University of Virginia Library

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

1889-'90.

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 city of Charlottesville, and is connected by telegraph 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.

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 adoped 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.