erection of a chapel which had been
collected before the war, only five hundred dollars survived
the general destruction of bank securities; this
was invested in the form of a single bond; and Dr. Cabell
was asked to take possession of it and to act as its custodian.
It was apparently not until 1872 that a canvass
began for new subscriptions, under the leadership of Rev

T. D. Witherspoon, the very energetic and devoted chaplain;
but it was not until June, 1884, that the amount
which had been received was sufficient to justify the Faculty
in recommending a site for the building. With the
approval of the Board of Visitors, a spot was chosen near
a water-hole that had long stagnated not far from the
northern end of West Range.

Rev. Otis A. Glazebrook was now the chaplain; and
in the course of the ensuing November, he delivered an
earnest address before the Young Men's Christian Association,
in which he urged that body to appoint a committee
to cooperate with the committee of the Faculty and
the committee of the ladies of the University community
in soliciting additional funds. A mass-meeting followed
in December, at which it was announced that the sum of
fifteen thousand dollars would have to be collected by
private subscription before the project of the chapel could
be converted into a reality. Neither the Board of Visitors,
except as private citizens, nor the State in any capacity,
could legally contribute to such a purpose, although
all were aware that the chapel was to be for the
use of the different Protestant sects, through the alternate
nominations of their respective representatives.

By May, 1884,—principally through the unremitting
energy of Mr. Glazebrook,—the sum of twelve thousand
dollars had been obtained, and the three thousand
additional, which was supposed to be all that was
wanted, was generously presented by Mrs. Charles S.
Venable. The chapel not only had not been completed
by November, 1885, but, by that time, it had been demonstrated
that more than the original estimated amount
would be required to erect it. An appeal to the Young
Men's Christian Association for more active assistance
was now made by the Faculty. By the ensuing June, the

roof had been put on, but the interior parts were still to
be finished. A debt had been incurred by the committee
of professors, and until this had been taken up, they considered
it to be unwise to go on with the construction.
Small progress was recorded before March, 1888, when
the ladies of the community gave a concert in the public
hall in the hope of securing the money still needed. By
June, the building was rapidly advancing to completion,
after entailing an expense of twenty-three thousand dollars.
At one time, there was a lien of eight thousand
dollars on it; but this was finally liquidated by the gifts of
individuals and the collections of the Ladies Chapel Aid
Society. Five thousand dollars was still required,—
which was ultimately obtained by a contribution of twenty-three
hundred dollars from certain citizens, who subscribed
that sum on condition that it should be duplicated
by others, which was quickly done. In June, 1889,
the Faculty decided that it would be safe to go on with
the construction again, as there was now money enough
on hand to finish the uncompleted part of the structure,
and also to buy a suitable organ.

But it was not until June, 1890,—eighteen years after
the first contributions towards its erection had been received
by Dr. Witherspoon,—that the edifice, fully completed,
was formally turned over to the committee of the
Visitors by the president of the Ladies Chapel Aid Society.[36]
It had cost the total sum of thirty thousand dollars,
exactly double the figure of the original estimate.
Not one cent of this large amount had been drawn from
the treasury of the State or of the University, although
the building from the moment that the foundation-stone
was laid became the property of that institution and the
Commonwealth. There seems to have been a legislative

and visitorial sentiment, backed by law, adverse to spending
money on the building, but none whatever to taking
possession of it after it was constructed, an inconsistency
slightly Gilbertian in character. It was acknowledged by
all that this chapel was imperatively needed by the University
community, and it was also clearly comprehended
that its pulpit was to be occupied by a succession of clergymen
representing, not one, but practically all the Protestant
denominations. There was to be no leaning whatever
towards any one branch of sectarianism in its
use. It was the welfare of religion in its broadest aspect
that this building was to subserve; and yet during the
time that the members of the Ladies Chapel Aid Society
and the Young Men's Christian Association were, with
extraordinary devotion and energy, collecting the necessary
funds, the Board of Visitors were empowered to
assist only to the extent of designating a site on the
grounds,—an act that only called for a resolution of a
few words at an annual meeting.

Some criticism was levelled at the architectural design
of the new chapel on the ground, that like the design
of the Brooks Museum, it was not in harmony with the
style of the remaining buildings. John K. Peebles, an
architect of distinction, and an alumnus of the University
also, expressed the opinion, that, following the example
of the Fayerweather Gymnasium, it should have been
constructed of brick upon a strictly classical model; but
the Faculty, on the other hand, were so well satisfied
with the whole character of the edifice that they publicly
pronounced it to be an "ornament" to the precincts.

When the session of 1865–66 opened, the old system
of appointing in turn clergymen from the different Protestant
denominations to serve as chaplains was readopted.
The term of incumbency was still to extend over a period

of two sessions. The advantages expected to follow
from an alternating chaplainship were still the same:
it would ensure religious worship within the precincts
continuously without encouraging the spirit of sectarianism;
would limit the flock of each pastor to the mass of
the students alone; would increase the sympathy and
confidence of that flock in this pastor by placing him
on the level of the average collegian in the length of his
connection with the institution; and, finally, it would tend,
through the brevity of his term, to stimulate him to extraordinary
zeal in the prosecution of his pastoral labors.
Of the chaplains who occupied the University pulpit in
the interval between 1865 and 1895, George B. Taylor,
a Baptist, alone had formerly filled the same position.
Among the incumbents in the course of this memorable
period were John S. Lindsay, Peter Tinsley, T. D. Witherspoon,
S. A. Steele, R. J. McBryde, A. B. Woodfin,
C. R. Vaughan, J. T. Whitley, Otis A. Glazebrook,
James M. Rawlings, Collins Denny, J. L. Lancaster, J.
William Jones, A. R. Cocke, and L. C. Vass. Rev. Mr.
Vass died while in the act of delivering his first sermon
as chaplain, and with his decease, the office came to an
end.

In November, 1865,—a few weeks after the first
session to follow the war opened,—the Young Men's
Christian Association, now without any permanent lodging,
gratefully accepted the generous invitation of the
Washington Society to occupy their hall on the occasion
of its meetings. The Faculty, in 1868, permitted the
members to use a dormitory on East Lawn as their library
and reading room; but it was not until 1878 that
the association was assigned by the Board to permanent
quarters in the large apartment which had previously
been periodically occupied by the classes in modern languages.

But this settlement was merely a temporary
make-shift. The association was in need of far more
space for the full performance of its beneficent purposes.
The earliest ground which its members had for hoping
that they would ultimately obtain a separate building of
their own is found in a statement made by L. D. Wishard,
of the International Committee of the Young Men's
Christian Association of New York City. "I am confident,"
he wrote, "that at least twenty-five thousand dollars
can be secured for the building at the University of
Virginia, provided that certain conditions be complied
with in the way of guarantee that it will always be used
for the object contemplated in the constitution of the
College Young Men's Christian Association."

Mr. Wishard, accompanied by Douglas Moody, had
already visited the University, and during his sojourn
there (1886), had expressed himself as being very much
impressed with the need of an edifice of that character
within the precincts. The Board of Visitors promptly
offered the guarantee desired. Very luckily, Professor
Noah K. Davis, as we have mentioned, had been successful
in acquiring the title to the conveniently situated
ground on which the modern Madison Hall stands.
The spot was still a boggy ravine, which had come to
be known in derision as "Davis's swamp." In vain a
vigorous effort was now made to influence him to have
the land sold to the General Athletic Association, and
the money to result used in adding to the Temperance
Hall, for the benefit of the local Young Men's Christian
Association. "No," he replied, with characteristic tenacity
and precision, "there shall be no building erected
on this site until there is a fund of fifty thousand dollars
to construct it."

In March, 1890, a special edition of College Topics
was issued in the association's interest, and the need of a
large building for its use was presented in its pages with
remarkable clearness and persuasiveness. John R. Mott,
travelling secretary of the International Committee, was
visiting the University about the time that this number
was published, and he threw the weight of his powerful
advocacy on the side of the college journal's appeal for
support. A mass meeting was held,—on which occasion,
the subject of a new building was discussed in all
its bearings. It was suggested that the structure should
contain a modern gymnasium also; and that the whole
of the campus should be graded for the enjoyment of
athletic sports. The movement practically ended with
the meeting, although a respectable sum seems to have
been subscribed before adjournment. When the new
chapel was finished,—which led to the evacuation of one
of the Rotunda's front wings by the University congregation,
—the Board of Visitors permitted the association
to take possession of that apartment.

The work of this body continued to be limited to the
two provinces which it had so faithfully and so successfully
occupied anterior to the war. This work consisted,
first, of supporting Sunday Schools within the precincts
for the teaching of the white and black children
alike, and of holding a prayer-meeting on every Wednesday
afternoon for the benefit of the students domiciled in
each division of the University, and also on Sunday for
the benefit of the entire mass in college. Under the
auspices of the same body, Bible lessons of extraordinary
interest were given by Professors Minor and Davis.
The work of the association consisted, secondly, of instructing
the illiterate population of the contiguous regions

in the simplest principles of the Christian religion.
Small modern school-houses had been built for the purpose
at Cedar Grove, Ridge View, and New Hope, situated
in the country; and at least two of these primitive
structures stood four miles away from the University,
and one even as far off as six miles. The recitations
began at eleven o'clock in the morning. The first to
arrive in winter, whether teacher or pupil, was expected
to kindle the fire. The furniture of the room consisted
of one stove, one table, three rows of benches, and a
rude pulpit. The singing of hymns was an indispensable
part of the religious exercises. The pupils were
distributed among six classes for religious instruction.
One of these was composed entirely of men and women,
since adults were encouraged to attend. Two of the
classes were made up of small children alone. The remaining
three were recruited from young people of both
sexes.

The association began the session of 1865–66 with
a membership of eighty-eight, which number, by the close
of the following year, had expanded to one hundred and
fifty. With the decline in the enrollment of students
in the different schools which became observable after
1872, this membership, as was to be expected, shrank
very perceptibly, but it started to swell again just as soon
as the annual list of matriculates gave the first sign of
growing in length. Throughout the Seventh Period,
1865–95, the number of Episcopalians, whether in actual
communion with that denomination, or in sympathy
with its doctrines, preponderated over those who were
affiliated with the other sects. The following table pertinent
to three sessions chosen from different sections
of the same period will show the proportions at those
times:

Number of Communicants

               

	1869–70	1871–2	1876–7
Episcopalian	38	41	54
Presbyterian	33	34	26
Baptist	14	20	14
Methodist	19	13	18
Disciples	5	3	6
Catholic	2	5	13
Lutheran	2	2	2

During the session of 1880–81, there were one hundred
and twenty-nine students in active communion with
the Protestant Episcopal denomination; ninety-one, with
the Presbyterian; forty-three, with the Methodist; thirty-eight,
with the Baptist; ten with the Christian; seven
with the Catholic; and three with the Lutheran. During
the session of 1891–2, forty-eight per cent of the matriculates
were united with the Protestant Episcopal
church, and twenty-three with the Presbyterian. The
remainder were divided into smaller circles between the
other sects. The proportion of those who, throughout
the Seventh Period, 1865–95, were zealously associated
with some denomination, was at least one-fourth, and,
during some years, as much as one-third or even more,
of all the matriculates enrolled.

The spirit of tolerance which prevailed made a lasting
impression on more than one intelligent observer.
Writing at the end of the Seventh Period, the Rev. A.
R. Cocke, the chaplain, said, "The religious life at the
University of Virginia is of the most catholic type. The
Faculty embraces men who are leading forces in all the
principal denominations. Their names in their respective
churches are synonyms of devotion, joined with the
highest manhood and keenest intellect. In my extensive
acquaintance with the colleges and universities of the
country, I have never seen instructors more deeply interested

in the moral and religious welfare of their students.
There is no denominational narrowness. The
same catholic spirit, mingled with deep earnestness, pervades
the student body. They work together throughout
the session without asking denominational names. The
University throws every possible religious influence
around the students, and if they go astray, it is despite
innumerable restraints."

