XXIII. Academic Schools—Continued
In 1904–05, the School of Analytical Chemistry embraced
a series of courses in agricultural chemistry and
quantitative and qualitative analysis; and also a course
in practical chemistry for medical students. The last
of these was established in order to conform to the
regulations of the Medical Board of New York. After
admission requirements were introduced, the course for
undergraduates treated of chemical manufacture, blowpipe
analysis, the fire assaying of ores, inorganic qualitative
analysis, practice in analysis of salts, alloys, and
ores, determination of minerals, and the examination of
potable water, coal, limestone, and the like. The
course for undergraduates and graduates related to
quantitative analysis of mineral ores, technical products,
and so on. A series of lectures on agricultural chemistry
continued to be given. The course for graduates
was designed to increase the range of their experience
as analysts and to cultivate their capacity for original
research. There was laboratory work each day. In
the end, the School of Industrial Chemistry was joined
on to the School of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry,
—which was still taught by Professor Dunnington.
It was estimated that, between 1893 and 1903, barely
thirty-nine per cent. of the students enrolled in the
classes of practical chemistry sought, after leaving the
University, employment as teachers of that science or
engaged in industrial enterprises. Manufacturers,—
more particularly ironmasters,—were reluctant to accept
the new theories, for to do so would make necessary expensive
changes in their plants; and it was not until the
European factories took the initiative that competition
forced the American to follow in the same groove. Rigid
tests had now to be applied to ores, fuel, and flux, and in
consequence of this innovation, the chemical graduates
of the University of Virginia, found no difficulty in obtaining
high-salaried positions so soon as they completed
their technical education. In 1900, the Du Pont Powder
Company needed only three chemists in their business;
in 1910, they furnished employment for one hundred
and fifty. Between 1906 and 1916, fifty of the former
pupils of Professor Dunnington were taken into
these great works, and their services were sought, not
simply because of their technical knowledge, but also because
they had been specially trained to be cautious,
accurate, and prompt,—qualities indispensable in the
manufacture of explosives.
The burning up of the old Chemical Hall was a severe
blow to the method of teaching analytical and industrial
chemistry which then prevailed at the University. The
contents lost included a large quantity of rare materials,
valuable as illustrations, and of great practical usefulness
in research. The destruction of spectroscopes,
polariscopes, and microscopes, brought to a temporary
close the pursuit of certain lines of investigation. The
industrial museum, with its choice collections, had given
the students a lasting impression of certain wonders and
beauties of nature, and of the patience and skill of men.
The new chemical building, however, is fully equipped
with apparatus and materials.
In 1904–05, the School of Geology and Natural History
was restricted to the subject of geology and descriptive
mineralogy. Only one professor was engaged
in the instruction of its students; but even then it was
thought that more provision should be made for the
course in mineralogy by the employment of an additional
teacher. There was a demand for lessons in practical
mineralogy, and also for laboratory work in the same
province. Indeed, the science of geology had so greatly
expanded in recent years that no single teacher could
cover even the whole of its general principles successfully.
An adjunct professor was needed for the work
in the field and laboratory. In 1907, Thomas L. Watson
was appointed to the chair of economic geology; and
when in June, 1910, Professor Fontaine, of the School
of Geology and Natural History, retired, the two
schools were merged under Professor Watson's general
direction. He had the highly competent assistance at
first of Professor Grasty, and, afterwards, of Adjunct
Professor Giles.
In 1915–16, the ground traversed by the two schools
of general and economic geology was as follows: the
courses for the undergraduates bore upon general geology,
engineering geology, mineralogy, and determinative
mineralogy; and for undergraduates and graduates,
on petrology, geology of ore deposits, geology of
the non-metallic minerals, geological field methods, structural
geology, and invertebrate paleontology. To the
graduates were assigned courses in advanced geology,
mineralogy, petrography, advanced economic geology,
and the economic geology of the Southern Appalachians.
In 1908, the General Assembly reestablished the Geological
Survey and fixed its headquarters at the University.
The Survey was expected to find out and appraise
the geological resources of the State with special reference
to their commercial importance,—such as buildingstone,
coal, clay, cement materials, materials for roads,
and the like. Detailed maps, showing the situation and
extent of these products, were also to be drafted. The
Legislature of Virginia and the Federal Government
appropriated jointly the sum of twenty thousand dollars
for the support of the Survey; and Professor Watson
was put in charge of it as State geologist and director.
It was said, in 1912, that no other department of geology
in the United States was in possession of so complete a
set of maps relating to Southern areas. With its collection
of these maps, rocks, minerals and models, the
school was able to give instruction unsurpassed in wealth
of information and illustration by any similar school in
the country. The Brooks Museum was partly rearranged
to afford the necessary facilities for additional
lectures and laboratory work; and a departmental
library was also begun.
During the session 1912–13, Professor Watson and
Professor Grasty undertook, under the authority of the
State, to make a geological survey of the Commonwealth
from tidewater to the mountains. The various soils,
rocks, mineral deposits, and water powers were enumerated
in the series of bulletins which followed. There
was, at this time, a growing demand in the Southern
States for mining geologists. That region possessed
one fourth of the mineral resources of the United States,
and its output was as high as one fifth of the output of
the whole country, and yet its schools only trained one
per cent. of the men engaged in superintending the mining
that went on within its borders. In 1914, the class
in general geology, under the direction and tuition of
Professor Grasty, explored the geological formations
that lay around the town of Clifton Forge; and such
practical tours were frequently repeated.
