University of Virginia Library

XII. The Professors, Continued

In 1841, J. J. Sylvester was called to the chair of
mathematics made vacant by the death of Bonnycastle.
Key had warmly recommended his appointment. He was
a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and at the
time of his election, professor of natural philosophy and
astronomy in the University of London. Young as he
was, he had already won a great reputation by his extraordinary
achievements in mathematical science. "He
is regarded here," Stevenson, the American Minister to
the Court of St. James, wrote to Cabell in October, 1841,
"as one of the first mathematicians of the age, and you
may rely on it, if he has a fair chance, he will distinguish
himself and do good service to our old State."
Unhappily, Sylvester, who was a Jew by birth and in

faith, was poorly versed in the usages of society. Although
morbidly sensitive, he was inclined to nurse his
self-esteem to the point of thinking himself infallible;
and when aroused to anger, his sense of discretion always
failed to put any restraint whatever upon its outburst.

In spite of his acknowledged eminence, he was chosen
by the Board for one year only; and this, quite naturally,
was a cause of mortification to him. "I would not have
accepted a place nearer home on such terms," he told
Stevenson; and this statement was repeated by him in a letter
to Chapman Johnson. "I should certainly never have
consented," he said, "to receive an appointment similarly
limited in any institution nearer home, where there existed
more sure means of becoming acquainted with my personal
reputation and general character, and weighing the
full value of the testimonials and other documents which
I have been able to procure in support of my claims."
Johnson replied in a spirit of independence. Stevenson,
it seems, had assured Sylvester that the probational tenure
was customary, and without personal significance; but
Johnson was not so considerate. "The professor elected
for one year," he wrote, "was not always appointed permanently
even when he had given satisfaction. So far
from feeling themselves committed to a permanent appointment,
the Visitors adopt the manner of a temporary
one as a prudent precaution to enable them to judge upon
better information how far the interests of the institution
will be promoted by making the appointment permanent."

Sylvester was so much discouraged by the tone of this
letter that he was only prevented from recalling his acceptance
by the receipt of kindly messages from George
Tucker and Joseph C. Cabell. His extreme sensitiveness
very often took the form of race consciousness, and he

was probably first influenced in his determination to resign
his excellent post in the University of London by
the expectation that the social position of a learned Jew
would be better in the United States than it was in England.
But before leaving the English shores, he heard,
with painful concern, that his appointment had been censured
in the Richmond journals because of his Hebrew
origin. It is plain that he set out for his destination
with a feeling of justifiable soreness, caused partly by his
temporary nomination, and partly by this bigoted reflection
on himself in the Virginian newspapers. He
reached the University in November, 1841, and his arrival,
having been preceded by many rumors and conjectures,
created a sensation; but he had no reason to complain
of any lack of cordiality. "The students," we are
told by John C. Rutherfoord, who was present, "briliantly
illuminated the arcades in his honor, and made it
the occasion of universal rejoicing."

The first impression of Sylvester was a pleasing one.
"At his inaugural address," says Professor Rogers, "he
was terribly embarrassed; indeed, quite overwhelmed.
He has a good deal of hesitation, is not fluent, but is very
enthusiastic, and commands the attention and interest of
his class." He had been filling his chair barely three
months when he fell into a wrangle with one of his students,
whom he had seen reading a newspaper while his
lecture was underway. So soon as the class was dismissed,
he had called up the delinquent, Ballard by name,
and sharply rebucked him. Ballard was so disrespectful
as to order the professor peremptorily "to stop his jaw."
Sylvester, in a high state of excitement, was walking up
and down the platform while these remarks were banded
between the two; and finally, in a rage, he commanded
the young man to leave the room, which he refused to do,

on the ground that, as the lecture was finished, Sylvester
had no right to assert any further control over his actions.
The Faculty, on receiving the Professor's indignant demand
for Ballard's expulsion,—which should have been
complied with,—took the same view as the refractory
student, but concluded to refer the dispute to the Board
for decision.