XXXVII. Buildings and Water Works

Before the session of 1865–66 began, the Faculty, in
their grave uncertainty about the future of the University,
and in their very natural anxiety, in consequence,
to place every branch of its affairs upon the most economical
footing, counseled the Board to put upon the back
of one person the previously divided duties of the officers
of proctor and superintendent of buildings and
grounds. They also recommended that a general plan
for the further improvement of the physical side of the institution
should be procured from a competent architect,
to be carried into effect just so soon as there was
sufficient funds on hand for the employment of an expert
to overlook the course of the alterations and additions.
But these suggestions apparently were not received
by the Board with favor, for, during the next
month, the Faculty proposed that the duties of the superintendent
of grounds and buildings should be taken
over by themselves. They advised that Holmes should
be put in charge of East Lawn and East Range; Schele,
of West Lawn and West Range; McGuffey, of the parsonage,
Dawson's Row, and Monroe Hill; the professor
of mathematics, yet to be elected, of all open ground
lying east of the Lawn; Howard, of all lying west;
Minor, of the cleared land situated some distance beyond

the precincts; Smith, of the woodland; Gildersleeve,
of the Rotunda and Annex; Davis, of the waterworks;
and Cabell, of the footways and flowerbeds along the
Lawn. This proposal, which was marked by some conspicuous
merits, was also rejected,—probably because
the Board were convinced that the Faculty were already
overburdened with tasks.

In June, 1867, the Visitors ratified a contract which the
executive committee had entered into for the purchase of
Carr's Hill, now deemed indispensable to the University's
purposes. Payment for this valuable ground was made
in part by a series of five notes for two thousand dollars
each, which were secured by a deed of trust. John E.
Johnson, then serving as proctor and superintendent, was
succeeded, on his resignation in December, 1867, by Major
Green Peyton, an accomplished engineer and skilful
financier, who was to prove to be the most useful incumbent
that ever held the two offices together. The duties
of proctor were, down to the session of 1891–92, still
joined to those of superintendent of grounds and buildings.
Displaced by the Readjuster party, during the sessions
of 1882–85,[37] Peyton was restored in 1885–86, and
continued to perform the combined work of proctor and
superintendent, during the next five years, at the end of
which time, Adjunct Professor W. H. Echols, of the
School of Applied Mathematics, was appointed (1891–
92) to fill the superintendency of grounds and buildings,
now divorced from the proctorship. In April, 1892,
the value of the University's material equipment was
thought to approximate one million and a half dollars.
The area in open lands was about seven hundred and
fifty acres, which was assessed, in 1895, at $9,465.75.
The principal buildings that had been added, in the

course of the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, were the natural
history museum, chemical laboratory, medical building,
astronomical observatory, Fayerweather gymnasium,
the new hospital, and the University chapel. The
Randall hall was erected subsequently.

The most interesting subordinate of the superintendent
of grounds and buildings, during these years, was Henry
Martin, one of the successors of Martin Tracy. Henry
was sprung from a family which had always occupied the
status of slaves. He was equally remarkable in appearance
and in character. His complexion was that of a
light mulatto somewhat freckled, with flaxon eyebrows,
and hair only a shade darker in tint. The features of his
face,—especially the very high cheek bones,—were distinctly
remindful of the Indian; but the color of the
eye was grayish blue, and the shape of the head was
foreign to the African. He always wore a moustache and
goatee, which further differentiated him from the negro
race; and the departure was accentuated still more by
a bearing of unaffected dignity, and by manners at once
simple and polished. His figure was tall and commanding,
though somewhat awkward; and when he walked, he
bore himself with conspicuous erectness. He was never
idle. In observing his appearance and watching his movements,
the impression could not be avoided that he was
sprung from a mother with an infusion of white, negro,
and Indian blood, and from a father of respectable grade
of Caucasian mentality and social culture.

In his humble way, Henry Martin was no incongruous
appendage of that stately and imposing Faculty, who,
during these memorable years, raised the reputation of
the University of Virginia to the loftiest point which it
has reached as yet. Many a student who was present
during this period has forgotten the faces and figures of

most of the professors, or recall them only through a
mist, but it is quite probable that time has not effaced
the image of this remarkable half-breed from the memory
of a single surviving alumnus of those times. He never
forgot the face of a former student. He was always
successful in the performance of his duties. This was the
result of his never failing to act with clear good sense
in his relation with the young men. "He was always self-respecting,
straight-forward, candid, and frank," says
Dr. Culbreth, who has drawn a very just and sympathetic
portrait of him. "The students, in a spirit of
mischief, would sometimes endeavor to draw him into
an expression of preference for a particular professor.
But he was too shrewd to be caught in their net. 'No,'
he would reply, with his customary deference and politeness,
'they are all fine gentlemen'." "He knew his
part in life," again remarks Dr. Culbreth, "and played
it well. He knew that he was neither professor nor
student, nor white man. He strictly attended to his
own business. I never recall the bell ringing out of
time."

As soon as Henry Martin became too infirm from
advancing years to perform, with his accustomed fidelity,
the duties of janitor, he received a pension; and when
he died, his departure from life was commemorated in
regretful verse by the University magazine, and his
funeral was dignified by the presence of many of the
professors and students, who desired to pay a public
tribute to the intelligence, firmness and diligence, with
which he had performed the humble but useful rôle that
had been assigned him by destiny.

The bell which Henry Martin had rung, with the
most exact punctuality, during so many years, began, in
1886, to exhibit so many signs of disintegration that

the Board of Visitors concluded either to sell it or to
exchange it for a new one. As it had been associated
with the University from the beginning, it was very
fortunately looked upon by the ladies of the community
as a sacred object which should not be allowed to be
carried away from the precincts as if it were so much
worthless junk. At a single meeting, held in March 6,
1887, they collected the sum needed to purchase it.
Their purpose was to have the metal composing it recast
into a bell which should be suspended in the tower of
the chapel. "It is to be called the 'Ladies' bell,' "Professor
Smith wrote B. Johnson Barbour on the following
day, "and it will continue to summon us to prayers
as it has done for fifty years." This pious expectation,
however, does not seem to have been fulfilled,—in 1891,
it was bought from the ladies by Professors Tuttle, Stone,
and Towles, and having been generously presented by
them to the University, it found an asylum at last under
the roof of the Brooks Museum.

During the Seventh Period, 1865–95, there were additions
of high artistic value to the collections of the
institution. Among these, the most impressive was the
statue of Jefferson from the chisel of the young Virginian,
Alexander Galt. The General Assembly had appropriated
ten thousand dollars for the execution of the
commission. The sculptor, before setting out for Florence,
where the work was to be done, obtained copies
of the different portraits of Jefferson, strolled about
Monticello and the University of Virginia to get a
vividly accurate conception of the statesman's surroundings
in life, conversed with his nearest surviving kinsmen,
and was so fortunate as to receive as a gift a suit of
his clothes. The statue which resulted was pronounced
by those who had seen Jefferson,—men like William

Wertenbaker and Thomas Jefferson Randolph,—to be
the most faithful effigy of his person in existence. Although
completed before war was precipitated, it was
not delivered into the University's possession until after
its close. In the meanwhile, the sculptor,—who had
served the cause of the Confederacy by drafting plats for
the military engineers, and preserving the likenesses of
Confederate leaders in portraits and busts,—had died
suddenly of small-pox while visiting the headquarters of
General Jackson in 1862.

The demand for the enlargement of the University
water-works arose almost on the threshold of the Seventh
Period, 1865–95. There had been constant apprehension
lest the insidious damage already inflicted on the
Rotunda and library by the leaking tanks on the dome
should end in a sudden and sweeping catastrophe to the
building and its contents. How could these dangerous
and uncouth receptacles be made unnecessary? It was
only by means of an abundant supply of water drawn
from a high altitude that they could be conveniently and
permanently dispensed with. In June, 1867, the future
proctor, Major Green Peyton, whose professional knowledge
as an expert engineer was now of extraordinary value
to the University, was employed to draw up an estimate of
the cost of constructing a dam in the stream on Observatory
Mountain at the greatest height practicable.
To this dam it was proposed to extend the existing main.
The rector was empowered to borrow ten thousand dollars
to defray the probable expense of the undertaking;
and this sum was subsequently added to. In December
of the same year, there was a conference with the
authorities of Charlottesville for the purpose of enlisting
their cooperation. By the spring of 1869, the new
works had been completed. An abundant supply of

water for the present was thus acquired, and the need
of the steam-engine which forced a stream into the tanks
was presumed to be terminated. The tanks, however,
not only remained untouched, but also in actual use as late
as 1884.

By 1880, the new supply had begun to give signs of
failure during Summer, and the proctor, in consequence,
was instructed to enlarge the reservoir. In anticipation
that a drought might cause the flow through the main
pipe to stop altogether, the cisterns, which had apparently
been closed and abandoned, were cleared out from
top to bottom and carefully repaired, and the conduits to
the roofs of the pavilions and dormitories opened up
fully again. So alarming became the condition of the
water supply in spite of this precaution, that the General
Assembly was compelled to make a large appropriation
for its improvement. An equally large sum was
granted at the same time for further modernizing the
drainage and sewerage of the precincts. In April, 1884,
forty thousand dollars of these two amounts combined
was deposited in the Bank of Charlottesville, to be paid
out as those important alterations advanced towards
completion

The need of cooperation between the town and the
University in erecting new water-works, to ensure a
permanent and adequate supply for both communities,
had become so pressing by 1885 that the authorities of
the two corporations, as authorized by Act of Assembly
of March, 1884, agreed to unite their resources. It
was estimated that the cost of the undertaking would fall
little short of ninety thousand dollars, of which imposing
sum the University was to contribute not less than fifteen
thousand. In return for the payment of this proportion
of the outlay, it was to be entitled to all the water

which could be drawn through a pipe of a size to be
agreed upon, which should distribute the diverted stream
through its grounds. The main conduit, which was to
run from the reservoir to the city, was to be ten inches in
diameter; and it was this great pipe that the smaller
University pipe was to tap. The current was to be
controlled altogether by the force of gravity.

During the years that succeeded the completion of the
work, the population of the town continued to augment.
With the ever rising demand for water at the urban end
of the line, the pressure on the contents of the University
pipe diminished, and the supply in consequence
fell below what was needed by the smaller community.
This led to the drafting of a new contract in January,
1892, by the provisions of which the University was empowered
to lay down a new pipe all the way to the reservoir,
without any connection whatever with the town
main. This new conduit was six inches in diameter, and
its construction entailed an expense of nearly seventeen
thousand dollars. A deficiency having again occurred
in 1896, the town put in a steam pump to force the
water from Reservoir Creek into its ten-inch main. The
University shared in this expense, and, as a compensation,
obtained a proportionate increase in the supply
for its own pipe.

In 1886, a fire broke out in pavilion 1, and but for
the town engines' promptness in responding to an urgent
call, that building probably would have burned down,
and the flames from it been spread to the Rotunda, by
way of the west front wing. The warning conveyed by
this suppressed conflagration suggested the purchase of
hose, reels, and extra piping, and the organization of a
fire company made up of the residents of the University
and its immediate neighborhood. Fire plugs were now

placed in the shadow of every large edifice on the grounds.
All these precautions led the Faculty to say, in their report
for the session of 1886–87, that "the present condition
of affairs assures a reasonable sense of security
against damage by fire "; but this feeling of comparative
immunity was shaken, in the following year, by the
discovery that the pressure in the water pipe would not
be sufficient, in case of a conflagration, large or small,
to drive even a stream of moderate volume to the roof
of the Rotunda. Indeed, it was now disclosed that some
of the plugs would, for the same reason, prove to be
unserviceable should they be suddenly tested in an emergency.
In order to have at hand the means of quenching
a fire at its birth, the Faculty recommended the purchase
of numerous extinguishers, with a capacity to throw
a jet of carbonic acid water a distance of at least fifty
feet. They also suggested that permission should be
obtained from the municipality of Charlottesville to insert
a water gate in the town main, for this would enable
the University fire company to divert the whole
supply, if necessary, to the hoses turned upon a burning
pavilion, dormitory, or lecture-hall. And it was largely
to put this company in a better position to fight a conflagration
that the right, already referred to, was acquired
to lay down an independent pipe line for the institution's
exclusive use. It will be perceived from these
different measures that both the Board and the Faculty
were always nervously apprehensive of the occurrence of
a fire; and that they revealed no disposition to neglect
the adoption of every available means of extinguishing
it, in case it should break out at any hour.

