University of Virginia Library

THE ACADEMIC SCHOOLS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

By William Harrison Faulkner, Ph.D.

In the time at my disposal, it is naturally impossible to give anything
like a history of a century of development in the academic schools of the
University. Nor can I consider the response in their growth to external
conditions. I must limit myself to discussing what seem to me the internal
causes affecting this development. These internal causes can be studied
most systematically in the varying requirements for graduation and degrees.
From this standpoint our discussion may be divided into five periods, viz.:

• 1. The Period of Jeffersonian Ideals, 1825-1831.

• 2. The Period of the Master of Arts of the University of Virginia, 18311890.

• 3. The Period of Transition, 1890-1900.

  • a. To the Undergraduate College.

  • b. To the Graduate School.

• 4. The Period of Full Undergraduate Growth and Development, 19001921.

• 5. The Period of Future Graduate Growth, 1920-

The original Enactments of the Visitors, written by Jefferson and
printed in 1825 (before the faculty had been installed), are, as it were, the
Jeffersonian constitution of the University, under which its great founder
expected it to function and develop. The distinctive and even revolutionary
characteristics of this constitution are, first, the independence, the
autonomy, of the individual school; second, the advanced nature and the
extensive character of the instruction to be given; and third, the freedom of
the individual student to select any course or courses for which he might be
prepared. Under this constitution the University was a federation of sovereign
and allied institutions rather than a single organism. In matters of
discipline only and in the conferring of diplomas did the federal law take
precedence of the rights reserved to the states. With the one exception of
the School of Law, the head of a school was the sole and final arbiter as to

courses offered, textbooks and methods used. Absolute Lehrfreiheit was
the guiding principle.

In the list of subjects to be taught in the individual schools, one is
immediately struck both by the advanced and specialized nature of the
courses to be offered and by the broad conception of the field of learning
allotted to each school. In the schools of Ancient and Modern Languages
were to be taught not only the language and literature, but also the history
and geography, the political and social institutions, the economic conditions,
ancient and modern, of the nations whose languages were studied,—as a
matter of fact, philology in its widest sense. The school of Natural Philosophy
was to give instruction in the whole realm of modern physics, and in
mechanics, geology, mineralogy, botany, and astronomy, that of Mathematics
in all branches of Pure and Applied Mathematics, including surveying,
engineering, and navigation. The school of Moral Philosophy comprised
not only Logic, Ethics, Psychology and Metaphysics, but also
courses in Criticism, Belles Lettres, and Political Economy. The School of
Chemistry was most restricted in its field, being limited to Chemistry and
Materia Medica, the latter, however, being especially for students of medicine.

As is well known, Jefferson's original complete plan included a system
of state-supported commonschools, a group of ten state colleges, and the
University as the apex of his pyramid. When it became evident that circumstances,
political, social, and economic, made impracticable the carrying-out
of the whole scheme, the University alone was retained. The
pyramid was to begin with the apex, the educational arch with the keystone.
Whether such topsy-turvy architecture possessed a validity in the
world of ideas, failing it in the realm of space, time alone could show. In fact,
for over two generations the history of academic schools is that of a constant
effort to build downward, to adapt themselves to a very slowly growing foundation
and thus save the structure from the usual fate of castles in the air.

For Jefferson, uninfluenced by his failure to establish state colleges as
feeders, adhered to the university conception of the institution, as distinguished
from the collegiate; rather a university of instruction, however,
than of research.

And here I feel I must attempt to clear up what seems to me an almost
universal misunderstanding. The freedom in choice of courses given the
individual student was not the so-called elective curriculum, later appearing
as a revolutionary innovation in undergraduate colleges. It was a necessary
concomitant of the University as distinguished from the colleges,—the
Lehrfreiheit of the student as a complement to the Lehrfreiheit of the
professor. Jefferson cannot be called the inventor, or, as some would put it,
the instigator, of unrestricted election in undergraduate education.