While it would seem that Sylvester had been unable to
prolong the pleasant impression which he had created at
first, yet, at the same time, there was probably grave exaggeration
in Ballard's statement "that he had not conducted
himself like a gentleman since his connection with
the University began." It was indisputable that there
was a provincial prejudice against him as a Jew and a
foreigner. Kraitsir complained,—with much less reason,
undoubtedly,—that he too was the target of the
same illiberal hostility because he was a Hungarian, and,
perhaps, also because he was a Catholic. Key and Long
had been conscious of the same inimical attitude, though it
was not so pronounced in their instance as in the cases of
Sylvester, Kraitsir, and Blaettermann,—all three of
whom were open to just criticisms for radical personal
defects, which could not be brought against the two well-bred
and socially accomplished Englishmen. Apparently,
none of this feeling was aroused by Bonnycastle and Dunglison.
On February 24, 1842, Sylvester resigned because
he was very properly dissatisfied with the Faculty's
failure to sustain him in the exercise of his rightful authority
over an insulting student of his class. But the
Board seems to have approved the Faculty's action, although
they vaguely disclaimed "any intention to impute
to the professor any blame in that matter."

In 1843, Sylvester was a candidate for the professorship
of mathematics in Columbia College, and he wrote to

his old associates at the University of Virginia for an expression
that would remove the cloud that rested over
his chances of success, in consequence of the report of his
quarrel with Ballard. "We desire, in justice to him,"
was the reply, "to correct any misconception on this subject
which may now be operating to his disadvantage.
We, therefore, beg leave to state that his separation from
the University was entirely his own voluntary act, occasioned,
as they conceive, by dissatisfaction at the course
his colleagues thought it proper to adopt towards a student
whom he had reprimanded for inattention in a lecture-room,
and whom, in their view of the circumstances,
they were unwilling to punish to the extent he required."
Such were the incidents that accompanied the avoidable
loss to the University of Virginia of one of the most extraordinary
mathematicians of modern times.[10]

Pike Powers completed Sylvester's unfinished term, and
was succeeded by Edward H. Courtenay as the permanent
incumbent of the chair. Courtenay possessed all the
genial qualities which Sylvester lacked. "How kindly
just he was," says Professor Francis H. Smith, "how
mild and gentle both inside and outside of the lectureroom!
A master of his subject, a profound and patient
instructor, who can forget the pathetic and even tremulous
tones in which he spoke of the asserted failure of
Taylor's Theorem, or the smile that lighted up his face
when he mentioned the properties said to be enjoyed by
the rectangular hyperbola."[11] Professor Charles S. Venable,
another of his pupils, shared this impression of the
amiable humor of the man. "He had," he says, "the

gentlest, mildest, and most enticing ways of proposing
very difficult questions, and when in his notes, he announced
that some statement was obviously true, we always
found that an uphill road lay before the younglings
who had to refind it." He was without an enemy, and
was as much respected and beloved by the Board and
his colleagues as by the students. When he asked to be
excused from reelection as chairman in 1845, the Visitors
positively refused to accede to his request. "We believe
you," they said, "to be peculiarly well qualified, and have
abundant reason to know that no other member of the
Faculty would, at this time, be as acceptable. The general
voice on all sides calls loudly for your appointment."

Courtenay's native efficiency had been invigorated by
an officer's training, for, at the age of sixteen, he had
graduated at the head of his class at the Military Academy
at West Point; and he had been advanced to a full
professorship in that great school by the time that he was
twenty-six. Afterwards, he had filled the chair of mathematics
in the University of Pennsylvania. Elected to
the same chair at the University of Virginia, without any
solicitation on his part, he had, in the absence of an
assistant, been compelled to give himself up to class duties
at the sacrifice of all leisure for original investigation
and composition. He lightened his labors, as we have
already mentioned, by stenciling the syllabus of his lectures
on large rolls of cotton cloth, which were used in
succession.

The subsequent history of these rolls illustrates the
makeshifts which were employed by the Virginians in the
lean years of the war. They were sold by Professor
Courtenay's executor, and ultimately found their way into
the possession of Dr. Fleming, of Hanover county, a
large slaveholder. When the spectre of impoverishment

stalked through the State towards the end of the conflict,
Dr. Fleming was at a great loss how to prevent his youthful
negroes from reverting joyfully to the complete nudity
of the African jungles. Apparently, there was no
stuff except hickory and oak leaves with which to clothe
them, for all the sheep and oxen had been consumed by
the armies, and the old garments were now too tattered
to be patched. The presence of the rolls in the garret
luckily leaped to his mind; the mammies were set busily
to work; and soon the pickaninnies were tumbling about
the yard with half the problems of geometry and calculus
conspicuously imprinted upon their backs. It was said
at the time that an observant traveller passing that way
could have found no difficulty in furbishing up his whole
mathematical education by studying the wonderful display
of figures on the persons of these little grinning and
animated blackboards.

Among the candidates for Courtenay's vacant chair,
which was filled temporarily by Alexander H. Nelson,
was Thomas J. Jackson, the renowned Stonewall of Confederate
history. His testimonials commended, with palpable
sincerity, his courage, energy, scholarship, and devotion
to duty.