Gas had been satisfactorily used as an illuminant within
the precincts, during many years, when in March, 1888,
a committee was appointed by the Board of Visitors to

consider the expediency of introducing electrical lighting,
and as this report was in the affirmative, the authority
was, in the ensuing July, granted to a company of
local capitalists to erect the necessary wires within the
circle of the grounds. It was not until the session of
1900–1901 that an appropriation of ten thousand dollars
by the General Assembly enabled the University to
build an electric plant of its own.

XXXVIII. Administrative Officers

Socrates Maupin, who had been appointed for the
first time chairman of the Faculty in 1854, remained in
this office without interruption until 1870, when he was
killed on the occasion of an accident to the carriage in
which he was driving. His successor was Charles S.
Venable, who was the incumbent during the three sessions
terminating with 1872–73, and afterwards during
the two sessions closing with 1887–88. Professor
Harrison, of the School of Medicine, performed the
duties of the position during the interval that began
with 1873 and ended with 1886. Venable was followed
at the close of his last incumbency by William M. Thornton,
who was chairman during the period that extended
from 1888 to 1896 inclusive.[38] Paul B. Barringer succeeded
Thornton in 1896, and occupied the office during
seven sessions. James M. Page was appointed in 1903,
and, in 1904, retired on the establishment of the presidency.

The Board of Visitors, during the Seventh Period,
1865–95, could not count among its numerous members
as many figures of varied distinction as it had done before
the passing of the old system in consequence of the
failure of the Confederacy. During the first two years

that followed that failure, there was a politic disposition
to choose men whose sympathies were not antagonistic
to the spirit of the new course of events. Such
were Alexander Rives and Robert W. Hughes, both of
whom were in time to accept high judicial office from
a Republican administration. Samuel Lewis, of Rockingham
county, was of the same political complexion.
By 1870, the appointment had again come to be restricted
to men thoroughly representative of the dominant sentiment
of the Southern communities to which they belonged.
Such were Thomas L. Preston, a former rector
and a noble exemplar in manners, appearance, and character
of Virginia in its social prime; Richard H. Baker,
of Norfolk, a lawyer of conspicuous professional learning
and broad literary culture; Thomas Smith, son of the
sturdy war governor of that name, and himself a man
of uncommon vigor of character, and afterwards a Federal
judge of distinction; Macajah Woods, long one of
the most competent prosecuting attorneys in the State;
Isaac H. Carrington, provost-marshal during the Confederacy
and a lawyer of great ability afterwards; Alexander
H. H. Stuart, whose fame was national; Holmes
Conrad, destined to become solicitor-general of the
United States; John Goode, Jr., during many years an
eloquent and influential member of Congress, and subsequently
president of the last constitutional convention
of Virginia; John L. Marye, lieutenant-governor of the
State; Thomas S. Bocock, Speaker of the Confederate
Congress; W. H. Payne, a brilliant cavalry officer during
the war, and a lawyer of reputation afterwards;
Edward C. Venable, member of Congress; W. Gordon
McCabe, the foremost headmaster of Virginia in his
prime; Mason Gordon, son of General William Fitzhugh
Gordon, and the inheritor of a large share of his
father's talents and of all his genial qualities; Joseph
Bryan, a citizen of extraordinary influence in more than
one walk in life; Camm Patteson, a political war-horse
in the days when the term signified a disinterested devotion
to the public service; Basil B. Gordon, cut off by a
premature death from the full fruition of a political career
that had proved successful in spite of serious
physical handicaps; Armistead C. Gordon, a lawyer of
distinction, who, in the midst of professional engagements,
had snatched the opportunity to write volumes of
biography, fiction, and verse of a high order of merit;
John S. Wise, brilliant and erratic, a lawyer, politician,
and author of remarkable powers; William Lamb, a
brave Confederate soldier, who had won an enduring
name as the defender of Fort Fisher; W. C. N. Randolph,
a great-grandson of Jefferson, and a physician of excellent
standing; William H. Bolling, a descendant of Pocahontas
and a respected county magistrate; Thomas S.
Martin, a senator of the United States; and John Paul,
afterwards a judge on the Federal bench.

At least three of the Visitors mentioned in this discursive
list,—Wise, Paul, and Lamb,—were members
of the Readjuster Party, which was looked upon with
keen disfavor by the conservative section of the Commonwealth.
They had been appointed, along with five
others of obscure antecedents, by a Readjuster Governor
in May, 1882. This radical Board, with several
changes, remained in office until the termination of the
session of 1885–86. It was clearly understood that it
was selected largely for a particular purpose: the removal
of certain officers of the University, who were
obnoxious to the new party. Major Green Peyton, a
gallant soldier, an outspoken man, and a most faithful
and competent official, was known to have been marked

off for the visitorial guillotine; and the decapitating blade
was not long in falling. Several of his fellow officials
were dropped along with himself to make room for
partisan satellites.

After this work of indiscriminate pruning had been
completed under the influence of sordid politics, in general,
and at the special dictation, it was said at the time,
of two aggressive Readjusters, who were pulling the secret
strings from the outside, this revolutionary Board
seems to have acted conscientiously and sensibly in the
discharge of their duties. This was acknowledged by
the Faculty,—although still smarting under the sting inflicted
by the unjustifiable knifing of tried officers of the
institution. "They are laboring earnestly for us," said
Professor Stephen O. Southall, "and it is only by their
favor that we hope for favor from their political associates."
Fortunately for the prosperity and the reputation
of the University,—which had suffered a severe
wrench by being dragged into the theatre of rank partisanship,
—a thoroughly conservative and representative
body of Virginians succeeded, at the end of a few years,
this promiscuous and distinctly hybrid board. During the
latter's existence, the Readjusters had furnished three of
the ten incumbents of the rectorship during the Seventh
Period, 1865–95. These three were Lamb, Elliot and
W. R. Ruffin. The eight additional ones were Alexander
Rives, 1865–66; B. Johnson Barbour, 1866–72; R.
G. H. Kean, 1872–75; A. H. H. Stuart, 1875–
1882; J. L. Marye, 1887–89; and W. C. N. Randolph,
1889–95.[39]

The most interesting because the most accomplished
and the most many-sided of all these distinguished men

was B. Johnson Barbour. When, in 1870, he, with some
feeling, intimated his intention of resigning the rectorship,
Professor Venable hastened to write to him as
follows: "You have been able, in these trying five
years, to do an amount of good for Virginia which it
has fallen to the lot of few of her sons to accomplish,
and you have been sustained by sound public opinion in
the Faculty and in the State. I say, 'sustained,' but
you have been more than sustained, for what has been
done has been applauded in every quarter."

There was reason, at this time, to suspect that some
plan was on foot to shift the government of the University
almost entirely to the hands of the Faculty. The
most energetic advocate of this revolutionary change
was Professor Minor. We have, in our first volume,
quoted the opinion which he once expressed that a mistake
had been made in the original organization of the
institution in not placing that body on the same platform
of authority as the Board of Visitors. "The new
holds of power which Professor Minor has been constantly
taking for himself and colleagues," Venable
wrote Barbour in February, 1870, "have been mainly
possible by the want of permanence in the rector's office.
I have known something of the internal affairs and regulations
of the University of Virginia since 1857, and I
know that there is now a stronger body of professors,—
devoted unselfishly to promote its interests, who do not
partake of this clamor against the Visitors, and who
are anxious to work shoulder to shoulder with them in
the common cause,—than at any time in the period
from 1857 to 1870. I do not believe that there are
more than three professors who have any heart in this
scheme of Minor's." Barbour, upheld by so strong and
determined an arm, refused to abridge, either actively

or passively, the power which had been vested in him
and his associates of the Board.

But his relations with the members of the Faculty
were not confined to points of dry or controversial official
business. He wrote learned and delightful letters to
Professor Peters on the genius or the syntax of such
classics as Horace, Sallust, and Plautus. With Holmes,
he corresponded, with the most delicate critical acumen,
on the spirit and structure of the poems of Dryden and
Pope; and with Mallet and Smith, exchanged opinions
touching the most abstruse phases of the scientific subjects
in which they were so deeply versed. Major Green
Peyton, engineer by profession though he was, and financier
by long training, was perfectly able to break a lance
with him as to the true significance of some quotation
from the great English authors, which Barbour had submitted
for an interpretation. They debated upon
Lamb, and Wordsworth, and DeQuincey. Peyton criticized,
with vigorous contempt, the modern custom of expurgating
the text of the masters. "Why not," he
wrote, "publish a clever man's whole works, if not utterly
indecent; and what constitutes indecency when we
publish Fielding, Smollett, and Shakspere, Swift, and
Sterne, and the rest of them? I don't thank anybody for
withholding anything."

XXXIX. Alumni Chapters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XL. Distinguished Alumni

During the short interval between the session of 1865–
66 and the session of 1870–71, no graduate of the School
of Medicine of the University of Virginia seems to have
been enrolled in the medical corps of the United States
Army. Five entered in the course of 1875. Between
1875 and 1894, twenty-eight at least were admitted, of
whom eleven obtained the rank of either first or second
in merit in the examinations. Twelve applicants were
rejected,—two on account of physical infirmities; the remainder
for defects of general education alone. It was
estimated that, in 1894, about ten per cent of the surgeons
on the active list of the Army were graduates of
the University of Virginia. As to the Navy, it was
stated, in 1873, by a member of the Naval Examining
Board that the records of this branch brought out the
fact that, during the preceding twenty years, not a single
graduate of that institution who had submitted to the
tests of admission had failed to be successful. This remarkable
upshot could be claimed for the candidates of
no other seat of learning. It is true that the number
coming forward was large, as so few of the young physicians,
fresh from their professional course, had, during
these impoverished times in the South, the means of
support while waiting for general practice in their native
communities,

The tests of admission to both the military and the
naval services steadily grew more stringent. This began
to be observable as early as 1875. Hitherto, a purely
theoretical knowledge of medicine and surgery alone was
indispensable; but, afterwards, practical information acquired
in hospitals came to be considered as of equal
weight in judging the competency of a candidate. In
consequence of this broadening in the requirements, the
graduates of the University of Virginia, after the completion
of their medical studies in that institution, entered
the hospitals of New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore,
and there obtained the clinical experience which was now
imperatively demanded by the examining boards of the
Army and Navy.

"In one year," says E. H. Green, a surgeon in the
United States army, "there were four vacancies to be
filled on the staff of the New York Charity Hospital.
Three University of Virginia men applied. They went
in one, two, three; and the fourth place fell to one of the
other numerous competitors. After that, the faculties
of the New York city medical schools made a rule that
no outside graduate could compete for hospital positions
unless he had taken a course previously at one of the
New York medical schools. This was directed in great
measure at graduates of the University of Virginia.
Sometime after 1874, two University of Virginia graduates
failed before the naval medical examining board.
One came up again and passed. The other was socially
impossible. Since that date, there have been several
University men who have had to make a second trial.
But I am glad to say that, after one trial, they came
back again, and I know of no failure outright."

It is a fact of record, that, in 1898, there were in
the medical corps of the United States Army one hundred

and seventy-four surgeons; in the medical corps of
the Navy, one hundred and fifty-four; in the corps of the
Marine Hospital, seventy-one. The graduates of the
University of Virginia in the medical corps of the Army
numbered twenty-four or 13.5 per cent of the whole
body; in the medical corps of the Navy, twenty-four, or
15.5 per cent; in the service of the Marine Hospital,
twenty-one, or nearly 30 per cent. "Between 1870 and
1901," says Dr. J. S. Taylor, of the United States Navy,
"eighty-one graduates of the University of Virginia medical
school appeared before the Federal examining board
for medical officers. Of these, a 50.6 percentage were
successful as compared with a 26 percentage for the graduates
of other colleges. Fifteen of the thirty-three candidates
rejected were unacceptable on account of physical
deficiencies."