Nor was his university, as has sometimes been asserted, a university

The Lawn and Cabell Hall from Top of Rotunda

without a degree. The Enactments of 1825 provide for two diplomas: that
of Doctor and of Graduate. Though not so limited in the Enactments,
the Doctor's diploma was from the beginning restricted to graduates in all
the courses applying to the practice of medicine, and so does not concern us
here. The degree of Graduate in its original application has been frequently
misunderstood. It was not given to any student who merely attained
the first division (the term "passed" is of much later origin) in a senior
course in any school, or in all the courses in the school. This merely qualified
the student as an applicant for candidacy for the degree. The degree
was conferred on the basis of a special examination for graduation. The
scope of these examinations is described in the faculty minutes, and in
addition the actual examination given is outlined in presenting the report
on each individual candidate to the faculty. The examination oral and
written covered every phase of the subject and is essentially the rigorosa of
the German Ph.D., rigorously interpreted. Moreover the original Enactments
provided: "But no diploma shall be given to anyone, who has not
passed such an examination in the Latin Language as shall have proved him
able to read the highest classics in that language with ease, thorough understanding,
and just quantity. And if he be also prepared in Greek, let that
also be stated in the Diploma." The reasons given for this are interesting
as indicating Jefferson's conception of "a well-educated man," and also
what his opinion of any elective system which omitted Latin and Greek
would have been. The regulation continues: "The intention being that
the reputation of the University shall not be committed but to those who,
to an eminence in some one or more of the sciences taught in it, add a proficiency
in those languages which constitute the basis of a good education
and are indispensable to fill up the character of a `well-educated man.' "
This practically amounted to requiring of a graduate in any school or the
recipient of any diploma the completion of Senior Latin and, by implication,
also of Senior Greek. We shall see that it was so interpreted in the case
of each graduate with diploma (including M.D.'s) until the establishment of
the M.A. degree. We shall also see that the graduates of this first period
did not apply for candidacy for the degree until they had attained the first
division in the senior course of the school for two sessions, and that each of
them had regularly won previous to the conferring of the degree similar
distinction at intermediate and final examinations in course in four other
schools, including Latin and, in all cases but one (Grad. in Chem.), also
Greek. By subsequent enactment (April, 1828), the faculty added an
English Examination, to be required of all candidates. This consisted of a
composition of not less than twenty-five lines, on some subject from the
course in which the candidate applied for graduation, and of an examination
in syntax and orthography. It was held before the entire faculty. The
degree of Graduate in a School could not be obtained in less than three
years, and actually was not. Such a degree was what we think of as a
Ph.D., minus a dissertation or thesis. The latter was required only of the
doctors of medicine, and included also the public defense of the thesis, if
the candidate was called on.

Let us see now the working out of these three characteristics of a
university in application to contemporary conditions. Mr. Gilmer had
been eminently successful in his hunt for "characters of the first order."
No new institution of the time could have shown a more competent faculty.
And this faculty proceeded rigorously to put into effect the constitution
drawn up for its guidance and control. The autonomy of the individual
school and the academic freedom of instruction caused no trouble. Quite
otherwise the academic freedom of the student. It became almost immediately
evident that only a few students of exceptional ability and
unusual advantages in preparatory education were willing or able to profit
by university instruction and academic freedom, if success in examination is
a criterion of such profit. The number of students attaining distinction in
examinations in course was very small year by year, and after three sessions
only six made application for the degree of Graduate in a School.

An examination of the record of these first graduates of the University
will show how strictly the stated requirements for graduation were observed
and also the advanced nature of the examinations for graduation. May 31,
1828 was set as the last day on which application for degrees might be made.
The nine applicants (three for M.D.) were examined in English the same
day. All were accepted, though one was recalled and reëxamined, as there
seemed some doubt as to his qualification. The examinations for graduation
began on the fourth Monday in June and the results were reported
to the faculty and the degrees conferred on the 14th and 17th of July. Four
examinations of two hours each were held in Greek: two in writing, on
Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and on Greek prosody,
especially the trochaic, iambic, and anapæstic of tragedy; two on Greek
history, geography, and philology; and an oral on Xenophon. The two
examinations on Mathematics were held on separate days and consisted
of questions selected from one hundred examples from Peacock's Collection
of Examples in Differential and Integral Calculus, and of questions chosen by
the faculty from La Place's Traité de Mécanique Céleste and from Coddington's
Optics. The two examinations in Chemistry of two hours each
covered the following topics: the Rationale of all Chemical Operations; the
Elements of Practical Chemistry, more particularly with respect to the use
of Tests and Apparatus; Nomenclature; Laws of Composition; Applications
of Chemistry; History of the Science. In addition the candidates in
Chemistry were required to furnish a week before examination a written

statement of all speculative subjects in Chemistry, and to explain, if called
upon, the existing theories respecting them, and to write by dictation upon
subjects connected with Chemical Technology. Each candidate had attained
eminence for two sessions in the senior course of the school in which he
graduated. In addition each had passed on four other senior courses. These
in every case included Senior Latin, and in every case but one Senior Greek.