Albert Taylor Bledsoe was elected to succeed Courtenay
in June, 1854. As between Jackson and himself, at
that time, the choice offered small room for hesitation.
He, like Jackson, was a graduate of the Military Academy
at West Point, and while there, had not only been a
close comrade of both Davis and Lee, but had won unusual
reputation as a mathematician; indeed, it was actually
said of him that he had solved a problem of
Archimedes which no one except himself, throughout the
centuries, had been able to solve. He remained only
two years in the army; then resigning, became, at first,

a tutor in Kenyon College, and, afterwards, a student of
theology. During a short period, he served as the assistant
of Bishop Smith, of Kentucky; but balking at the
essential doctrine of baptismal regeneration, he turned to
law; and when competent to practise, opened an office in
Springfield, Illinois. While a member of this bar, he
was constantly thrown into the company of Stephen A.
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Annually, the practitioner
who had won the largest number of cases during
the preceding twelve months was presented by his associates
with a basket of champagne. On at least one
occasion, Bledsoe carried off this exhilarating prize.

But the prospect of this and more substantial awards
from the profession, did not keep him loyal to it permanently;
at the end of ten years, he was, as mathematical
professor, engaged in teaching in Kenyon College; and
from that institution, passed in succession to Miami University,
the University of Mississippi, and the University
of Virginia. Although he was, in all these important institutions,
the chief mathematical instructor, his taste at
bottom was for metaphysical studies. His power of
abstraction reached a phenomenal height. When in that
state of mind, only a direct appeal by name could rouse
him from his reverie, and this he always resented.
"Give me a blow on the head with a hammer," he would
say as he writhed, "and it would be much more merciful."
"He would go to his meals," we are told by his
son, "eat them mechanically, and never once come to a
sense of where he was or what he was doing." In tenacity
of memory, he was the peer of Macaulay. Left
without a copy of an elaborate index to one of his works,
prepared by himself, but lost in transportation to the
publishers, he restored it from the tablets of his recollection
without the omission of a single detail.

Such were the mental qualities of a professor who, by
some humorous stroke of perverse destiny, found himself
in the uniform of a colonel in the Confederate army not
long after hostilities began. Davis told him that his
brains in the closet would be of far more value to the
cause than his sword in the field, and he was, in consequence,
appointed assistant secretary of war; but even this
position was not suitable to his talents; and again by
Davis's advice, it seems, he gave himself up to the composition
of a volume on the constitutional right of secession.
In order to secure the necessary authorities for this
work, he was compelled to make his way to London
through the blockade; and on his return, he issued the
once famous treatise, Is Davis a Traitor? Subsequently,
he found congenial and fruitful employment as editor
of the Southern Review. His estimate of a new volume
was sometimes expressed with unconventional curtness.
"Your book and letter have been received," he wrote one
author. "You say that you have not looked into the
subject for twenty years. After reading your book, I
should not suppose you have." "Your book has in it
many new things and many true things," he wrote another,
"but unfortunately, none of the true things are
new, and none of the new things are true." Bledsoe's
religious views were so far from orthodox, that when,
during his last years, he wished to be called again to the
pulpit, the Methodist denomination alone was willing to
offer him an opportunity to preach. His success in that
character was moderate, as his enunciation was defective,
and his sermons, though profound in thought, were too
heavy to win popularity.

Schele de Vere, who succeeded Kraitsir as professor of
modern languages, though a Swede by birth and a Prussian
by allegiance, was a Frenchman in appearance,

bearing, and disposition. Gracious and suave in spirit,
polished in manners, finical in dress, and precise in language,
he bore on his cultivated personality the hallmark
of the Parisian boulevard. "He was regarded at the
University of Virginia," says Professor Francis H.
Smith, "as the arbiter of good form; what he endorsed
was questioned by no one." "We were sure," remarked
one of his pupils, "that we had only to copy his dress to
be certain of being in the fashion." The members of his
class, we are told, jokingly asserted that he would excuse
many linguistic shortcomings in any one among them who
flaunted a red cravat. His silk hat in winter, and high-priced
straw hat in summer, were accepted within the
college precincts as the last expression of elegance.