In 1901, 15.8 percentage of the medical officers enrolled
on the active list of the Navy were graduates of
the University of Virginia. In the interval between September
I, 1893, and July 1, 1903, only two candidates
in possession of professional diplomas from that institution
were rejected because they were personally disqualified,
and only seven because they were afflicted with serious
physical infirmities. It has been asserted that the
highest mark credited to a candidate before the medical
examining board was reached by Dr. A. S. Garnett, an
alumnus who, out of a possible 780, attained to 770.

The very remarkable success of the medical graduates
of the University of Virginia in obtaining, during the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, such a conspicuous foothold in
the Federal service has been attributed to a combination
of influences: (1) that institution sent before the national
boards the flower of its medical class, who, not enjoying
like the honor-men of the northern medical colleges,

excellent opportunities in their native communities
to acquire a lucrative practice, were satisfied to enter the
province of the National Government; (2) the average
graduate of the medical school of the University of Virginia
was indisputably superior in professional equipment
to the average graduate of other medical schools
of the country; (3) accustomed to rigid and prolonged
preparation in that institution, he did not shrink from the
additional searching study imposed by his candidacy.

The most famous graduate of the School of Medicine
of the University of Virginia, during the Seventh Period,
1865–95, was Walter Reed. He matriculated at the
age of sixteen in the academic department, but his father,
being too impoverished by the recent war to continue his
son's cultural education after the first year, Reed entered
the medical school, from which he graduated with
the professional degree by the time that he had reached
his eighteenth year. After a course of study and observation
in the public wards of Baltimore and New York,—
in which latter city, he was connected with the hospital
on Blackwell's Island,—he was admitted to the medical
corps of the Army. This was in 1875. During the ensuing
years, he was a member of numerous boards appointed
by the Surgeon-General to investigate epidemic
diseases. In June and July, 1900, in consequence of the
reputation which he had won in this capacity, he was ordered
to Cuba, where he was soon employed, with expert
assistance, in making a special study of typhoid fever,
which was then lowering the general health of the army
of occupation. A few months later, all his powers were
concentrated on the subject of yellow fever. He was now
the chairman of a commission, every member of which
had cheerfully agreed to submit his own body to experiment
in the hope of detecting the origin of the distemper;

and they were rewarded for their supremely unselfish
indifference to a terrible risk,—which cost one of their
comrades his life,—by the revelation of the fact that
the disease was transmitted from one person to another
exclusively by the bite of a particular variety of mosquito.
This was an epochal discovery in the history of
preventive medicine. "Dr. Reed," says General Wood,
"came to Cuba when one-third of my officers of the staff
had died of yellow fever, and we were discouraged about
combating the distemper. In the months when it was
worst in Havana, it was checked and driven from the
city."

It was calculated that, between the years 1793 and
1900, not less than one hundred thousand persons had
perished from this disease within the limits of that city.
In 1855, about twenty thousand had died miserably in
Norfolk alone. During one year only, 1878, an epidemic
of this fearful distemper in New Orleans had cost that
municipality the huge sum of sixteen million dollars.
The discovery announced by Reed opened a new chapter
in the history of vast regions of the tropics, for now they
could be rendered immune by the destruction of the communicating
pest. He was enthusiastically acclaimed
throughout the scientific world, on all continents, as the
peer of Jenner, Long, and Lister, the inspired physician
who had done as much as any one of these noble benefactors
to diminish the suffering of the human race, which
had hitherto seemed unescapable. Taking his cue from
this great forerunner, Dr. Henry R. Carter, a graduate
of the medical school in 1870, who occupied the positior.
of chief of General Gorgas's sanitary department at
Panama, exterminated the germ of yellow fever on the
Isthmus. It was directly through his scientific knowledge,
skilfully applied, that the construction of the most

splendid monument of engineering on the face of the
globe, the consummation of the greatest engineering feat
in all history, was made as practicable as the building of
the Erie Canal.

The graduates of the School of Medicine during the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, were dispersed throughout the
United States, and many of them won distinction in
their professional careers, or as instructors in colleges of
high standing, that reflected honor upon their training
in the medical lecture-rooms of the University. Bernard
Wolff, of Atlanta, Hugh H. Young, of Baltimore, J. Herbert
Claiborne, of New York, and W. H. Wilmer of
Washington, and others of equal accomplishments, have
taken rank with the foremost practitioners in America.

XLI. Distinguished Alumni, Continued

Of the one hundred and fifty men who occupied seats
on the bench of Virginia in 1870, forty were graduates
of the School of Law at the University,—at least eighteen
members of the upper judiciary of the State had
won their diplomas in the departments of that school.
In the Supreme Court of the commonwealth at this
time, several of its graduates were interpreting the law.
In 1894, there were eighty-one judgeships in Virginia,
and twenty-five of them were filled by alumni of the University
of Virginia. Eleven of the eighteen corporation
judges were graduates of its different schools; so also
were ten of the judges who occupied seats on the circuit
bench, and five of those who sat in the Court of Appeals.
One alumnus held the commission of a Federal circuit
judge.

An examination of the list of judges and attorneys belonging
to the other Southern States will show for this
period an equally extraordinary number of graduates of

the same institution. They were to be found in the
Supreme Courts of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina,
and Tennessee. Seven of the judges of Florida, in 1897,
were alumni; and so were many of the most distinguished
attorneys at its bar. The same fact was to be observed
in Texas,—not only was one of the justices of its Supreme
Court a graduate, but there was not a bar of importance
in that commonwealth which did not number
alumni of the University of Virginia on its rolls. This
was equally true of Missouri, where this institution was
represented at one time by at least fifty members of the
bar and judges on the bench. And in a modified degree,
it was also true of California and Colorado, and other
States in the Far West.

Between 1866 and 1895, the University of Virginia
was represented in Washington by many of its alumni.
In the Fifty-second Congress, that institution could point
to three graduates in the Senate, Daniel, Hunton, and
Irby, and to thirteen among the members of the Lower
House; in the Fifty-third, to three senators, and thirteen
representatives; in the Fifty-fourth, to four senators and
eight representatives; in the Fifty-fifth, to six senators
and fifteen representatives. The proportion of members
that could be claimed by the principal colleges of the
country was recorded as follows: Harvard, one of every
twenty-two; University of Virginia, one of every twenty-nine;
Yale, one of every forty; Princeton, one of every
eighty-eight. The governors of Virginia who were
alumni of the Seventh Period were Swanson, Montague,
Stuart, and Davis. Senators Martin and Daniel also
graduated at the University after 1865; and so did Senators
John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, Irby, of South
Carolina, Faulkner, of West Virginia, Joseph E. Bailey
and Culberson, of Texas, and Oscar W. Underwood, of

Alabama. Of the men who served as ministers or ambassadors
in the diplomatic corps of the United States, there
belonged to the roll of alumni of the Seventh Period,
Charles P. Bryan, accredited in turn to Brazil, Portugal,
Belgium and Japan; Robert S. McCormick, to Austria-Hungary,
and subsequently to Russia; and Thomas Nelson
Page, to Italy. One alumnus of the same period,
Woodrow Wilson, was elected President of the United
States.[40] Perhaps, the most accomplished of all the Assistant
Secretaries of State was also an alumnus of this
period, John Bassett Moore, the foremost American authority
on international law.

In 1886, a contributor to the Virginia University Magazine
asserted with some feeling, "It is hardly to be expected
that many great literary names should be found
among the alumni of an institution whose honors and rewards
rather withdraw the student from, than attract
him to, his own language. He goes out to the world familiar
with Homer, Virgil, Horace and Plato, but knows
but little about the great body of English letters."
These words sound like an echo of the strictures by Professor
Lomax, or Professor George Tucker, half a century

earlier. In reality, there was as much reason at this
time, as during the preceding periods, to criticize the
University of Virginia for its failure to produce even a respectable
number of literary men of distinction. Indeed,
the Seventh Period could not offer a single author who had
won one-tenth of the fame which irradiated the name of
Edgar Allan Poe; and it is doubtful also whether there
was one to whom, with accuracy, could be attributed a
higher degree of literary merit than could be claimed for
John R. Thompson.

As a matter of fact, the circumstances that usually encourage
a literary career were perceptibly fewer in the
Southern States after the war than before it. There was
no publisher, for instance, with ample capital, in that part
of the Union, to furnish printing facilities to authors who
were able to voice the local genius of its people. Moreover,
there would have been a very limited number of
readers to encourage such writers, even if they had been
able to secure such a publisher. But above all, the pecuniary
resources of the community were so impoverished by
the war that the possessors of talent, however strong their
literary bent, were constrained to give up their time to the
uninspiring task of earning a livelihood in some other
province. In all the countries where the literary spirit
has flourished, it is talent rather than genius that has done
the bulk of the work which has formed the solid basis of
the contemporary literary reputation of those countries.
There was no independent field for such talent in the
South, and its people, during these years of reconstruction,
were too much out of harmony with the mind and
soul of the North to discover one in that part of the
Union. Genius, it is true, recognizes no physical boundaries
and scorns or ignores all obstacles in its perfect contentment
with its own utterances. Sidney Lanier and

Timrod smilingly looked ghastly poverty in the face from
day to day, and continued to write, happy in their own fecundity,
whether they found an audience or not. But
such poets as these have only rarely appeared in the history
of the South.

The alumni of the Seventh Period, 1865–95, who won
literary reputation, whether national or local, were men
who relied either upon law or pedagogics for their primary
support. It could not be correctly said of one of
them that he was as distinctly a man of letters as Poe
or Thompson,—a man who depended upon the industry
of his pen alone to obtain a livelihood. John S. Wise,
Armistead C. and James L. Gordon, Daniel B. Lucas,
and Thomas Nelson Page, were members of the bar,
and wrote their best volumes in the intermission of their
practice; Woodrow Wilson, William P. Trent, Henry E.
Shepherd, W. Gordon McCabe, Lyon G. Tyler, James A.
Harrison, Virginius Dabney, and Alcee Fortier followed
the teacher's vocation, and it was only during the brief
intervals of leisure that broke the current of their duties
in the class-room that they were able to gratify their taste
for research or exercise their talent for composition.[41]

While the Seventh Period, 1865–95, was hardly more
remarkable than the Fifth, 1842–61, in the distinction of
its literary alumni, yet it was not until that period that
the University of Virginia, for the first time, fully manifested
its appreciation of the genius and celebrity of the
greatest of all its authors,—Edgar Allan Poe. This
change of attitude was principally due to the influence
of Professor James A. Harrison, the editor of a standard
edition of Poe's romances and poems. It was he
who suggested that the name of the poet, with an appropriate

legend, should be inscribed above the door of the
dormitory which he had occupied; and that an alcove
in the library should be reserved for his works. At a
mass meeting of the students held on April 13, 1897,
in the Jefferson Hall, it was decided to inaugurate a campaign
for raising a permanent memorial to Poe at the
University of Virginia. The proposal that this should
take the form of a bust seems to have originated with
James W. Hunter, Jr. The order was awarded by the
Poe Memorial association to Zolnay, who completed his
artistic task in 1899. In October of that year, his very
remarkable work, which was of imposing size, with a countenance
of a life-like though extremely melancholy cast,
was presented by one of the students, and received by
Professor Barringer, the chairman of the Faculty at that
time. The occasion was celebrated with an address by
Hamilton W. Mabie, and a poem by Robert Burns Wilson.

In the ecclesiastic sphere, during this period, the University
of Virginia possessed in one denomination alone
—the Protestant Episcopal—eight representatives at
least who had risen to the most conspicuous office in their
church. These were Bishop Sessums, of Louisiana,
Bishop Reese, of Georgia, Bishop A. S. Lloyd, of the
Mission Board, Bishop Kinsolving, of Texas, Bishop Kinsolving,
of Southern Brazil, Bishop H. St. George Tucker,
of Tokyo, Bishop Funston, of Idaho, and Bishop Horner,
of Asheville. Among the journalists, John Hampden
Chamberlayne, of Virginia, and Henry W. Grady, of
Georgia, occupied a position in popular esteem of exceptional
distinction.

