University of Virginia Library

RESPONSE BY PRESIDENT CHANDLER OF THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY

We are deeply grateful to His Excellency, the Governor of Virginia, and
to the President of this University for their eloquent words of welcome. We
thank them sincerely for giving us the opportunity to be present at this
renowned institution as participants in this history-making celebration. On
this centennial occasion it is a privilege to speak for the colleges of Virginia.
We rejoice that our University, through a hundred years of activity, has
contributed so much to the educational development of the State, and has
furnished so many leaders to Virginia and the United States. We are deeply
grateful that its centenary does not mark old age and a decline, but a ripening
into vigorous youth, giving promise of a period of more useful activity
and of wise promotion of education in many fields. No words of mine can
depict the deep sense of pride that we have in this institution.

On such an occasion one can but think of educational conditions before
the founding of the University. At the opening of the Revolution there was
but one institution of higher learning in Virginia, the College of William and
Mary, then nearly one hundred years old. But with the Declaration of
Independence, an impetus was given to higher learning, for it was generally
thought that in a Republic all men participating in its affairs should be
trained for the performance of their rights as citizens. The further desire to
prepare men for service to the church and to society in general, resulted in
the beginnings of Hampden-Sidney in Prince Edward County, and Liberty
Hall at Lexington, later Washington College, and still later Washington
and Lee University. These three institutions, William and Mary, Hampden-Sidney,
and Washington and Lee are the only Virginia institutions of college
grade antedating the University of Virginia.

George Washington had dreams of a national university, and in his will

he bequeathed fifty shares of stock in the Potomac Company for the endowment
of a university to be established within the District of Columbia. To
Washington College, he likewise made a gift of stock with the hope that at
Lexington would be maintained an institution which would prepare young
men for the national university. Washington's idea of a university was a
national school of politics and administration. According to Herbert B.
Adams, "It was an idea born of the old College of William and Mary, where
capitol and college faced each other, and where the statesmen of Virginia had
been trained for their great work of liberating the colonies and of framing the
Federal Constitution. The idea of a national university grew in Washington's
mind with his own official connection as Chancellor of William and
Mary."

Before Washington became an advocate of a national university,
another great Virginian was urging the establishment of a university for his
own State, "although there was nothing provincial in his advocacy." He
conceived of a university separated from politics and located in a small town
where young men would not be subjected to many temptations—an institution
around which there would cling something of a monastic spirit—a
university bearing marks of an educational system found at Geneva and at
Oxford and Cambridge. This great Virginian was Thomas Jefferson, who is
justly entitled to be called the "father of the University of Virginia."

This University, to quote again Herbert B. Adams, "is clearly the
lengthened shadow of one man. But William and Mary College was the
Alma Mater of Thomas Jefferson. There at Williamsburg, in intimate
association with a Scotch professor of mathematics and philosophy, with a
scholarly lawyer (George Wythe) and with the Governor of the Colony,
Thomas Jefferson received his first bent towards science and higher education,
towards law and politics—the fields in which he afterwards excelled.
Jefferson's first idea of a university for Virginia is inseparably connected
with his proposed transformation of William and Mary College, of which, as
Governor of the State, he became ex officio a visitor in 1779."

I wish it were possible at this time to review the full significance of the
year 1779 in the educational history of America. Speaking briefly, in this
year, the College of William and Mary took the name of university, established
the honor and elective systems, introduced the teaching of modern
languages, and established a school of law and a school of medicine. These
steps in American education, introduced through the influence of Jefferson
and the two Madisons, have revolutionized higher education in America.
However, Jefferson's bill of 1779, in favor of transforming William and
Mary into the University of Virginia, failed of passage because William and
Mary had been the college of the established church and the various denominations
represented in the Virginia Legislature would not vote public

money for such an "establishment, however noble and worthy. Non-sectarianism
was one of the deepest foundations in the political establishment of
higher education in Virginia." It was much easier, therefore, for Mr. Jefferson
and his friends to establish a new institution.

In a letter of 1814 to Peter Carr, President of the Board of Trustees of
Albemarle Academy, Jefferson wrote: "I have long entertained the hope
that this, our native State, would take up the subject of education, and
make an establishment, either with or without incorporation, into that of
William and Mary, where every branch of science deemed useful at this date
should be taught in its highest degree." In this letter Mr. Jefferson outlines
a plan for the elementary schools preparatory to the "general" schools,
which in turn should prepare for the professional schools, incorporated in
the university.