In early life, Schele had resided in Silesia not far
from the Polish border, and this gave him an opportunity
to learn the Slavic tongue, and having once mastered
that language, all other languages, he said, were easy to
acquire. His first lessons in French were given by a
Breton nurse, and, in consequence, his accent was made
defective by a slight burr. Though clear, deliberate, and
distinct in utterance, his intonation was, from this early
contact, more peculiar than his foreign birth would otherwise
have explained. As a young man, he had travelled
extensively before completing his studies at the Universities
of Berlin and Bonn; and he had afterwards seen active
military service in both Prussia and Algiers. In
1843, influenced by the high reputation enjoyed abroad
by Longfellow and Ticknor, he emigrated to Boston, and
during his stay there, although only a private instructor in
the Italian, French, and English literatures, he was on a
footing of intimacy with the members of that distinguished
and charming circle. "I have heard much of
him from the Literati of Cambridge and Boston," wrote

Professor William B. Rogers, in August, 1844, "but not
one word which was not highly creditable to him as an
accomplished scholar, and to his character as a refined
and amiable gentleman."

It was by Longfellow's advice that he became a candidate
for the professorship of modern languages in the
University of Virginia, and he was recommended for
that chair, not only by the poet himself, but also by
Abbott Lawrence and Josiah Quincy. He was supported
too by the Prussian consul-general at Baltimore, a proof
that he looked upon himself as a subject of Prussia.
This must have been generally known, for, after his election
in September, 1844, the Richmond Whig, a journal
hostile to the University, referred to him "as Mr. Maximilian
Rudolph Schele de Vere, of Prussia, who had been
chosen in preference to a distinguished American." Immediately
upon his arrival, he showed his refined social
instincts by seeking out the highly cultivated country gentry
of Albemarle,—the families of Edgehill, Castle Hill,
Blenheim, and Carlton, among others,—and in the end
married a daughter of Alexander Rives, and after her
death, her sister.

Schele entered with enthusiasm into the duties of his
chair. These were of a very difficult character because
there was little preparation in the Continental languages
given at that time by the academies which contributed
students to the University of Virginia. The majority of
his pupils were admitted to his school without any information
of value as to the structure of any one of these
languages, and without any training in speaking them.
But he was not discouraged by the arduous labor which
this fact imposed on him. How extraordinary was his
capacity for work was illustrated, in 1848, when his
mother's situation in Berlin was rendered precarious by

the insurrectionary movement in Prussia. In order to be
able to go to her assistance in time, without curtailing
the usual length of his courses, he crowded thirteen lectures
into every six days, the students cheerfully volunteering
to double their tasks to make it possible for him
to leave for Europe, at an early date. "After an unsatisfactory
tussle in taking notes under a rapid talker," says
Professor Francis H. Smith, "it was very pleasant to
pass into the modern language lecture-room, and listen,
pencil in hand, to the clear and not too fast utterance of
the teacher, who frequently paused of purpose, and yet
naturally, to pass to the blackboard and write down an
illustrating word or sentence, thus giving a slow writer
ample time to jot down every word both spoken and
written. His bearing (in the class-room) was a model
of propriety."

John Staige Davis was five years old when his father
was appointed professor of law in the University of Virginia.
So precociously intelligent and industrious was he
as a student that he became a master of arts in his sixteenth
year; and to this crowning success in the literary
and scientific schools, he, at the end of another twelve
months, added the diploma of a doctor of medicine. A
master of arts and a doctor of medicine several years
before he reached his majority,—such was the record
that he carried to Philadelphia, where his professional
studies were completed. After a short experience of
country practice, he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy
in the University of Virginia. He had been
absent from its precincts only two years altogether; and
there he was to remain until he breathed his last in 1885.

"He had no superior as a lecturer," declares the resolution
passed by his colleagues at his death, "and he
was fully abreast of the latest advances in medical science

and their practical application." Skilful, watchful, assiduous,
and full of sympathy, he won the confidence and
affection of his patients; at the bedside of the sick, he was
always easy, bright, encouraging, and inspiring. "Duty
was his guiding star," says Dr. Herbert Claiborne, who
had known him from boyhood. "No interest, no
pleasure, no appeal, could induce him to swerve one
inch from that course which he had decided to be right
for him to follow." On occasion, at his class' expense,
he could be witty, sarcastic and pungent. "But he
never referred by word or act to any of these flings,"
says an old pupil, "but he met us afterward in the same
urbane manner that characterized his life, just as though
nothing beyond the ordinary had occurred." Davis was
lithe in figure, alert and nervous in movement, and mobile
in feature. His vivid temperament was reflected in the
vivacity of his eye, and in the mercurial expression of his
face, which responded with the quickness of a flash to
every inner mood and emotion of the man.