In 1881, the records disclose that thirty of the alumni
of the University of Virginia were the incumbents of professorships
in the academic institutions of the State; seventeen,

in its purely vocational ones, like the Agricultural
and Mechanical College at Blacksburg, Miller Manual
Labor School, Richmond Medical College, and the Union
Theological Seminary; and seventy-four, in the higher
seats of learning scattered throughout the South, from
Maryland to Texas. Many of these instructors had
graduated at the University of Virginia before the war.
During the same year, a contributor to the pages of its
magazine made the statement that, at that time, not less
than nine of the most distinguished professors in Southern
colleges had been graduates of the School of Applied
Chemistry in that institution. In 1887, John L.
Marye, the rector, averred that at least one hundred
and fifty of the alumni were occupants of chairs in the
various seats of learning situated in the South; and this
did not take in the large number of graduates who were
teaching in high schools and private academies. In
1896, the number of alumni associated with the secondary
and advanced institutions approximated two hundred
and fifty-six. The independent universities in
which they held professorships were the Johns Hopkins,
Washington and Lee, Southwestern Presbyterian, Columbia,
Tokyo, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Sewanee, Miami, Harvard,
and Princeton; the State universities, those of Missouri,
Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia,
Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Texas,
North Carolina, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

A writer in 1910,—some years after the close of the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, now under review,—thus summarized
the additions which the University of Virginia
had, down to that time, made to the roll of instructors
employed in the United States: "Beside the large number
of alumni who have served as teachers in public and
private high schools or as assistant professors, instructors,

and tutors, four hundred and eleven alumni have occupied
chairs in one hundred and fifty-one universities,
colleges, and professional schools, located in thirty-three
States and four foreign countries. Of these, one hundred
and seventy-one are now in positions. Sixty-five
have been presiding officers of fifty-one institutions located
in nineteen States. Alumni of the University of
Virginia have been chosen in ninety-nine institutions located
in sixteen Southern States (including Missouri).
Of these, one hundred and forty are at present serving in
sixty-six institutions located in fourteen States, including
nearly all the State universities, and technical schools,
and the leading private foundations of the South.
Alumni have had chairs in fifty-seven institutions located
in seventeen Northern and Western States. Of these,
thirty are now serving in eighteen institutions located
in eight States."[42]

XLII. Private Schools Tributary to the University

Whoever wishes to understand the spirit, and obtain a
correct knowledge of the training, of the young Englishmen
domiciled under the fostering wings of the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge must not be satisfied to
confine his observations to the ancient colleges of those
renowned seats of learning. It is just as imperative that
he should extend his investigation to the system of instruction,
and the social and moral atmosphere, which
prevail in the public schools of Harrow and Winchester,
Rugby and Eton. Those are the folds from which the
greater number of the youthful students on the banks of

the Isis and the Cam are annually recruited; it was there
that all learned the first practical lessons of independent
manhood; and it was there too that many laid the solid
cornerstones for the soundest scholarship and the most
varied culture.

What was true of those splendid English foundations,
—college and public schools alike,—was also, throughout
the Seventh Period, 1865–95, eminently pertinent to
the University of Virginia and its principal subsidiary
private academies. We have seen that, before the war,
very close ties existed between the University and the
high schools taught by such headmasters as Franklin
Minor and Lewis and Frederick Coleman. Direct and
loyal as that relation was, it was not quite so intimate or
so sympathetic as the one which, after the war, united
the University with a still larger number of private academies.
Emphasis has previously been laid upon the increased
esteem shown by the Southern people for college
education when they stood desolate, but not disheartened,
amid the ruins of their former civilization. There arose
at that hour a general conviction that primarily through
such training the rehabilitation of the South was to be accomplished.
Parents, as we have already pointed out,
made extraordinary sacrifices in order that their sons
might gain admission to the lecture-hall; and these sons
showed their profound appreciation of those sacrifices,
and their keen sense of the practical benefit of education,
by the intense earnestness of their application.
Many young men turned to the University of Virginia for
the means of equipping themselves, not only for the practice
of law or medicine, or engineering, but also for the
pursuit of the teacher's calling.

Never before in the history of Virginia at least was so
much talent, energy, and scholarship enlisted in the profession

of pedagogics; and to that great fact must be
attributed no small share of the success which followed
the efforts of its people to recover their old prosperity.
It was in the private schools that the largest number of
the men who designed to make teaching their business in
life found their first positions; and here a very considerable
proportion of those who had intended to become
lawyers or doctors or engineers ultimately remained,
without passing on to any of these different vocations.
The headmasters of these schools, taken as a body, were
remarkable for force of character, high principle, and
thorough scholarship; and the teachers associated with
them in a subordinate capacity, represented the best social
and intellectual training which the Virginian home
and the University of Virginia of that day was able to
impart.

During many years, the public sentiment which supported
the State system of education did not make enough
headway to curtail the prosperity of these private academies.
They continued to flourish through the long interval
between 1865 and 1895. It is no overstatement
to say that, during this period, there were no citizens of
Virginia,—not even the clergymen, or the older members
of the bar trained in the atmosphere of slave institutions,
—who exercised a more virile moral, or a more
fructifying intellectual, influence over society at large
than half a dozen headmasters whose names can be
mentioned. It is true that the impression which they
did make was made principally on the minds and hearts
of the young; but it was the recruits from the ranks of the
young,—who, year after year, were merging in the ranks
of the adults,—who formed the most dynamic force in
every community.

Among the private foundations of this period which

were employed in preparing the majority of their pupils
for the University of Virginia,—not for its lowest but
for its highest classes,—were the McGuire and Norwood
Schools, of Richmond, the McCabe School, of Petersburg,
Hanover Academy, Norfolk Academy, Pantops
School,—under the control of John R. Sampson,—St.
Albans School, Norwood School, in Nelson county, the
Kenmore School,—of which H. A. Strode was the principal,
—the Onancock Academy, under the superintendence
of F. P. Brent, the Dinwiddie School at Greenwood,
Va., the Shenandoah Academy, at Winchester, the Episcopal
High School, the Bellevue High School, the Rugby
School, in Louisville, Kentucky, the Dabney School, in
New York City, and the Horner School, in North Carolina.
Of a later date in their establishment than most of
the preceding schools were the Woodberry Forest, Locust
Dale, and Bethel Academies, in Virginia, and the Chattanooga
Academy, under the supervision of John Roy
Baylor. These private foundations do not complete the
entire list, but they were undoubtedly the most prominent
of those which followed the pilot star of the University of
Virginia. Perhaps, the most vivid way of presenting the
character and the spirit of the men who controlled the
destinies of the leading preparatory schools is to offer
a brief portrayal of four conspicuous headmasters who
seem to typify most fully all that was most admirable in
the principles of the main body.

William Gordon McCabe, the founder of the University
school at Petersburg, which bore his name, was the
grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
He shared the blood of fighting stock through a
great-grandfather, who was a gallant officer in the Revolutionary
armies, and an uncle, who, for his services as a
commodore in the war of 1812–15, was awarded a sword

of honor by the State of Virginia. His father was rector
in turn of two of the most ancient parishes in America,
—Smithfield and Hampton,—and in the midst of
the refined social influences that hovered around these
colonial churches, confirmed by the instruction received
from a teacher belonging to one of the oldest of Virginian
families, his first impressions of history, English
literature, and the ancient classics,—in which he was, until
his last hour, to find such a fountain of delight,—
were formed, and his earliest conception of what constituted
true manhood permanently fixed. It seemed to be
in the nicest harmony with these mellowed social and intellectual
surroundings that he should have passed some
months as a tutor under the roof of Westover, the most
famous colonial mansion in Virginia, and still redolent
with the vivid memories of a romantic past.

In the middle of his first session at the University of
Virginia, he shouldered a musket as a volunteer in the
march to Harper's Ferry. Almost from the first hour
of this excursion, he was a participant in the privations
and perils of camp and battlefield until the end of the
war; and his appetite for fighting was so far from being
satiated at its close, that instead of surrendering with
the soldiers of Lee at Appomattox, he set out, before that
event was consummated, with several comrades as unconquerable
as himself, to join the army of General Johnston
in North Carolina.[43] During the course of the hostilities,
he had served as adjutant of Pegram's Battalion,
and had been advanced to the rank of captain of artillery.
When he returned home, although a veteran in experience
and achievement, he was still almost a boy in years.
His intention was to become a member of the bar, and

in order to obtain the funds necessary for his preparation
for that profession he opened a school in Petersburg.
He had come back from his campaigns with but one suit
of clothes and without a dollar; and the prospect of competing
successfully with the fine academies already established
in that city, so as to assure the temporary means of
subsistence as well as the money for a legal education,
seemed to be entirely visionary; but a capacity for faith
and hopefulness which could survive the shock of Appomattox,
and conceive, with ardor, of the possibility of
victory, through Johnston's stricken army, was not to be
daunted by his own poverty, or by the presence of rivals,
or even by the dismal prophecies of thoughtful and solicitous
friends.

McCabe began with the benches of his classroom occupied
by only seventeen boys; but so deeply interested
did he become in his new pursuit that he soon determined
to follow it as his permanent business in life. "Well do
I remember," says Alexander Hamilton, one of his most
brilliant pupils during this early period, "a small, live,
wiry, active man, physically almost a boy in appearance,
full of hope, enthusiasm, mental activity, accomplishments,
and ability, with the highest ideals upon all subjects,
and with rare power to maintain discipline and
conduct his school,—the latter due, doubtless, to his experience
in the army,—a disciplinarian in the schoolroom,
yet a player on the baseball nine of his older boys;
and in and out of school, always recognizing and treating
each boy as a gentleman, and out of school, as his equal
and companion."

He ever enforced upon them, as the most reliable rudder
of conduct, the lofty principle, that "although every
man cannot become a scholar, every man at least can live
a gentleman." "He set a premium on two things," adds

the pupil already quoted, "high scholarship and high
honor. All other considerations he made secondary to
these, and of these two, honor was always first. Every
boy's word was deemed by him as good as his own. 'Be
gentlemen first, and then only be scholars, statesmen, business
men, or whatever else,' was always the motto of the
school. No boy ever attended it who did not learn,
whether his stay was long or short, that, in his master's
eye, it is honor, honor, honor, first, and last, and always,
that is worth living for; and that, without it, no life is
worth living."[44]

How extraordinarily capable McCabe was on the pedagogic
and practical side of his calling, was proven by the
national reputation which his school enjoyed; President
McCosh, of Princeton University, pronounced him to be
one of the three "best high-school instructors in the
United States"; and Gildersleeve, Peters, Price, and
other distinguished teachers of the classics testified to
the breadth and ripeness of his learning.

The career of Lancelot M. Blackford, like Colonel
McCabe's, was tuned to a high and harmonious key of
manhood, duty, and scholarship. In the graphic sketch
of his life which we owe to the reverence and loyalty that
his pupil, Profesor W. H. Echols, felt for his memory,
we detect in the character of the headmaster of the Episcopal
High School, at Alexandria, the same noble spirit
which always prompted his contemporary, McCabe, to
lay the primary stress on the subordination of the scholar's
training to the training of the gentleman. He entered

the Confederate army soon after receiving the degree
of master of arts at the University of Virginia. He
was first enrolled in the Rockbridge Artillery, which
seems to have possessed an irresistible attraction for
college graduates, if the number entered on its long roster
is to be accepted as a proof; and with this command,
he marched behind Stonewall Jackson up and down the
Valley, not infrequently traversing a distance of thirty
miles a day. "These battles," Professor Echols justly
says, "hardened, broadened, and condensed the manhood
in him. While his messmates at first were disposed to
laugh at his finicalness, preciseness, delicacy, and utter
ignorance of the most ordinary material things, they soon
grew to respect and admire him, and saw him develop into
a cool and courageous soldier, who was as religious in
the performance of his soldier's duty, at all times, as he
was in his daily prayers." These stirring experiences in
the harsh but glorious lot of a patriotic warrior gave him,
while still young in years, both a wide and a profound outlook
upon life, which afterwards enabled him to exercise a
more masterful and fruitful influence over the minds of
his pupils.