This then was the academic degree system in theory and practice until
the M.A. was instituted. I have gone into it in some detail, because the
three principles involved: the autonomy and independence of the individual
school; the high standard for graduation with almost exclusive emphasis on
the senior courses; and the freedom in choice of studies allowed to the
student, dominated the development of the academic courses for nearly
three quarters of a century and influences it strongly even to-day.

It had become evident that the degree of Graduate in a School either
could or would be sought by only about one student in twenty. In 1828,
the year in which these first diplomas were conferred, began in the faculty
the discussion of a more general and coördinated degree. Three years later
the Master of Arts of the University of Virginia was superimposed on the
degree of Graduate. From the scanty records available of the discussion
preceding the recommendation of the degree, the faculty seems to have
intended by it to obviate the disadvantages of study without fixed plan—in
other words, to supply a curriculum. The degree of Graduate in a School, as
originally conferred, was beyond the powers of nine out of ten of the students.
This new degree required graduation in all six schools, a total of eight senior
courses, as Latin and Greek were both required in Ancient Languages, and
one Romanic and one Germanic tongue in Modern Languages. As three
schools a year had already become the standard maximum of work undertaken
by each student, the degree could not be taken in less than three
sessions, and then only if the student entered prepared to take senior courses
in all subjects but one.

At first there was no abatement in the difficult standard of graduation
in the individual school, except that Latin was no longer rquired as a
qualification for the diploma. The distinction between examinations for
graduation and examinations for distinction was still made. In addition,
the candidate had also to stand before graduation a general examination in
all courses required for the degree, and show by examination a satisfactory
knowledge of English, and also to prepare a graduation essay or thesis.
These last three requirements, however, were gradually relaxed in severity
and finally abolished.

There still remained, however, the most striking characteristic of the
degree,—the almost exclusive emphasis placed on the senior courses. This
seems to have had two effects,—disregard of the educational importance of

lower courses, and a gradual common-sense reduction in the amount of work
required in the higher ones as the number of academic schools increased.

Prior to the period of the development of the sciences as educational
subjects, only two additions were made to Jefferson's original six academic
schools. From the beginning the University had been subject to criticism
because it offered no specific instruction in English and General History.
Jefferson probably considered that History would be sufficiently provided
for in the schools of Ancient and Modern Languages, and that the courses
in Latin and Greek would afford adequate training in English composition
while the course in Anglo-Saxon would teach the history and development
of the language. From the beginning, however, the faculty imposed an
additional English requirement. Finally in 1856-57, the establishment of
the School of History and Literature was announced, with that most versatile
of scholars, George Frederick Holmes, as Professor. At first, the
instruction was for the most part in English Composition, with lectures on
Literature, but gradually, the interest of the head of the school shifted to
General History and Sociology, with consequent change in the courses offered.
Its courses were not listed among those required for the M.A. until after
1856, so that the requirements of the degree remained unchanged until then.

The second new school made no increase in the courses given. By
1857 the number of students in Latin and Greek was so great as to be beyond
the strength of a single professor, even with two or three assistant-instructors.
In 1858, therefore, Basil L. Gildersleeve was elected Professor
of Greek, and the School of Greek created as an independent school. The
precedent thus established, that the creation of a new professorship meant
the establishment of a new independent school, was closely adhered to until
1905. The logical development of Jefferson's broadly conceived academic
schools would have been the creation of professors of individual subjects in a
school, without further subdivision. This departure seems to the writer
to have been unfortunate. It weakened the individual school. It led to
lack of coördination in the programmes, both undergraduate and graduate,
subsequently established. And the principle of the independence and equal
importance of the academic schools, now applied to what should have been
minor subdivisions, produced an impossible multiplication of subjects
required for the "old M.A," and even for the first real undergraduate degree
established, so that freedom of election amounted to little more than a
choice (frequently unwise) of the chronological order in which the required
courses could be taken.