In 1817 a bill barely failed in the General Assembly to establish a complete
system of primary schools, academies, colleges, and a university. This
bill proposed that the trustees or visitors of the then existing colleges of
William and Mary, Hampden-Sidney, and Washington should be invited
to become a part of this system.

Jefferson's conception of a University of Virginia was a place where all
branches of useful sciences could be taught and where men could be trained
for the professions. He said: "To these professional schools will come the
lawyer to the school of law; the ecclesiastic to that of theology and ecclesiastical
history; the physician to those of the practice of medicine, materia
medica, pharmacy, and surgery; the military man to that of military and
naval architecture and projectiles; the agricultor to that of rural economy;
the gentleman, the architect, the pleasure gardener, the painter, and the
musician to the school of fine arts." He also favored a school of technical
philosophy and said: "To such a school will come the mariner, carpenter,
shipwright, pump-maker, clock-maker, mechanist, optician, metallurgist,
founder, cutler, druggist, brewer, vintner, distiller, dyer, painter, bleacher,
soap-maker, tanner, powder-maker, salt-maker, glass-maker, to learn as
much as shall be necessary to pursue their art understandingly, of the
sciences of geometry, mechanics, statics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hydrodynamics,
navigation, astronomy, geography, optics, pneumatics, acoustics,
physics, chemistry, natural history, botany, mineralogy, and
pharmacy."

It was not intended that this university should be a school of aristocracy
but a seminary of learning to which men preparing for all professions or
vocations would come. The marvel is the vision of the great master mind.
Founded on so broad a conception, the University may be expanded as the
needs of the people demand and as our civilization changes.

Speaking for my own college and the other Virginia institutions of

higher learning—state, private, and denominational—we exult in the
original conception of the founder of this University, a conception looking to
instruction in all fields of useful knowledge, and we pledge to the University
our assistance in the promotion of education for the State.

The raison d'être of a State university was well expressed by President
Burton in his inaugural address when he said, "The function of the State
university is to serve the State and through the State to serve the nation and
the world." Through the hundred years of its life the University of Virginia
has clearly demonstrated that this ideal is the goal of its ambition.
Its usefulness is being expanded daily by its recognition that much of
college work in the State should be done by institutions already chartered
and giving standard degrees. This does not mean that the University should
discontinue its college work but should insist, as it does, upon higher standards
both for entrance and graduation. The sister institutions are further
gratified that the University is holding firmly to Jefferson's desire to establish
a correlation between the University and colleges of such a character
that the colleges will become "feeders" to the University. This ideal is
vital to all, but it calls for strenuous efforts to develop extensively the graduate
departments of the University. The growth of the University is of
paramount importance to the State and such plans as look to the expansion
of the schools of engineering, education, business administration,
law, and medicine; to the establishment of a bureau or bureaus of investigation
and research, and to extension courses within reach of the people in
various parts of the State, are gratifying evidences of the broadening influence
of this institution of which we are so justly proud. We know that
all these movements demand large expenditures for equipment and for personnel,
but we believe that the people of Virginia are ready to be taxed for
all progressive proposals on the part of its University.

Mr. President, coming from an institution that is the Alma Mater of
the founder of the University, and speaking for it, speaking for Washington
and Lee University which owes, to a certain extent, its development to the
gift from the great Washington, speaking for the ancient college of Hampden-Sidney
and for the State institutions and the other institutions of higher
learning, which have been established since the University of Virginia, I
bring on this joyful anniversary greetings and expressions of grateful appreciation
of the wonderful influence upon learning that this institution has
exerted in the State and nation. We realize that this University has in
many ways ministered faithfully to the educational needs of our State and
country. We appreciate the high ideals that you and the Board of Visitors
have for this institution. We delight in its growth and expansion. We
rejoice in the prospects for an increase in its endowment and facilities. On
this Centennial anniversary we declare to you our readiness to coöperate

(From left to right) President Chandler, of the College of William and Mary; Ambassador Jusserand; President Lowell, of Harvard
University; President Hill, of the University of Missouri; Rector Bryan, of the University of Virginia

with you in your ambitions and in the superb efforts that are being made to
promote culture and to prepare men and women for leadership in the State,
the nation, and the world. We are yours to command for the accomplishment
of the cherished purposes for which this University was established,
for in those purposes we have an abiding faith.