The first proposal to establish a School of Forestry
at the University of Virginia was submitted at a meeting
of the Faculty held in May, 1908; but no immediate
step seems to have been taken to carry this proposal into
effect. It was not until 1914 that the office of State
forester was created; and by Act of Assembly, the same
relation was established between this office and the University
as already existed between the University and
the Geological Survey. The State forester became a
member of the Faculty; and he was also expected to
cooperate with the staff of the Survey, and with the incumbents
of the various scientific chairs. He was the
principal of all the forest wardens, and was directly responsible
to a commission composed of the Governor of
the Commonwealth, the President of the University, the
President of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the
Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, and
one private citizen specially picked out.
Provision was made for its support by the State after
March, 1915. In the meanwhile, a small sum had been
placed at the disposal of the new forester, Professor
R. C. Jones,—a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry,
and formerly an assistant State forester of Maryland,
—by the University to meet the expense of the
educational and demonstration work of his new chair.
This work at first was confined to lecturing before
granges, schools, women's clubs, and farmers' institutes.
In the end, the University was called upon to pay only
for the tuition actually imparted to its class in forestry.
It was stated in a former volume, that, when Professor
Tuttle began his lectures, as the new head of the
Miller School of Biology and Agricultural Science, he
was expected to give instruction to academic students
only, but that, within a few years, at the urgent request
of the medical faculty, he undertook to offer a course of
lectures on the subject of medical biology. Indeed, his
greatest service, was, for a long time, performed in behalf
of the medical students. The work done under
him by academic students, during this interval, was not
even counted in their candidacy for any one of the degrees.
This course was unpopular, chiefly because of
Professor Tuttle's original announcement that each lecture
would be accompanied by tasks in the laboratory,—
which necessarily would take up much of the time of the
students. Such time, they thought, might be more
satisfactorily occupied with themes that would lead up
to a degree.
When the requirements for the academic degrees were
subsequently altered, and biology was put on the footing
of all the other natural sciences, the size of the class,
which had hitherto numbered but few members, began
to increase, since it was now permissible to choose biology
as one of the necessary electives. This growth became
particularly noticeable after the removal of Professor
Tuttle's lecture-room from the old Medical Hall
to the new academic building. There arose, in time,
a demand for advanced work as preliminary to the doctorate
of philosophy; but, owing to the lack of equipment
at that hour, this was discouraged.
With the close of the session of 1906–07, Professor
Tuttle brought to an end his connection with the department
of medicine, and, thereafter, his labors were restricted
to the academic branch of his school. He was
at first assisted by W. A. Kepner, who was afterwards
elevated to the position of adjunct professor. In 1904–
05, the ground traversed by the academic School of
Biology embraced (1) the elements of the science; (2)
biology and zoology; (3) the histology and embryology
of plants and animals, and the morphology of selected
groups from each of the two great kingdoms of organic
beings; (4) cytology and general biology. It was announced
that the aim of the academic school at this time,
as formerly, was to offer facilities to students who wished
to acquire a general knowledge of biology, such as a
liberally educated man would aspire to, or which would
fit them to become teachers of the science, or would
prepare them for the study of either medicine or agriculture.
In 1915–16, the school was divided into three
courses: (1) biology and agriculture; (2) botany; and
(3) zoology.
The attendance during this academic year was the
largest in the history of the school,—sixty students
were then enrolled in the classes of zoology, under the
direction of Professor Kepner; and eighty-three in the
classes of botany, taught by Professor Tuttle. In consequence
of the lack of sufficient space and equipment,
twenty-six young men had been denied admission to the
lecture-room and laboratory. After Professor Tuttle's
withdrawal, Professor Ivey F. Lewis, a graduate of
Johns Hopkins University, and subsequently associated
with several seats of learning, was elected to one of the
chairs of the school.
It will be recalled that Jefferson included in his original
scheme of schools a school of fine arts. No practical
step was taken, previous to 1919, to realize one of
the most enlightened hopes of the father of the institution;
but on the anniversary of his birthday in the course
of that year, the President of the University announced
that the sum of one hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars
had been given by Paul Goodloe McIntire for the
endowment of the long wished-for chair. Mr. McIntire
was an alumnus of the institution and a native of Charlottesville,
—a city which he, in a spirit of noble liberality,
was soon to adorn with the heroic figures in bronze
of several of the loftiest spirits in Virginian and American
history. "I sincerely hope," he wrote to President
Alderman, "that the University will see its way clear to
offer many lectures upon the subject of art and music, so
that the people will appreciate more than ever before
that the University belongs to them; and that it exists
for them."
The series of lectures on art began before the series
on music. They were delivered by Professor Fiske
Kimball, who had been elected to the newly created
chair while associated with the department of fine arts
in the University of Michigan. He had also been a
sciences, experimental sciences, and the descriptive
sciences. Among the ten electives were three at large.
In choosing the latter, the candidate had to be guided
by the selection which he had already made of his first
seven. Each of the several groups of studies was subdivided
into different courses. There was a frequent
shifting of the content of these courses during the Ninth
Period; new ones also, like those in Biblical history and
literature, economic geology, physics, public speaking,
and journalism, were added; but the requirements for
the degree did not change to any revolutionary extent.
There arose in 1906–07, however, a sharp controversy
over the question whether the choice of the ancient languages,
as an elective, should not be left to the option of
the candidate for the degree. The course in Latin
practicing architect of distinction, and had written a very
elaborate and discriminating volume on Jefferson's
achievements in that splendid province. The School of
Fine Arts contributed to the artistic training of the
numerous students enrolled in its several classes by offering
extensive courses on the history and the interpretation
of art, illustrated by exhibitions of loaned paintings
and copies of old masters, and by the groups of buildings
and statues to be found within the precincts of the University
itself.