In connection with the School of Greek comes the first indication that
the degree of Graduate in a School was no longer the highest conception of
specialized academic study. In 1859-60, the School of Greek announces
the formation of "a post-graduate department, in which graduates and

more advanced students have opportunity to extend their acquaintance
with Greek literature under the personal direction of the Professor. The
course embraces such of the higher Greek classics, as are unsuited, either by
form or by subject, for the general instruction: e.g.: Æschylus (sic),
Aristophanes, Aristotle, Hesiod, Pindar, Theocritus." Seven graduates in
Greek of the previous session entered it, among these Launcelot M. Blackford,
later the most distinguished preparatory-school principal of the South,
and H. H. Harris, afterward Professor of Greek in Richmond College.
When the close of the Civil War allowed the wounded veteran to return to
the University, Professor Gildersleeve resumed the post-graduate course.
It continued to enroll from half a dozen to a dozen graduates annually, and
was, so far as I have been able to discover, the first graduate course, in the
modern sense, offered in an American university. In 1867 a similar "postgraduate
department" in the School of Latin was announced by Professor
William E. Peters.

In spite of its long history and the fanatic reverence shown it, even
by those students who could never hope to obtain it, "the old M.A." did
not fulfill the purpose with which the faculty established it, nor was it suited
to educational needs. It was too general for graduate work and yet the
courses required were too advanced for the great mass of academic students.
By depreciating the esteem in which the degree of Graduate in a School was
originally held, it lowered the high standard of graduation in the individual
school, without producing, in compensation, courses suited to the great
majority of the students. Finally, it was so difficult that scarcely one
student out of twenty could ever hope to obtain it or actually did. In
consequence the other nineteen lacked, while students, the sense of organic
connection with the University which a candidate for a degree has; were
without the added incentive to successful work which this gives; saw no
especial academic inducement for more than a session or two of study;
and, leaving without a degree, had not, as alumni, that feeling of continuing
membership in the living organism of the University which a degree gives.

The faculty was not unaware of these defects. In 1848 it established
a B.A. degree, but one that shows how difficult it was to break with the
tradition of the overweening importance of the senior courses, especially in
Latin and Greek, and the independence and equal sovereignty of the academic
schools. It required graduation in all but two schools and a proficiency
in the junior courses of the remaining two, and was therefore almost as difficult
as the M.A. Despite this it seems to have been regarded as a contemptible
consolation prize. At any rate, few students ever applied for it.

After the Civil War, during the period in which schools of Biology and
Agriculture, Analytical and Industrial Chemistry, and Geology were
established, repeated efforts were made to break from the "old M.A.'s"

dominating influence without abolishing it. New baccalaureate degrees,—
at one time three in addition to the B.A.,—were instituted. None "took,"
so to speak. All suffered the fate of the first B.A. The addition of new
schools, with new M.A. courses, as they had now come to be called, only
increased the impracticability of the Master of Arts degree.

Despite this, the development of the University continued, a development
that must be attributed to the ability, scholarship, and personality of
the individual professors rather than to any coördinated educational plan.
Nor were these qualities confined to the lecture-room. Two of the faculty
became, through their books, great popular educators. The names of
McGuffey and Holmes carried the reputation of the University into almost
every primary school in the country. In addition to this, Professor Holmes
quickly became one of the most prolific and versatile of publicists, his versatility
being only equaled by the soundness and depth of his scholarship.
Dr. Mallet began the publication of those articles which were to make his
name familiar to every chemist, while Professor Schele de Vere's publications
in linguistics and etymology gave the University international standing in
these rapidly developing sciences, and Courtenay's Calculus was long a standard
work in this branch of mathematics. To the weight of scholarship and
learning in these and other members of the faculty was added the energizing
force of the strong and distinctive personality of each individual.

Nor would I imply that the great mass of academic students, who went
away without degree, were on this account uneducated. Their training
had resembled that which one acquires in the contacts of real life in the
world rather than the coördinated discipline of a curriculum. They had
been educated by personalities rather than subjects. And the man who had
"had" "old Pete" or Colonel Venable or Basil Gildersleeve, or Dr. Mallet or
Professor Smith may have failed on Latin, Mathematics, Greek or Physics,
but he had learned something that none of these subjects alone could have
taught him. Moreover, the students of this middle period, particularly in
the ante bellum decade, had an intellectual stimulus, which their present
successors seem to me to have lost They belonged to a governing class,—
an aristocracy, if you will. Almost without exception, each one could look
forward, in one way or another, to direct power in political life. Their reading,
as shown in the library records, their work in the literary societies, even
their daily conversation, so far as we have record of it, reflects this. In
this respect they resembled rather the students of Oxford and Cambridge,
those universities of English diplomacy and statesmanship, than the student-body
of the modern American college. Their history in after life shows that
education and leadership are not matters of a degree.

