University of Virginia Library

7. THE UNIVERSITY A SOURCE OF BOOKS FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

And, finally, what shall we say of the books for our common schools
that have been written and published by University teachers and University
alumni? Bonnycastle's Mensuration, Holmes's United States history, and
Venable's arithmetics were widely used for many years; and the famous
spelling books and readers by McGuffey have had an influence that is at
once potent, far-reaching, and wholesome. It is said that McGuffey's
activity in 1870 and later, both in the University and elsewhere in the State,
in securing the establishment of public schools and in commanding them to
general favor, were most earnest and effective.

The excellent series of readers prepared some years ago by President
Alderman was a notable contribution to our school libraries and literature.
In attractive form and easy grading he has made a fine collection of prose
and verse—classics old and new—and placed it at the disposal of our teachers
and their pupils. The history of education in Virginia, published in 1916,
by Cornelius J. Heatwole, a son of Virginia, cannot be overlooked in this
connection; and the biography of J. L. M. Curry, by Alderman and Gordon,
while it is not a text book of the ordinary type, is an informing, stimulating
story for teachers—the story of a great man who was a teacher and a leader
of teachers.

And one could not end this catalogue, however brief and fragmentary it
may be, without mentioning specially the Library of Southern Literature, a
monumental work in sixteen splendid volumes, the compilation of which was
directed largely from the University of Virginia and which is a veritable
boon not only to Virginia schools but to those also of every state of this
nation.

To indicate further the influence of the University upon Virginia public
schools and to illustrate more particularly some of the statements already
made, the following charming story is presented. It is a first-hand contribution
to this study, made by one who has recorded definite observations of
the influences we are tracing, and who is herself an eminent example of those
students and teachers who have received rich gifts from our Alma Mater,
even though they have not, as a rule, been numbered among her sons and
daughters.

"Judge James O. Shepherd, a University man, was the first superintendent
of schools in Fluvanna County. He rallied around him a teaching
force representative of nearly all the leading families of the county. He thus
(and in many other ways) set the standard high and established from the

beginning the respectability, and even the gentility, of the public school. I
recall playing with a child-visitor from an adjoining county, who spoke so
disdainfully of `free schools' that I did not once dream that they were the
same thing as our honored public schools—and I now have reason to believe
that they indeed were not the same.

"Later Judge Shepherd harped on this one string until every child
among us caught the note: `We need good public schools devoted to the
higher branches. We have the elementary school for the foundation.
Yonder we have the University for the top. But we have a great gap between.
We need to make the connection by means of a public high school
that can prepare the boys for the University.' And he worked the citizens
up to contribute liberally to this cause and obtained special dispensation
from the General Assembly to establish at the county seat that new thing—
a standard rural public high school. I was always led to understand that
this was the first of its kind in the State. . . .

"Is it at all significant that the lifelong home of Judge Shepherd is
`Mountain View?' Certainly it was from that hilltop that they used to
point out to us a symmetrical little blue peak, Monticello, adding in tones
almost reverent that just beyond was the University.

"One more fact about the Judge. When I left for Hollins, he gave me a
lead pencil with the parting injunction that I should write and rewrite Latin
exercises very carefully, `looking up things' which I did not know.

"It was in 1886, when Judge Shepherd and his neighbors, the school
trustees, were moving heaven and earth and the State Legislature to establish
a rural high school at the county seat—always with the definite ideal of
preparing boys for the University—for that was never omitted from the
statement of the case—that my teacher read in the Louisville Courier-Journal
of certain `University Local Examinations' which would be held
at various centers throughout the South just one month later. Her
prompt letter of inquiry brought from the University itself a pamphlet
definitely stating the subjects, the scope, and the requirements of these
examinations.

"The next year, perhaps, a center was established in Fluvanna, and
for some years thereafter it was the habit for the private schools of Fluvanna,
as well as for the new public high school, to stir their students'
ambition to pass these examinations. No doubt this was true in many
other sections also,—these local examinations taking the place of high
school graduation.

"First there was a preliminary examination in elementary subjects—
geography, grammar, oral reading, etc.—which must be passed before the
candidate could be considered for the `higher branches' of geometry, Cicero,
Shakespeare, etc.

Fireworks on the Lawn: The Closing Scene

"I think I shall go on now that I am recalling this occasion and set down
some of my own experiences of that new era for me, as a sample of what these
examinations might mean in inspiration.

