University of Virginia Library

LIV. The Alumni—Distinguished Sons

Among the members of the National Congress in
1906, there were nineteen who had been educated at
Yale University; eighteen, at the University of Michigan;
and eleven, at Harvard University. On the other
hand, twenty-one were accredited to the University of
Virginia. In the Sixty-First Congress (1910–11), Yale
University could point to fifteen of her graduates;
Harvard University to sixteen; the University of Virginia
again to twenty-one. In the Senate, during this session,
the latter institution could count seven of her
alumni. It was represented in the National Government,
during the administration of 1913–21, by the following
officials: the President, Woodrow Wilson; the AttorneyGeneral,

Thomas W. Gregory; member of the Supreme
Court, J. C. McReynolds; Counsellor of the State Department,
John Bassett Moore; Comptroller of the Currency,
John Skelton Williams; ambassadors to foreign
courts, C. P. Bryan, Thomas Nelson Page, and Joseph
E. Willard; minister, Hampson Gary; surgeon general
of the National Public Health Service, Rupert Blue.
Nine members of the Senate, during this administration,
were able to claim her as their alma mater.
Besides Virginia, States as wide apart in situation as
Kentucky and Texas, Delaware and Mississippi, Illinois,
Alabama, and Arkansas, were represented in that
body by her graduates. At least eighteen of her alumni,
coming from communities as remote from each other
as New York and Texas, Indiana and North Carolina,
occupied seats in the Lower House of Congress.

During the administration of President Cleveland, the
Democratic tariff bill was formulated by William L.
Wilson, an alumnus; and when a similar bill had to
be taken up during the administration of President Wilson,
it was Oscar W. Underwood, another alumnus,
who drafted it. At this time, Henry D. Flood, also an
alumnus, was Chairman of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs, and William A. Jones, of the Committee
on the Philippines; Senator Martin was the leader of
the Democratic Party in the Senate; and Thomas P.
Clarke was the President pro tempore of that body.

The importance of the graduates of the University
of Virginia in the judiciary of the Commonwealth, in the
Ninth Period, is indicated by the appointments of the
General Assembly, during the session of 1913–14,—
Joseph L. Kelly was then elected a member of the Court
of Appeals; and eight other alumni were raised to seats
on the circuit bench. At one time, in the course of this

Period, twenty-eight alumni were members of the National
Medical Corps and Medical Reserve Corps, a
number only exceeded in the case of the graduates of the
University of Pennsylvania, George Washington University,
and Jefferson Medical College, enrolled in those
professional bodies. E. O. Lovett, an alumnus, was
elected to the Presidency of the great scientific institution
established by the philanthropist, Rice, at Houston,
Texas. In 1913, there were at least twenty-one of
the alumni employed in the East as missionaries, religious
and medical, or as teachers and editors,—indeed, it was
correctly said that the University of Virginia had dispatched
a larger number of its graduates to the foreign
fields than any State institution in the entire country;
and there were few denominational colleges even which
could rightly claim more representatives in that great
province. It was estimated that, by 1916, about five
hundred of the alumni had been ordained for the ministry;
and seventeen of these, during the Ninth Period
alone, were bishops of their several sects. The three
most influential denominational journals of the South
were edited by graduates of the University,—the
Southern Churchman, by Meade F. Clark; the Religiou
Herald, by A. E. Dickenson; and the Christian Advocate,
by J. J. Lafferty.

The Ninth Period was marked by a more lively interest
in the fame of Edgar Allan Poe as the greatest literary
alumnus of the University. It was during this
Period that a bronze tablet, the gift of Miss Bangs, of
the National Cathedral School in Washington, was
erected over the door of his room, No. 13, West Range.
Besides the name of the master, and the date of his
birth, it bore the felicitous inscription, Domus parva
magni poetae.

The interval between the sixteenth and the twenty-third
of January, 1909, was given over to a commemoration
of the poet's career. The occasion began on
Saturday, the 16th, in Jefferson Hall, which was situated
only a few steps from the dormitory which he
had once occupied. The essays then read related to the
events of his sojourn at the University, while a sermon,
bearing upon his general life and character, was delivered
in the chapel on the following morning. The
Raven Society had charge of the celebration which was
held on Monday evening in Cabell Hall. At that meeting,
an original poem was read by Professor J. Southhall
Wilson, of the College of William and Mary, followed
by an interpretation of Poe's verse by Professor
Willoughby Read. Illuminating personal recollections
of the man and the artist were told by Dr. Herbert
M. Nash of Norfolk, who had heard him deliver
a deeply interesting lecture in that city not long before
his death. Another vivid feature was the lantern
studies of the University buildings and terraces as they
appeared at the time of his matriculation. Papers, having
for their subjects different aspects of his masterpieces,
were read on the following days by Alcee Fortier,
Georg Edward and several other professors of distinction.