In 1870, he became the principal of the Episcopal High
School near Alexandria, and one of his first acts, in that
capacity, was to employ as his chief associate, Colonel
Liewellyn Hoxton, a pattern like himself of the stainless
soldier and gentleman. Hoxton was an honor-graduate
of the Military Academy at West Point, and had served
as chief of artillery in Hardee's corps. He brought to
the curriculum of instruction a mathematical scholarship
as ripe as the classical scholarship of Blackford. "No
words," says Professor Echols, "can express the way
these two men impressed their personalities on the several
thousand boys who came under their influence." Many

of these youths were the orphan sons of their teachers'
comrades, who had been killed in battle. Blackford, it
was said, could speak as effectively to a whole class on the
most sacred and intimate topics of personal life and conduct
as to a single boy with whom he might be conversing
in the seclusion of his private office. He had a keen admiration
for the half paternal, wholly manly, system of
supervision and instruction which had been adopted in the
famous English public schools. Passing most of his summers
in England, he rarely failed, during his stay in that
country, to visit Eton, Harrow, and especially Rugby,
whose great headmaster, Arnold, always seemed to him
to be the finest exemplar in spirit and achievement alike of
their common calling. He studied the principles which
had given those splendid foundations their far-flung reputation,
and dilated upon them, with unreserved sympathy
and approval, in his numerous addresses to his own pupils.
To him, as to the most thoughtful of the English
leaders in his profession, education was not simply a
course in scholarship,—it was also a religious course;
and last, but not far behind, an athletic course also

Like McCabe, Blackford was a loyal alumnus of the
University of Virginia; and like McCabe also, he sought
to model his school upon those fundamental principles
of Honor and Thoroughness which that institution had
always so earnestly inculcated. He held up the merits
of the Honor System, as practised there, as the highest
platform upon which a college can take its stand; and at
every examination in his own school, the pledge which the
University used confronted the eyes of his pupils in
the form of a vividly painted legend on a large board,
which all could see. In drilling these youths, his aim,
like McCabe's was to carry them so far in their studies
that they would be able, with ease, to enter the senior

classes of the University. But, as we have already said,
his purpose in instructing a boy was not confined to mere
improvement in scholarship. "He built up his school,"
says Willoughby Read, one of the masters, "by developing
that which was noblest and highest in the pupil, by
teaching him that character is the foundation of all that is
best in life,—that duty well done is its own reward,—
that knowledge is power,—that labor is worship,—that
idleness is a sin,—and that it is better to die than to lie.
He seems to have taken for his motto the speech of
Charles Dickens, 'Boys, just do all the good you can, and
don't make a fuss about it.'"

One of the principal reasons for his success in his great
calling was his unconscious employment of the personal
element. "He made of us," we are told by Professor
Echols, "one big family; all took their meals together,
—the father, the older brothers, and the boys. Above
all, he emphasized that saying which we cannot quote
too often,—Arnold of Rugby's famous wish for his boys,
—that they should be first, Christians, then gentlemen,
then scholars. By precept, and by example, he inculcated
the principles which make the highest type of man,
—the Christian gentleman. And so he ever stood before
us, a man four-square to all the winds that blow.
Through the force of example, and the power of love, this
great teacher moulded his boys' lives all to his high purposes.
He loved them with a love which their thoughtlessness
could not chill,—love that, like the love of God,
followed the erring as well as the true and faithful; and
few of the many thousands that have known him as
teacher and friend, have gone out uninspired, and none uninfluenced,
by that unchanging and Christ-like love."

Of John Peyton McGuire, headmaster of the famous
school in Richmond which bore his name, it was said by

one who had long known the man, "A teacher for forty
years, his vision was never narrowed to the four walls of
that familiar upper chamber where he taught. At sixty-five,
bald and gray, he had all the ardour of the young
missionary, all the fire of the most stalwart soldier of
the cross. Somehow, it mattered not how wild they
were, his boys understood this, and they reverenced him,
not only as master, but as friend and father. Can any
of his boys ever forget his morning prayer, and those
Friday afternoon speeches? Can anyone who listened
once, fail not to hear his clear, friendly voice, ringing
through the silence of that great schoolroom, where one
hundred and fifty awed and youthful faces were turned
to him? None could tell him a lie, none dared to discredit
the good name of the school he founded.Fides
Intacta, his motto, was the rule of his life, and the ideal of
his lads. For John Peyton McGuire was a man to whom
truth and honor were living things, the mandate of the
God he served, laws inexorable and compelling; all else
to them was insubordinate, even scholarship, even culture.
A mediaeval chronicler, writing of a teacher who
had died, concluded his tribute with these touching words:
'For the scholar also is a martyr, if he had a pure life
and labored diligently.' John Peyton McGuire was a
martyr to his work, living purely, laboring diligently, and
by his sacrifices in the teaching of boys, many a man has
been fixed in his faith."

"In all his long teaching career," another witness of
that lofty life has recorded, "he stood for high ideals,
worthy principles, noble views, and above all, a clear and
uncompromising recognition of the value and power of
a Christian life. His men, wherever they have gone,
have carried the high sense of Christian honor that he
taught them, and have in business, and in social and professional

life, exemplified the power of a Christian life
and Christian example in a teacher. In a commercial
age, and in materialistic environments, he stood steadfastly
for things spiritual and ideal in the best and highest
sense of the word. In a time when the struggle for
prosperity is almost universal, he stood for the things,
which, while they make for the development of the highest
and best in men, do not universally lead to material
prosperity, but testify steadfastly there is something far
nobler than mere material prosperity."

William R. Abbot, the headmaster of the Bellevue
High School in Bedford county, was one of that heroic
company of eight thousand battered veterans who surrendered
at Appomattox with arms still in their hands,
after having fought, until, as General Gordon said, their
ranks had been "worn to a frazzle." Professor Thornton,
at one time his assistant, has limned the following
portrait of this distinguished teacher as he appeared under
his own roof: "In person he was alert, erect, vigorous
and tall; with the courteous manners of a more polished
age softened by the geniality of a companionable
disposition; to his schoolboys, kindly, sympathetic, and
helpful at the very moment that he enforced a strict discipline
and frowned sternly upon offenses; solicitous for
the health and physical comfort of his pupils, and not
insisting so rigidly upon the claims of scholarship as to
exclude them from the amusement of the baseball and
football fields; a man of highly cultivated literary taste,
with a keen appreciation of the beauties of the ancient
classics, but equally versed in the masterpieces of modern
times; and with all this scholarship, deeply interested in
the course of contemporary affairs, in current politics, in
current history. As the clear light from the Virginian
skies streamed in through his broad library windows, so

the red glow from the burning activities of the great
world outside streamed in through his mind in the little
Bellevue world."

The deeply religious spirit of the man was the cornerstone
upon which all his other varied interests in life
securely rested. Born and reared in the fold of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, it was his custom to turn his
library into a chapel on Sunday morning; and here, at that
hour, all the pupils of the school, of every age, were required
to assemble to take a direct part in religious services,
which the principal led, and which he closed by reading
to his attentive audience a moving sermon chosen from
the works of some great ecclesiastical master. Scepticism
he denounced as "the ignoble refuge of the modern
mollycoddle, too cowardly to live like a pagan, too weak
to live like a saint."

"As I have reflected on the character of William R.
Abbot," says Professor Thornton, "it has seemed to
me that the central quality of his nature was a deep
and abiding loyalty to the things he felt to be true and
beautiful and good. In this lay his strength; in this, his
fineness; in this, the true nobleness of his soul. It made
his father's memory sacred to him, and the comfort and
happiness of his mother's old age an affectionate and
delightful care. It made him a devoted churchman, and
the doctrines of his religion the bedrock foundation of
his thought. The batteries of modern criticism could
not shake them; the explorations of modern scepticism
could not undermine them. It made him a faithful and
earnest son of his alma mater, constant in his devotion to
her ideals, generous in his contributions to her needs. It
elevated his belief in the cause of the South into a creed,
and lent to the service which she claimed of him a consecration.
It gave to the Democratic doctrine of representative

government in his mind the force of a body of
demonstrated theorems."

XLIII. Relation with Public School System

Such was the spirit, such the character of the representative
headmaster, who, during this vital period of reconstruction
and reexpansion, deeply impressed his noble
ideas as to manhood, conduct, and scholarship, upon the
minds and hearts of thousands of young men, who, afterwards,
entered the University of Virginia. He was as
directly instrumental in encouraging the vivid sense of
personal honor, and in maintaining the exacting standards
of intellectual training, which prevailed in that institution,
as the members of the Faculty themselves, who
were so profoundly interested in the preservation of both.
Without some knowledge of the principal headmasters of
this period, it would be impossible to take in fully the
extent of the fruitful and elevating influences which were
passing from the private schools to the University, and
from the University to the private schools.

Upon the province which these faithful teachers and
moral exemplars had occupied, with so much benefit to
the parent seat of learning, the public school system—
established and sustained by the Commonwealth, and extending
to persons of every social class,—began gradually
to intrude, until, in the end, the private schools were
compelled, either to shut their doors, or to modify their
scheme, if not in the sphere of their moral instruction,
at least in the sphere of their scholastic. Most of those
surviving schools which had formerly, not only trained
their pupils to be men and gentlemen, but also drilled
them thoroughly for admission into the senior classes of
the University, were ultimately satisfied to prepare for
the lower grades in that institution. The private academy,

like the University, had been constrained to yield
something of its original character through the rapid
development of the system of public education. Although
that system was adopted in Virginia as early as
July, 1869, many years elapsed before it took tenacious
root in the soil of the community. We have already
perceived how it languished during the existence of the
old plantation civilization. After the destruction of that
civilization by the arbitrament of arms, certain influences
remained which delayed, without finally preventing, the
introduction of the public schools: (i) the prejudice
against such schools, which had been inherited by the
members of the generation of Virginians upon whom
the first burden of reconstruction fell; (2) the comparative
indifference to education felt by the people at large;
(3) hostility to the suggestion that the negro, the cause
of so many calamities, should be instructed at the public
expense; (4) the costliness of building schoolhouses; and
(5) the difficulty of finding competent teachers and paying
their salaries when once obtained.

That the projected system was able, in the end, to become
a reality was attributable to the zeal, industry,
and genius of one man, W. H. Ruffner. By sheer tenacity
and unwearied repetition of the same voice crying in
the wilderness, he ultimately conveyed to the public mind
a large share of the enthusiasm which he himself felt for
public education. But long before the full fruition of
his work was perceptible, the Faculty of the University
of Virginia had the foresight to discern that it was only a
question of time when the public school would assume a
close, not to say, a commanding relation to that institution.
"Now that the State," they remarked in their
report for 1870–71, "has recognized the importance of
generally educating the masses of the people, it must admit

the necessity of regular system and graduation of instruction,
beginning at the common school and culminating
in the University; and on the other hand, it is equally
obvious that a thorough equipment and liberal endowment
of the University is also entirely essential to the
perfect success of the common school."

As the University was a State institution itself, and
founded by a man who had advocated a nicely balanced
system of public education, it was to be expected that the
policy inaugurated by Ruffner would find attentive observers,
if not actual sympathizers, among the group of
men who, at that time, controlled the affairs of that seat
of learning. Moreover, its dependence on the public
bounty probably suggested to its thoughtful authorities
the practical wisdom of identifying its interests, as far
as possible, with the cause of popular instruction. We
have seen that the admission of State students had closed
the mouths of many of its most persistent detractors,
who had been taunting it with its supposed affiliation with
the wealthy alone; and the same measure had also led to a
more liberal attitude towards it on the part of the General
Assembly. This fact had not been forgotten when the
growth of the public school system began to hold out to
the University the prospect of a still larger share of
popular favor, should it be able to couple itself efficiently
with the operation of that system,—the cherished hope,
as the Faculty knew, of Thomas Jefferson, the Father of
their own institution.

