University of Virginia Library

FOREWORD AND AFTERWORD

Among the materials which were of use to me in preparing
the history of the personal side of the long interval
(1842–1904) covered by Volumes III and IV, I was
particularly indebted to Professor W. H. Echols's monograph
on the life of L. M. Blackford; to Armistead C.
Gordon's sketch of the career of Colonel William Gordon
McCabe; to Professor W. M. Thornton's short biographies
of Professors Venable and William R. Abbot; and
to Judge R. T. W. Duke, Jr's., reminiscences of Professor
McGuffey. Especially valuable for the same purpose
were the detailed recollections of their university student
life recorded by Judge Duke, Judge George L. Christian,
Professor Raleigh C. Minor, and Judge J. C. Walker,
and preserved in the pages of the Alumni Bulletin. A
book of equally high service was the one in which Dr.
David M. R. Culbreth has described his personal impressions
of the professors who adorned the institution during
the early part of the Period of Reconstruction.
Morgan P. Robinson's Burning of the Rotunda, Professor
Adams's Jefferson and the University of Virginia,
Professor Morrison's report on the academies to the
State Board of Education, John S. Patton's edition of
the poems of John R. Thompson, Professor W. M. Lile's
address on the Honor System, and Rev. John Johnson's
Confederate memorial volume, are also entitled to special
mention for the information which they afforded me.

The following palpable but regrettable errors found
their way into the text of Volumes I and II, and are now

pointed out at the first opportunity for their correction:
Volume I, page 34, "pension office" for "patent office";
page 259, "westward" for "eastward"; page 296,
"stependis" for "stipendiis"; page 327, "dociendi" for
"docendi"; Volume II, page 82, "Metamorphosis" for
"Metamorphoses"; page 86, "De Arta" for "De
Arte"; page 103, "nisi primus" for "nisi prius,"
"Muddock" for "Maddox," "data" for "decisions";
page 129, "perspicacity" for "perspicuity"; pages 136–7,
"doctrinate" for "doctorate"; page 168, "Henry
Rogers" for "Robert"; page 193, "Wharton" for
"Wheaton"; page 262, "removal" for "removed";
page 332, "unexceptional" for "unexceptionable." It
is stated on page 153 Volume II, that Professor Gessner
Harrison was named after the celebrated Swiss naturalist.
The tradition in the family would seem to prove
that he was named after Gessner, the poet, who was a
native of Zurich. In the reference to the Boston Courier
on page I, Volume II, it would have been more accurate
to have said that it was the Richmond Enquirer which
announced the arrival of the English professors, and that
it was this announcement only which so aroused its contemporaries,
who were hostile to Jefferson. Further investigation
has shown that it was Richard Duke, not
Alexander Duke, as stated on page 276, Volume I, who
was asked by Jefferson, in 1819, to undertake the duties
of the proctorship in part.