University of Virginia Library

JAMES MORRIS PAGE

Page Residence House bears the name of
James Morris Page, known to many generations
of students as "The Dean." Holding
a position in the School of Mathematics
from 1896 to 1934, he was Dean for thirty
years, from 1904 to 1934. He was born in
Louisa County, Virginia, on 4 March 1864,
the son of Thomas Walker and Nancy Watson
Morris Page, his parents being related
to a galaxy of notable Virginia families.
The son received his early training from
his father, a graduate of the University of
Virginia, and from a day school in Louisa
County. As a college student at Randolph-Macon
College in Ashland, Virginia, he
carried off all the prizes offered by the
academic department, and during his last
two years he was appointed an assistant in
Mathematics. He received his M.A. in
1885, and then went for advanced study to
Germany. There he achieved in Leipzig a
Ph.D. magna cum laude, and had to his

credit several published articles on the
theory of transformation groups.

On his return, he and his brother,
Thomas Walker Page, Jr. (who became a
Professor of Economics at the University
of Virginia and later was Chairman of the
United States Tariff Commission), established
the Keswick School in Albemarle
County, which they conducted for eight
years. In 1895–1896 James Morris Page was
a Fellow in Mathematics at Johns Hopkins
University, and in 1896 there was published
by the Macmillan Company in London
his Ordinary Differential Equations.
It was in this year that he received appointment
as Adjunct Professor of Mathematics
at the University of Virginia. He became a
full Professor four years later.

Professor Page was an essential cog in
the changes in administration that took
place when Edwin Anderson Alderman became
the first President of the University
of Virginia in 1904. He was the last Chairman
of the Faculty under the organization
that had persisted since Jefferson's day, and

he was the first Dean under the organization
framed by the new President. He was
strategically fitted to preserve the essential
values amid the radical changes in the administration,
and his salutary influence on
the character of the University was profound.
In his thirty years as Dean he served
as Acting President during the absences of
President Alderman; he was a member of
many faculty committees; he served a term
as Secretary of the Alumni Association; he
was the first President of the Beta Chapter
of Phi Beta Kappa; and he was for many
years a valued member of the State Board
of Education. Notwithstanding the pressure
of his responsibilities as Dean (he was
both the University Dean and the Dean of
the College), he continued to give a course
in Mathematics, and he was the pioneer
in this country in the interpretation of the
mathematical theories of Sophus Lie, one
of his teachers at Leipzig. As the officer for
discipline, it was his fate to know best the
discredited students, but he was a man of
heart as well as of mind, and his sympathetic
understanding saved many from
confusion and discouragement. Perhaps his
greatest achievement was as a spiritual
therapist.

At the University he lived in the last of
the three houses on McCormick Road, occupied
later by the Engineers' Club. He
married Elinore Mildred McGlore in 1900,
and they had seven children: James Morris
Page, Jr., of Chicago; Mrs. Robert Parrish
of Richmond, Anne Page, Mrs. Nelson
Daniel of Newport News; William Fontaine
Page and Mann Page, both deceased;
and John Cary Page of Richmond. His
retirement in 1934 was caused by ill health,
and he was then named Dean Emeritus by
the Board of Visitors. He died on 18 March
1936, and impressive funeral services were
held at Grace Episcopal Church in Cismont,
Albemarle County, in the graveyard
of which he lies buried.