The first step taken by that body was to recommend
to the Board the establishment of eleven scholarships, to
be granted, after competitive examination, to young men
entering the University subsequent to a course of study in
the public schools. The second was to suggest the adoption
by the Visitors of the rule that the State students

should be chosen in such a manner as to connect their appointment
with the machinery of the free school system.
During the session of the General Assembly in the winter
of 1872–73, a bill was introduced which provided for the
formal admission of the University to that system; but it
failed to reach a vote, owing to the vigorous opposition
which it at once aroused.

In 1875, there was put forth a resolute effort to persuade
the Legislature to double the annual stipend of the
University. The Faculty, in urging this addition, reiterated
their conviction that this institution was the real
capstone of the public school system; and that it should
be connected with that system by formal enactment.
They recommended, as one step in this direction, that the
State superintendent of public instruction should always
serve as an ex-officio member of the Board of Visitors,—
a suggestion, which, in time, was to be adopted.

During the following year, the Faculty petitioned the
Board for authority to establish local examinations in
subjects embraced in the courses of both the common and
the high school; and in 1880, they counselled the same
body to provide, in "the regular sphere of action" of
the University, for the further training of school teachers
and of all persons who were preparing to become such.
That vocation, they said, should be placed there on the
same dignified footing as the professions of law, medicine,
and engineering. By assuming for this class of students
the character of a great normal school, the institution
would at once take its proper position at the head of the
public school system as designed in its original conception.
Already,—the Faculty pointed out,—graduates
of its different departments were discharging the duties of
teachers in the public schools. Why should not the University
concentrate on those schools a more direct influence

than it was now able to exert owing to its isolation
from the system? Economy would be subserved should
the institution be used by the State to give special instruction
to the men who wished to become public school teachers.
Why should the expense of founding a new seat of
learning for that purpose be incurred, when here was a
splendid State institution already fully equipped and organized?
It would only be necessary to establish in it,
in order to adapt it fully to normal requirements, two
full professorships,—one of pedagogy, or methods of
teaching; the other, of the English language. "We
favor the admission to this new department of women
who are already teachers, or may desire to become teachers,"
declared the Faculty, in concluding their report,—a
statement that formed the most convincing proof of how
far they were willing to go in the process of linking up
the University with the public school system.

So complete was the harmony existing between the University
and that system as early as 1880, that it won a
very favorable comment from the New England Journal
of Education. Several members of the Faculty had already
written a series of excellent text-books for the
public schools, and in order to contribute to the success
of the summer institutes, when they began to be held in
the University buildings, many of the professors cheerfully
abandoned their only opportunity of obtaining some
recreation after the confining labors of the previous term.

Again, in 1886, the Faculty appointed a committee
to pass upon the expediency of offering a course especially
suitable for the preparation of the male teachers in the
public schools; and in pursuance of its recommendation,
all these teachers, as well as the numerous superintendents,
were admitted, without payment of tuition fees, to
the academic departments during the last three months of

each session. A useful line of study in these departments
was discriminatingly laid off for their benefit. In May,
1887, a member of the Faculty was present as a representative
of the University at the annual State conference
of the county and city superintendents of the public
schools.

After the final settlement of the acrimonious controversy
over the State debt, the public school system rapidly
increased in prosperity. Its support was no longer
precarious. With this augmented stability, the summer
institutes at the University became the most important
agency to be discovered in the Commonwealth for increasing
the knowledge, and improving the skill, of the
public school teachers. Their attendance, on these occasions,
soon rose to as large a number as one thousand
persons, and even twelve hundred. Some of the most
highly trained educational experts in the whole country
were invited to deliver addresses before them. In 1894,
at the suggestion of the State superintendent, an act was
passed by the General Assembly to incorporate these institutes
with the general scheme of popular education,
and to provide a fund for their support. The University
of Virginia continued to give from year to year,
all the practical aid and moral encouragement in its power
to promote their success.

In his report, as chairman, for the session 1891–92,
Professor Thornton asked the following interesting question:
Does the University of Virginia, like the University
of Michigan, complete and crown the work that is
begun in the public school? The answer which he gave
to his own interrogatory was an emphatic negative. "A
wide gap," he asserted, "still yawns between the highest
classes of our public schools, and the lowest classes of the
State University. There are two reasons for this fact:

First, while the standard of admission required for Virginians
is nominally the same in the subjects examined
upon,—Latin, Greek, and Mathematics,—as in the best
American colleges, it is an open secret that a far higher
grade of preparation, is, to say the least, advisable. Our
best students come to us prepared at least for the intermediate
classes in these schools, and the crown of success
falls mainly to such as have already elsewhere traversed
the very field which they here survey with broader vision.
At the University of Virginia, tradition and feeling are
averse to the surrender by a professor of even the lowest
of his undergraduate work. The rawest lads contribute
to expand the energies and consume the time of our most
profound scholars. Second, for want of solidarity in
the low standard of the public schools, their highest students
must stand on tiptoe to reach up to the botton line
of the State University's demands. Our educational system
is incomplete so far as the public schools are concerned.
In Europe, there is a complete chain of schools
between the public school grade and the university grade.
They hold the position of fitting schools for the university."

It was estimated, in 1894, that there were at least
sixty high schools already in existence in Virginia, many
of which were included in the general system of public
instruction. The State superintendent at this time, Joseph
W. Southall, recommended in his report for that
year that a high school should be established in every
county as the most reliable means of articulating the common
schools with the University of Virginia. This was
the opinion of Professor Barringer also. "The high
school in each county," he said, "will give a stimulus
to every common school in the county. Boys who looked
forward to nothing more than the three years, will strive

for a high school education. For those chosen spirits
that show in the high school unusual capacity, the University
will stand ready. The University should make provision
to give every graduate of every public high school
in the State absolutely free tuition. I believe in changing
the University to get the public school, and in
changing the public school to get the University. Let
us have an organic connection throughout the entire system.
Unless the University could tap that great fountain
of national strength, the common schools, she would
fall far short of her destiny, and she has decided she
will stand by the public schools."

There was one substantial advantage which the public
school system bestowed indirectly on the University of
Virginia. Many years before the number of the latter's
students had begun to increase, that system made it impossible
for the General Assembly to pursue, as this
body had so often done before the war, a niggard policy
towards the highest seat of learning in the State.
Whether the connection between the public schools and
the University was a close one or not, the fortunes of
both were bound up together because both were dependent
upon the commonwealth. There was no longer any
real conflict, as in the earlier periods of the University's
history, between its own interests and the interests of the
schools established for the benefit of the children of the
average citizen.

When we inquire into the preparation for the University
given in the best of these public schools previous to
1895, it is found to be inferior to that given in those private
schools whose headmasters had reached such great
distinction. Not only were the teachers in the public
schools unequal in scholarship and pedagogic skill to those

who taught in the principal private academies, but, owing
to the larger size of the classes, it was more difficult for
them to meet the scholastic needs of each pupil. It is
probably no exaggeration to say that it was impossible
for the most conscientious of these teachers to satisfy the
moral needs since the bands of youth under his instruction
dispersed so soon as the recitations were completed.
On the other hand, in the private academy, a majority
of the pupils remained under the personal supervision of
the headmaster throughout the twenty-four hours; they
were brought under all the refined, and cultivated influences
of that headmaster's domestic hearth; and they
learned their most useful lessons from him, not in his
school-room, but in his dining-hall, his library, and his
drawing-room.

Had there arisen any new influence to compensate in
whole or in part for the passing of the headmaster as
represented in the consummate flower of the type? If
any compensation existed, it was to be found in that popularization
of education which the public school alone
made possible, a process that soon brought under the
teacher's eye thousands of young men and women who
would have enjoyed no advantages whatever under an exclusive
system of private academies. The opinions of
Dr. Southall and Professor Barringer demonstrate that,
before the close of the Seventh Period, 1865–1895, it was
clearly foreseen that the public high school was the
school which was destined to become the most important
tributary to the reservoir of the University; and that the
main work of men interested in advanced education in
Virginia should be to approximate the standards of that
school to the long established standards of the University,
—standards which had already found their chief support

in the scholastic and moral influences alike of the foremost
private academies as they existed before and after
the war.

XLIV. Finances

In July, 1865, John R. Woods, a member of the Board
of Visitors, submitted a report to that body, in which it
was stated that the University could only avoid ruinous
embarrassment by the financial assistance of its alumni,
the restoration of its annuity to its original proportions,
and the adoption of inflexible rules of retrenchment and
economy. Just a few weeks previous to this, the Faculty
had estimated the income for the next session, 1865–
66, at $22,000, provided that two hundred students at
least should matriculate and the State should appropriate
as formerly the sum of fifteen thousand dollars.
There was, at this time, a debt of $36,000, the interest
charge on which annually amounted to $2,166. One of
the recommendations which the Faculty now made in
order to reduce the cost of maintenance to the lowest
point, was that all horses should be dispensed with on the
grounds; and another was that but one man should be employed
in addition to the janitor. The proctor even was
to be dropped, and also the superintendent of buildings.
The duties of these officers were to fall on the backs of
the chairman and his colleagues. The income was to be
swelled by imposing a new library fee, and by increasing
the rents of the hotels and the dormitories.

It was anticipated that, by this curtailment of expenses
and augmentation of charges, the sum of $5,760 could
be saved if one hundred students should enter, and the
sum of $10,976, should double that number matriculate.
At this time, certain houses within the precincts were
occupied by the families of Captain Zimmer, Captain Colston,

Mrs. McCoy, Mrs. Matthew F. Maury, Mrs.
Charles Maury, Colonel J. L. Maury, and John Randolph
Tucker. All of these were permitted to remain.
They were paying from eight to twelve dollars a month,
an amount, which, small as it was, was considered to be of
importance at that hour of extreme impoverishment.

The notes endorsed by the professors,—which had
been negotiated to acquire a fund for repairs at the beginning
of the session of 1865–66,—were paid just as
soon as they matured. The money needed for this
liquidation had been received in the form of matriculation
fees and dormitory and house rents. The current
expenses of the first session, exclusive of the salaries,
were met by the current income for that session; and at
its end, a small surplus was even left in the treasury, a
condition announced by the Board of Visitors to be the
result of the skilful manner in which the chairman, Professor
Maupin, had discharged the duties of the proctorship.
The State had resumed the payment of the annuity,
but, in 1867, a part of this sum was expended in
the defrayment of interest on the University's indebtedness.
In June, 1867, it was expected that the income
for the session to follow would rise to $36,597; and
that the expenses would fall but little below $33,931.

The Faculty, in 1869, appointed a committee of its
own members to draft a petition to the General Assembly
in support of the University's claim to the large appropriation
of lands made to the State by Congress for
the encouragement of agricultural education; and they
also counseled the Board of Visitors to send in a second
appeal. At this moment, the financial condition of the
institution was not satisfactory. The interest accruing
on its debts,—this indebtedness amounting to $38,000,—
swallowed up so large a share of its revenues that the

Board and Faculty alike were constrained to acknowledge
that, without the aid of money falling in from the
Miller fund, many of the most important ends for which
the University had been established would have failed.
Its credit too was liable to be suspended at once, if the
course of political events in the State should take a turn
adverse to the domination of the Conservative Party.

The Faculty were now of the opinion that no expenditure
should be authorized for any object whatever unless
the means to cover it were already in the proctor's hands.
It was under the influence of these financial straits that a
committee of that body submitted a report to the Visitors,
which pointed out what, in their judgment, was the
most useful way of employing the Miller Fund; namely,
(1) to improve the facilities for instruction in the new
professorships of applied chemistry and applied mathematics;
(2) to assist needy and deserving students; and
(3) to provide salaries for the incumbents of the chairs
of applied science. We have already seen that the trustees
of the Miller fund declined to assent fully to this
disposition of the income that fell annually into their
possession; but they did afford substantial assistance in
such directions as they considered in harmony with the
ends which Mr. Miller had had in view. Thus, during
the session of 1869–70, they appropriated, in part payment
of the salary of the professor of applied chemistry,
$1,000; of the salary of the professor of applied
mathematics, $300; for the support of a scholarship,
$500; and for the defrayment of interest on certain University
bonds, $2,400,—a total sum of four thousand,
two hundred dollars. The income from the Miller fund
at this time amounted to nine thousand dollars.