The twenty years, approximately 1870-90, closing the life of the old
M.A., are characterized by certain salient features. First, the growth

in natural science and the development of laboratory work; second, the
shifting of emphasis from Latin and Greek to Modern Languages, English,
and History. With each professorship a new school was established,—
independent and of equal importance with its sister sovereignties. The
M.A. was thus threatening to topple over from its own weight. Finally,
after a long and acrimonious conflict with alumni, the faculty recommended
in 1890 its abolition. In its place were instituted a new B.A., requiring
passing on nine intermediate courses, classified into groups of related subjects,
and a new M.A., conferred on B.A.'s who passed on four additional
senior courses. For the first time in the history of the University the distinction
was made between undergraduate and graduate courses, and the
foundation laid for a college.

At first, as was to be expected, the new baccalaureate degree was
strongly influenced by the conception of the importance and comprehensive
character of the work of the individual school. The small number of
courses required for it, as compared with baccalaureate degrees in other
colleges, was based on the assumption that concentration on three subjects
in a single session was better educationally than to cover the same ground in
each subject in two sessions, at the rate of from five to six courses a year.
Experience proved, however, that this was a mistake, and in 1911 all the old
intermediate courses (now designated B courses) except those in laboratory
sciences, were divided into B1 and B2 courses of a year each. The baccalaureate
degree thus became the normal 60 session-hour degree of the
standard American college, and the differentiation between the College and
the Graduate school was fully established.

During this period of transition,—indeed at its very beginning,—an
addition of transcendent importance was made to the number of academic
schools: the foundation in 1892 of the Linden Kent Memorial School of
English Literature, with Professor Charles W. Kent as its first professor.
The school of English, established in 1882, had not been a success, and the
undergraduate students were without systematic training in English composition
and Rhetoric and Modern English Literature. To a group of
alumni, who knew Dr. Kent and most of whom were students under him, it
is not necessary to emphasize the astounding development in these allimportant
subjects, that is due to his scholarship, educational statesmanship,
unremitting industry, high standard of work, and enthusiastic and
inspiring personality.

With the differentiation of undergraduate from graduate courses
begins also the period of close connection between the University and the
public-school system of the state, dreamed by Jefferson but so long denied
fruition. Its first sympton was the institution and growth of so-called A1
courses in foreign languages, English, and Mathematics, to fill in the gap

which was found to exist between the end of the high-school course and the
B.A. courses in the University. From this time on the coördination between
the state's secondary and higher education gradually becomes perfected.

In one particular, however, the 60-hour baccalaureate degree from 1911
still showed the influence of the independence and equal importance of the
individual academic school of the old M.A. Each school, new or old, desired
and frequently claimed, directly or indirectly, equal representation in the
degree programme. This led to such multiplication of small groups of
required subjects that the student's election of studies amounted to not much
more than a choice of the chronological order in which the required subjects
might be taken. This defect has been removed by the new baccalaureate
programme, effective next session, which provides for fundamental subjects
in the first two sessions, free election during the last two, and for concentration
by requiring that the candidate shall have completed in one
school a C course to which six hours, or two B courses, are prerequisite.

In conclusion I would sum up by saying that we have freed ourselves
from the mere letter of the original Enactments, but have remained true to
their spirit. After a century the apex of the pyramid has not been lowered
but has built downward to a firm foundation, the keystone has developed the
arch. And the result is not a dead structure, but a living organism, capable
of almost infinite growth.

A prophet is notoriously without honor in his own country. From
prophecy I would therefore refrain. I would state only what seem to me the
two general problems which the academic schools must now face and solve:
first, the evolution of some plan, which will give both stimulus and recognition
to the undergraduate student of unusual ability and special intellectual
interests: something in the nature of the Honors Schools at Oxford; and
second, the development of the graduate department, with its masters' and
doctors' degrees, into a great fountain-head of scholarship and productive
research, in keeping with the ideal of our great founder.

In the papers to be read before the separate sections, I feel sure we may
hope to find the method of approach and solution of these two problems.