Among the subsequent exercises was the presentation
of sixty-seven medals to individuals and institutions,
who or which had been conspicuously instrumental
in heightening the popular appreciation of the
poet's genius. During the progress of the proceedings
from day to day, his former dormitory was thrown
open for inspection. An effort had been previously made
to furnish it with articles that would restore it to the
condition which distinguished it during his occupancy.

A settee from the Allan home in Richmond had been
obtained, besides other pieces of furniture of that date,
while a real raven, stuffed, looked down from a coign of
the room.

The Ninth Period witnessed more literary productiveness
among the alumni than had characterized any
period since the close of the War of Secession. The
range of the works extended over broad and varied
ground. In the ecclesiastical field, Professor Crawford
H. Toy's Introduction to the History of Religion
was a contribution of the ripest scholarship to a subject
of which he was admitted to be a master. Professor
Thomas L. Watson's Mineral Resources of Virginia
and Professor Jordan's Histology were thorough
scientific treatises. Professor Raleigh C. Minor's Republic
of Nations was a thoughtful presentation and
analysis of all the arguments that could be advanced
in favor of a League of Nations. In the province of
belles-lettres, there were two works of merit,—Professor
C. Alphonso Smith's What Literature has Done for
Me, a volume of unusual suggestiveness, and Rabbi
Calisch's The Jew in English Literature, which incorporated
the fruits of the author's wide reading. The Letters
of Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman, edited
by Professor James A. Harrison, threw a new romantic
light on the private life of the poet. Professor Trent,
as the head of the board of editors which arranged for
the publication of the monumental Cambridge History
of American Literature, and in part composed it, increased
the great reputation for literary skill and critical
acumen which he had long before acquired.

The principal novels written by the alumni during the
Ninth Period were Robin Aroon and Ommirandy, by
Armistead C. Gordon, and John Marvel, Assistant, by

Thomas Nelson Page. Robin Aroon pictured, with
poetical delicacy, the highly colored scenes and characters
of Colonial Virginia, while Ommirandy presented the
humorous and pathetic aspects of the later plantation
life, with perfect knowledge and tender sympathy. John
Marvel was a forceful description of the different sides
of the modern social life of the North and West. The
principal collection of poetry was also the achievement
of Mr. Gordon. The small volume For Truth and
Freedom, which he issued, contained, among other verse,
the lofty stanzas read at the inauguration of the Academic
Building.[10]

Two volumes of reminiscences were published during
the Ninth Period; namely Dr. Richard McIlwaine's
Memories of Threescore Years and Ten, and Dr. David
M. R. Culbreth's Recollections of Student Life and
Professors, a volume which has preserved, with remarkable
vividness, the characteristics and personalities of
the University of Virginia in the seventies. One of
the most admirable county histories ever written by a
native of the State was the production of an alumnus
of this Period,—the History of Orange County, by W.
W. Scott, a book which has touched upon every side of
the annals of that community with the learning of an
antiquarian and the spirit of a patriot. A volume of
wider scope, The Old Dominion, Her Making and Her
Manners, by Thomas Nelson Page, described, with
sympathy and insight, the influences which have moulded
the social life of the Commonwealth at large. Stuart's
Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign, by Colonel John
S. Mosby, the Life of General Turner Ashby, by Clarence
Thomas, the Soul of Lee, by Randolph H. McKim,
and Robert E. Lee, Southerner, by Thomas Nelson Page,

were valuable contributions to Confederate military
history; and of equal importance as a contribution to
Confederate political history was the Life of Jefferson
Davis, by Armistead C. Gordon. The biography of
J. L. M. Curry, jointly written by President Alderman
and Mr. Gordon, and the Life of O. Henry, by Professor
C. Alphonso Smith, sympathetically depicted the
careers of two Southerners who were conspicuously active
in different provinces, and who, by their genius, raised
the reputation of their native region. But, perhaps,
the most remarkable of all the biographical works of
this period was the Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed,
by William Cabell Bruce. Its wealth of information,
its humorous and philosophical insight into the character
of its subject, its breadth of view, its thoroughly
digested matter, its perfectly balanced arrangement, and
the pungency, affluence, and vigor of its style, made so
strong an impression that its author was awarded by
Columbia University the Pulitzer prize for the most
finished and patriotic biography issued during the year
of its publication.