Again in January, 1870, the Faculty discussed at
length the question of the best means to be employed by

the University to obtain the Congressional grant for the
support of agriculture. An influential committee,—Venable,
Peters, Mallet, and Southall,—was named to draft
a report on this subject; this report when completed
was first sent to the Board of Visitors; and afterwards
through them, was delivered to the General Assembly.
So onerous was the task of managing the financial affairs
of the institution at this time,—a task which fell in reality
on the proctor alone,—that it was finally decided to
relieve him of the serious burden of police duty. In
June, 1870, the floating debt of the University amounted
to $12,323. The bonded indebtedness now consisted of
the following specific obligations to various creditors: to
the Virginia Military Institute, $20,000[45] ; the estate of
General Philip St. George Cocke, $5,000; George W.
Spooner, $2,600; estate of Lewis M. Coleman, $2,500;
estate of Mrs. Martha Randolph, $8,500,—a total sum
of thirty-eight thousand, six hundred dollars. In June,
1871, an addition of $10,000 was made to this indebtedness
for the purchase of Carr's Hill, and $5,000 for the
increase of the water supply. The improvements to the
property on Carr's Hill imposed a further charge of $1500,
while the erection of Professor Mallet's residence
also required an outlay of $9,200.

An act of Assembly passed in March, 1871, authorized
the University to float bonds, not to exceed $30,000, for
use in paying off its current debts, amounting to $18,163,
and certain long standing obligations soon to mature.
The entire indebtedness of the institution at this time was
$82,915. The policy of the Board of Visitors was to
provide for its gradual liquidation. The strictest economical

methods newly enforced, together with the limitation
of each professor's salary to $3,000, encouraged
the proctor to think that, by 1880, he would be in a position
to take up the new issue of eight per cent. bonds
amounting to thirty thousand dollars. For the fiscal
year ending June i, 1871, the University's income from
all sources,—including an appropriation by the Miller
trustees of $8,800,—was $48,427. The expenses for
this session did not exceed thirty-eight thousand dollars.

Barely twelve months elapsed before the Faculty were
compelled to acknowledge, in their annual report, that
the University was again dragging its financial anchors.
Their first suggestion for its rescue was that the fees of
all the schools, with the exception of law, should be augmented
to the extent of five dollars; and that every hotel-keeper,
instead of depositing in the treasury a flat sum
of $400.00, should pay seven dollars and a half for each
student boarding under his roof. Their second suggestion
was that there should be specific curtailments in numerous
sources of heavy expense. By this time, the pecuniary
benefit which the University had expected to
realize under the will of Thomas Johnson, of Augusta
county, had been proved delusive.

The financial status of the institution in June, 1872,
was as follows: matured bonds of the Randolph estate,
$3,500; debt to the Coleman estate, $1,000; to the Cocke
estate, $25,000[46] ; to Charles S. Venable, $1,250; bonds
negotiated for the purchase of Carr's Hill, $2,000; bonds
of the agricultural department payable in 1888, and bearing
eight per cent. interest, $28,000; mortgage bonds,
$26,850,—a total of $87,600. The following appropriations

for the session of 1872–73 indicate the extent to
which the Miller fund contributed annually to the support
of the department of agriculture and its associate
schools: the experimental farm, $1,000; the salary of
the professor of agriculture, $2,000; scholarship, $1,000;
the salary of the professor of agricultural chemistry,
$500.00; salary of the professor of applied mathematics,
the like amount.

Again, in 1874, the Board of Visitors concluded that
it would be an advantage to the University to refund its
outstanding indebtedness; but it was not until January,
1875, that they assembled in Richmond to draft a bill,
with this end in view, to be submitted to the General Assembly.
Their object was to obtain the authority of that
body to negotiate a loan of $95,000, to be secured by a
mortgage on all the real estate belonging to the University.
A statement accompanying this bill demonstrates
that the indebtedness of the institution at this time
amounted to as large a figure as $93,400. It was only
by adopting the strictest methods of economy in all expenditures;
by cutting down the appropriations for repairs
below the point of safety; and by reducing and
equalizing the emoluments of the professors to a degree
that might have caused the most distinguished to leave,
that the Board was able to pay the current charges, to take
up the debt as it matured, and to defray the interest accruing
from time to time. "With the cheerful cooperation
of the Faculty," they declared, "we have arrested
the accumulation of further obligations, and, but for the
panic of 1873, would have been able to lay aside a sinking
fund. But the present necessities of the University
would not allow this." The General Assembly passed the
bill, which seems to have been a measure of practical wisdom,
as there were several urgent reasons for refunding

the debt: (1) owing to the excessive interest charges,
the buildings were left in a state of disrepair; and (2)
there was not surplus enough to erect a new system of
drainage, or to make additions to the collections of the
library, or to the apparatus of the scientific school.

In 1875–6, the General Assembly appropriated for the
benefit of the University the sum of $30,000, on condition
that it would impose no tuition fee in the case of the
matriculate from Virginia, provided that he was at least
eighteen years of age. This was to apply only to the
schools of the academic department. This annuity was
to be used as far as necessary in paying the bills for repairs,
and the interest upon the obligations of the institution;
and should any surplus remain, it was to be credited
to a sinking fund. At this time, June (1876), there
was a bonded debt of $86,000, and a floating one of
$10,253.09.

The sum of $9,255.35 had recently been locked up by
the failure of the Charlottesville National Bank; and it
was not expected that more than one half of this amount
would be recovered when the affairs of that bankrupt concern
should be finally liquidated. The interest charges
to be annually met out of the resources of the University
now amounted to $7,500. The income derived by it at
this time from its miscellaneous bonds was $3,000, and
the annual sum received from the Miller Fund was $4,500.
The trustees of this fund were instrumental, in
1877, in assisting the Board to negotiate a loan for the
completion of the Brooks Museum. A committee of
the Visitors had recommended that the personal property
of the institution should be mortgaged for that purpose.
The Miller trustees consented to accept these secured
notes, for which they were to settle by means of a sale of
certain Richmond city bonds held by the Miller estate.

The University was not required to pay interest on the
mortgage bonds, as the School of Agriculture was obtaining
an equivalent from the use of the museum without
charge. These bonds were to be redeemed by the
accumulation of the interest of Central Railway debentures
held by the Miller Fund.

The financial condition of the University at the end of
the fiscal year in June, 1878, was as follows: from the
State it derived an annuity of $30,000, while from the
fees of the dispensary it obtained, on the average, each
year, $1,200; from matriculation fees, about $17,270;
from interest on the newly received Corcoran fund, $3,000;
from the annual appropriation by the Miller trustees,
$3,975, and from rents, $15,320. Its current expenses,
independently of the salaries, had amounted to
$29,365; the salaries themselves, to $51,000. There
remained a surplus only in consequence of a balance
brought over from the preceding year.

In July, 1879, the Board of Visitors pronounced the
financial condition of the University to be more satisfactory
than it had been at any time during a long period.
The entire indebtedness of the institution, with the exception
of three thousand dollars, was now funded in bonds
payable at the end of thirty years. The General Assembly,
during its ensuing term (1879–80), omitted to make
the usual appropriation, and the proctor, in consequence,
was compelled to borrow the sum of $30,000 with which
to pay the different salaries; but this cloud had passed by
the end of the next fiscal year (June, 1881), for, in their
report to the Legislature for 1880–1881, the Visitors
went so far as to say that the condition of the finances
at that time was full of encouragement, and that, by
the exercise of economy, there was even ground for hoping
that the debt of the University would be liquidated

within a measurable time. Definite steps were now taken
that apparently gave substance to this expectation,—the
proctor was able to cancel the following obligations: the
Randolph bonds, $7,500; the Cocke, $25,000; the
Spooner, $2,600; the Coleman, $2,500; the Venable, $1,250;
the lien on the Carr's Hill property, amounting to
$10,000; certain first mortgage bonds, amounting to $30,000;
and certain second mortgage bonds, amounting to
thirty thousand dollars also.

The income of the institution for the fiscal year ending
June, 1884, was estimated at $75,477.35. This sum did
not take in the interest accruing from the bonds which had
recently been contributed for the support of the new observatory,
nor the annual appropriation by the Miller
trustees, nor the infirmary fees. The total was $93,307.
Expenditures for the same period aggregated $93,699.
The total debt had at one time amounted to $87,000, but,
by means of the sinking fund, it had been reduced to $74,500;
subsequently, it had been forced back to $89,500,
and was now grouped under three different heads, all of
which were secured by the University's debentures: (1)
bonds for $74,500, payable in 1876, and carrying six per
cent. interest; (2) bonds for $5,000, payable in 1883,
and also carrying six per cent. interest; and (3) bonds
held by the Miller trustees amounting to ten thousand
dollars.

At the end of the session of 1883–84, there was a deficit
of fifty-five hundred dollars. Hitherto, the receipts
and expenses of the institution had, as a rule, balanced
from year to year, but causes now arose which increased
the outlay disproportionately to the income, among which
may be mentioned the addition of new schools, the election
of new professors, the enlargement of the bills for repairs
to the buildings, improvements in the system of

drainage, and an expansion in the volume of the water
supply.

The Faculty urged the Visitors to persuade the General
Assembly to take over the existing debt, as it would relieve
the institution of an interest charge that amounted
annually to $8,500. Unless, they said, a more liberal income
could be placed at the disposal of the University, its
efficiency, and with that efficiency, its reputation, must
decline. Some impression must have been made on the
Legislature by the Board's consequent petition, for the
annual appropriation was increased to $40,000,—of
which sum, $4,500, was to be expended in necessary repairs
to the buildings. The condition attached to the
appropriation was that all Virginian students sixteen
years of age and upward, instead of eighteen years and
upward, were, as formerly, to be admitted to the academic
schools without any charge for tuition, but subject
as before, to a preliminary examination.

It was estimated that the receipts of the session of
1884–85 would rise to $93,307 and the expenses to $94699.
The volume of the salaries had, by this time,
swelled to $59,000. The interest on the bonded debt of
$79,500 was $6,260. A large addition to the resources
of the University was made, in 1886, by the will of Mr.
Austin, who bequeathed it the sum of $435,000. The
income of the institution in 1887 was substantially as follows:
annuity, $40,000; matriculation fees, $6,000; infirmary
fees, $2,100; tuition fees, $17,000; rents, $5,128;
contingent fees, $110.00; interest from endowment
bonds, $6,156; from observatory bonds, $4,780; from
the Miller Fund, $6,000, and from other sources, $1,900,
—a total of $89,174.

During the session of 1887–88, the annuity from the
State was cut down to $35,000, in consequence of the

large surplus which was supposed to have been shown at
the end of the previous fiscal year; but this was found
to be delusive, as that fiscal year had been arbitrarily
made to terminate in May. On June 30, the former end
of the year, it was discovered that no surplus really existed.
In 1891–92, the General Assembly, under the influence
of the protest submitted by the University authorities,
restored the annuity to the original amount. In
the meanwhile, a large bequest had been received from
the Fayerweather estate; but as there was a controversy
over the meaning of the will, the University consented to
a compromise, by which the sum to be paid to the Board
of Visitors was fixed at one hundred thousand dollars.
The bonded indebtedness of the institution now consisted
of $40,000, payable in 1905, and carrying eight per cent.
interest; $28,000, payable in the same year, and carrying
six per cent. interest; and $1,500 payable in 1907, and
carrying eight per cent. interest. The interest charge
amounted to six thousand dollars. The indebtedness to
the Miller estate still remained unpaid. The invested
funds, which included two gifts, aggregating $100,000,
from Mr. Corcoran, and gifts for the endowment of the
Observatory, amounting to $75,000,—of which W. H.
Vanderbilt had presented $25,000,—had now risen to
a total of $277,600

For the last fiscal year of the Seventh Period, 1865—
95, the receipts were approximately $126,140.41, and the
disbursements $125,254.46.[47]