University of Virginia Library

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ANNOUNCEMENTS.

1887-'88.

The University of Virginia is in a picturesque and healthful
location among the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is at
the junction of two great lines of railway, the Chesapeake and Ohio and
the Virginia Midland, and is thus of easy access from every part of the
country. It has a post-office, with numerous daily mails; is in communication
by telephone with the neighboring town of Charlottesville; and
by telegraph is connected with every quarter of the world. The climate
is invigorating and healthful, and at all times free from malarial conditions.

The Sanitary Arrangements, recently improved and extended at
great cost, are considered almost perfect. There is a copious supply
of the purest water; the system of drains and sewers is complete; and
the moderate Infirmary fee secures medical treatment by the Professors
of the Medical Department, and in case of serious illness skilful nursing
in a well equipped Infirmary.

The Session begins on the 1st of October, and continues nine
months, without intermission. On Public Day, which is the Wednesday
before the 3rd of July, the Visitors, Faculty, Officers and Students
of the University assemble in the Public Hall, whither also the public
are invited. On this occasion the results of the examinations are announced,
degrees are conferred, and the session is formally closed.

The Courses of Instruction are Academical and Professional. The
former are comprised in two departments, the Literary and the Scientific;
the latter in the five Departments of Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, Engineering,
and Agriculture. In the various Departments there are altogether
nineteen distinct Schools, each affording an independent course under a
Professor, who alone is responsible for the system and methods pursued.

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Elective System.—This system of independent schools assumes
that opportunities for study and instruction are privileges to be sought
voluntarily and eagerly. Students are therefore allowed to elect for
themselves the courses of study to which they are led by their individual
tastes and proposed pursuits in life, so far as the times appointed for
lectures and examinations permit. Nor is it alone to those who wish
to make special attainments in single departments of knowledge that
this freedom of election commends itself. It has serious advantages also
for most of those students who seek the common goal of liberal education
by ways which varying aptitude, varying preparation, or varying opportunities
render of necessity divergent. The wisdom of the founder
in establishing such a system has been amply vindicated in the history
of this University; and in recent years many schools of higher education
in the United States have adopted methods involving this principle.

Degrees.—But even here it has been found advantageous to mark
out in the several Departments carefully arranged groups of Studies
leading to corresponding Degrees. And it is always best for the student,
in either the Academical or the Professional Schools, to follow
from the outset some definite plan of studies, formed under competent
advice. Such a course will generally lead to one of these Degrees, although
not necessarily limited by the requirements for any one of them.

Preparation.—Some special preparation for the courses taught in the
Schools of Latin, Greek and Mathematics will be found indispensable.
But even for these Schools it is more important that the preliminary
studies should have been careful and accurate in quality than that they
should be extensive. For the other Schools the essentials of a plain
education in the common school branches constitute the only indispensable
preparation. In all the Schools alike, however, the student who
has had the benefit of mental training, and who brings with him good
and well-established habits of study, will derive increased profit from
the University instruction because of these advantages.

But it has never been the policy of the University to reject any student
merely because of deficient preparation in special branches of
learning. The standards of teaching and of examination can be otherwise
maintained; and experience has shown in a multitude of instances
that young men of vigorous mind and earnest purposes of diligence,
brought hither by a laudable ambition to excel, may overcome all disadvantages,
and become conspicuous among their fellows for success
in study.