University of Virginia Library

HISTORICAL NOTE.

The University of Virginia grew out of the plan for a local academy which
had been chartered in 1803. In 1814 Thomas Jefferson was made one of the trustees.
In 1815 he drafted the bill for the expansion of the Academy into Central
College. In 1816 he procured the passage of the act establishing the College,
and was made one of the Visitors. In 1817 the corner-stone of the first pavilion
was laid, the scene being "graced by the presence of Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison, late Presidents of the United States, and of James Monroe, the actual
President."

On January 6, 1818, Jefferson forwarded to the Speaker of the House of Delegates
a report on the condition of Central College drawn up by himself as Rector,
in which, upon the authority of the Visitors, he offers to transfer the property and
rights of Central College to the Legislature as the foundation for a State University.
The property consisted of 200 acres of land, the partially completed buildings,
and a subscription list which showed a total of over $44,000. On February
21, 1818, a bill was passed, one clause of which made an annual appropriation
of $15,000 for a University, "wherein all the branches of useful science were to be
taught." The Governor of the State was authorized to appoint a Board of Commissioners
who should report to the next session of the Legislature on the site, the
plan, the organization, and the system of government of the new University.

On August 1, 1818, "at the tavern in Rockfish Gap" the Commissioners assembled
in a room which now forms a part of the Mountain Top Hotel. Jefferson
was elected president of the Commission, and was "the soul that animated it." By
ingenious demonstrations of the central and healthful location of Charlottesville,
he secured the University for its present site against the rival claims of Staunton
and of Lexington, and the report of the Commissioners was manifestly from his
hand. After an active struggle in the Legislature the bill establishing Central
College as the University of Virginia passed both houses by large majorities,
and on January 25, 1819, became a law.

The next six years were spent by the Visitors in erecting buildings, purchasing
a library, and collecting a Faculty, and it was not until March 5, 1825, that the
University was opened with six professors and forty students. Soon after the two
remaining professors arrived, and by the end of the first session, Christmas 1825,
there were eight professors and one hundred and twenty-three students. The
original Faculty consisted of George Long in Ancient Languages, George Blættermann
in Modern Languages, George Tucker in Moral Philosophy, Thomas
Hewitt Key in Mathematics, Charles Bonnycastle in Natural Philosophy, John
Patten Emmet in Natural History, Robley Dunglison in Medicine, and John Tayloe
Lomax in Law.

The subsequent history of the University is a record of steady growth and expansion,
a regular and normal development of the educational principles of the
founder. New Schools have been created, the equipment has been enlarged, and
new lines of work from year to year established. In the Academical Department
the Schools of Greek and Latin were separated in 1856; the School of Historical
Science was founded in 1857; the School of Biology and Agriculture in 1872; the
School of Geology and Mineralogy in 1879; the School of English in 1882; the
Adjunct Professorship of French and German was created in 1888, and that of
General History in the same year. In the Department of Law the School of Constitutional
and International Law was founded in 1851. In the Department of
Medicine the School of Anatomy was founded in 1827; that of Physiology in 1849.
In the Department of Engineering the Schools of Applied Mathematics and
Analytical Chemistry were founded in 1867.