"My teacher said that I was to go to the University and take these
examinations instead of my own `finals.' The delight of it—the thing that
made it a great adventure instead of a heavy task—was that she said if I
passed she would consider it a success, but if I should not pass she would not
judge it a failure, under the circumstances of the brief four weeks of preparation.

"Such a sense of the greatness of this quest! Such a reviewing of
geometry (and geography)! I had never heard of the Manilian Law, but it
read very much like parts of Cicero that I had been taught. I had never
studied `literature' except Shaw's History of English Literature. Neither
my teacher nor I knew that there was such a thing as an annotated edition
of a play or a poem. But there was a leather-backed Shakespeare in the
house, of course, which people read, and sometimes read aloud, though the
required play, The Tempest, was new to me until that full month when,
armed with the unabridged dictionary, I hammered at the bard's
meaning.

"Upon reaching Charlottesville (the first night I ever spent in a
town) I found the other candidate for the examination to be a girl attending
Mrs. Meade's school—Emma Moser, afterwards for many years
a valued teacher in the Charlottesville High School. This girl mentioned
her Hudson edition of The Tempest, with notes. I soon had it in my possession,
and studied it all night long (the noise of the great city of C. being
too much for a wink of sleep anyway). Why, Hudson told you everything
you had wondered about! He seemed the friendliest writer in the
world.

"Again, the gracious dignified Mrs. Meade, in gold-pinned cap, having
to leave me in her library when her class bell rang, asked whether she could
do anything for her timid guest. `If you could lend me a history of England
fuller than Goodrich's.' `Why, yes; here is one sent me lately by one of my
former pupils.'

"Thus I was introduced to Green's Short History of the English People.
I devoured its pages about Pitt's plans for applying among his countrymen
the great principles of Adam Smith's Political Economy, and how the French
Revolution broke into his high hopes. The book was so different from Peter
Parley! Best of all, the writer of the examination questions for the next day
had evidently just been reading Green also, for he followed his lines exactly,
and I could write voluminously in answer, and love Richard Green as a
friend evermore.

"At last the hour actually came for the examination. Charles S. Venable

was in charge—the first professor of the revered University that my
eyes had rested upon—and even then they rested only upon his shoes. I
was too much abashed to look into the face of the great man `who had made
the arithmetic and who understood exactly why you invert the divisor, and
everything.' So I gazed at his feet. I recall now just how they looked and
that I felt distinct satisfaction and almost a touch of wonder that they
rested upon the earth. He was kindness itself, and the thought of that good
and wise man still brings always an upward pull.

"The first thing in the preliminary examination was to read aloud some
page from some book. Professor Venable walked casually to one of the
many shelves and just as casually pulled out a volume, turned its pages and
chose one at random. Would it all dance before me like hieroglyphics?
It was the only page in that book I had ever seen. The winter before I had
been studying in my teacher's room one evening. An old lady was visiting
her. My teacher was reading to her from this very book. The old lady
dropped a stitch in her knitting. It misbehaved sadly, that stitch. It
ran back row after row. The teacher had to stop and pick it up. She
handed me the book that the reading might not break off. I read aloud
a page, and then the stitch was all right and I went back to my lessons.
And now that page was handed me to read as a first omen at the University
of Virginia. . . .

"At the end of the last examination there was a question that seemed
to invite my opinion. (It was on Shakespeare.) Could I dare to offer
what nobody thought but just ME? I recall saying to myself, `I'm twenty-five
miles from home. They'll never hear of the audacity of it. I'll never
see these professors again. I believe I'll do it. I'll take a fling.'

"And I did. I remember feeling as if I were flying—as if for once
and in some far off way—and never to be dared again—I were flying
—and in the atmosphere of those whom my imagination ranked the
highest.

"He must have laughed—whoever looked over that examination. One
could easily laugh at the importance which I attach to it now. But I go
back to that day when I see the word Renaissance. That examination was
the enfranchisement of my thought. However pitifully little that has
meant to anybody else, it has meant a good deal to me, and I thank the
University and Thomas Jefferson for it.

"There was a student who brought his books and `sat with' the candidates
when Professor Venable could not be there. In spite of my high respect,
I must have looked him over from toe to top, for I recall distinctly his
red head. He hesitated when I asked him how to spell Guinea, but I thought
it was because his mind was on higher things. I asked him whether I'd
better write fully or concisely. `If it's literature,' he said, `I think you'd

better chat along'; which I thought a delightfully familiar and condescending
mode of speech for one whose own daily words must all be exalted far
above `chat along.' "[5]