THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
THE University of Virginia
holds a place of its own in
educational history; it was
our first real university; its
achievements in the field of scholarship
and its service to public life have
been manifold, and have not yet had
adequate recognition. It was the
creation of one of the most fertile and
original statesmen we have yet produced;
three Presidents or ex-Presidents
sat on its first Board of Visitors; it is
associated with one of the foremost
American men of letters, and with a
long line of cultivated, scholarly, and
distinguished men in public and professional
life; it is the most democratic
of American colleges in its organization;
it is genuinely and typically
representative of a generous and high-spirited
people, who have never parted
with their idealism, and among whom
the traditions of courage, courtesy,
and hospitality are still sacred. The
foundation for the University was laid
in 1803, when the Legislature of the
State by an act incorporated certain
leading citizens of Albemarle county
under the style of "Trustees of Albemarle
Academy," and were empowered
to take the necessary steps for the
purpose of raising funds required for
erecting buildings and putting the
Academy into operation. Little or no
headway was made however, and it
was not until March, 1814, when Thomas
Jefferson, the real head and founder,
was elected to the Board of Trustees
that a process of development was
begun which eventually led to the
erection of the University. In August
of that year the committee to select a
site reported that it would be desirable
to locate the Academy near Charlottesville,
but no further action was taken
until 1816, when the Legislature authorized
the establishment of "Central
Academy" in Albemarle county "on
the site selected by the Trustees." "In
May, 1817," writes Professor Wm. Harrison
Faulkner, "Jefferson was elected
Rector of the Board, and on October
6th of the same year, in the presence of
Thomas Jefferson, Rector, and of
James Madison and James Monroe—
the latter then President of the United
States—the corner-stone of Central
College was laid. The site of the new
college was a farm of some two hundred
acres, one mile west of Charlottesville,
purchased shortly after Jefferson's
election as Rector, and now
forming a part of the grounds of the
University of Virginia. The building
at whose foundation were present a
President and two ex-Presidents of the
United States, is now one of the
pavilions on the west lawn of the
University, and has been for many
years the residence of Dr. Noah K.
Davis, Professor of Moral Philosophy.
It was erected from plans drawn by
Jefferson himself, and formed a part
of the large architectural scheme
afterwards carried out in detail, when
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EAST LAWN
Central College was merged into the
University of Virginia. As Rector of
Central College, Jefferson's prime
object was to get that institution well
under way and have it adopted as the
State University. From the beginning
there had been in the Legislature a
strong opposition to his plan of forming
a State University; this opposition,
however, was finally overcome through
the determined efforts of Joseph Carrington
Cabell, Jefferson's close personal
friend and fellow-member of the
Board of Visitors, and in February,
1818, the Legislature authorized the
appointment by the Governor of a
"Board of Commissioners for the University,"
to consist of twenty-four
members. This board met at the
Rockfish Gap Tavern in the Blue
Ridge Mountains, August the 1st,
1818. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe
were present at the meeting, and
Jefferson presented a report, probably
written before the meeting, recommending
among other things, Central
College as the most advantageous site
for the State University. This report,
adopted by the Commissioners, and at
once forwarded to the Speaker of the
Senate and the Speaker of the House,
formed the basis of an act to establish
a State University, introduced into the
Legislature the following January.
The opposition to this measure was as
determined as that of 1818, but Cabell's
efforts and influence again prevailed,
and on January 15, 1819, the Legislature
passed a formal act, "for establishing
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SOUTH FRONT OF THE ROTUNDA.
a University." This day
marks the beginning of the University
of Virginia, though the institution
was not open to students until March
7, 1825. The supreme government of
the University was vested in a board
of six visitors (afterwards increased to
eight), appointed by the Governor.
This board consisted of four members
of the old board of Central College—
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
Joseph Carrington Cabell and John H.
Cocke—and three additional appointees,
James Breckenridge, Chapman
Johnson and Robert Taylor. At the
first meeting of the board, March 29,
1819, Mr. Jefferson was elected Rector,
and from that time until his death, in
1826, he directed and dominated the
University, "not only evolving the entire
system of education introduced,
but actually devising, to the minutest
details, every feature of construction
and organization." As originally organized
the University of Virginia consisted
of eight independent schools—
Ancient Languages, Modern Languages,
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy,
Chemistry, Medicine and Law.
One of the excellent qualities of this
system was its elasticity; a new realm
of knowledge opened by the advance
of thought, could be admitted to
academic statehood with as much ease
as a new State is admitted to the
Union; each domain, as it extended
its boundaries, could be subdivided
and new schools arise; and yet the
original conception of an academical
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Edwin Anderson Alderman, LL. D., First President of the University.
union remained unchanged. Hence
the internal history of the University
of Virginia is one of constant addition
and expansion, until, at present, the
Schools number twenty-six, grouped
under six different departments. This
grouping of the various schools into
departments began in 1837, when the
school of Medicine was elevated to the
Department of Medicine; in 1850, the
School of Law was enlarged into a
department, while in subsequent years,
as the industrial development of the
South made such a step necessary,
were added the Departments of Engineering
and the Department of
Agriculture. The academic work of
the University is grouped under two
departments—The College and the
Department of Graduate Studies. The
latest, and in many respects, the most
important addition to the number of
academic schools, since the foundation
of the University, is the Curry Memorial
School of Education, made possible
soon after President Alderman's
installation, by the generous gift of
Mr. John D. Rockefeller. The history
of the University of Virginia is one of
steady growth and development. That
this growth is destined, under President
Alderman, to continue and to be
even more remarkable than it has been
for the past two years, is the conviction
of all those who study educational
conditions in the South. Already the
number of students is larger than in
any previous year of the University's
existence, and the faculty has been increased
and greatly strengthened.
More promising and more important
still than this growth in the University
itself, is the inspiration which the
whole public educational system of
Virginia is drawing from it. Truly
the perfect fruition of Thomas Jefferson's
educational system, from the
primary school to the State University,
seems close at hand. Dr. Edwin
Anderson Alderman, the first President
of the University, was graduated at the
University of North Carolina in 1882,
Ph. B.: Superintendent of Schools,
Goldsboro, N. C., and Assistant Superintendent
of Education, North Carolina,
1889-92; Professor of History, State
Normal and Industrial College, 1892-93;
Professor of Education, University of
North Carolina, 1893-96; President
University of North Carolina, 1896-1900;
President Tulane University of Louisiana,
1900-1904; President University of
Virginia, 1904—L. L. D., University of
the South, Sewanee, 1896; L. L. D.,
Tulane University, 1899; L. L. D.,
John's Hopkins University, 1902; L.
L. D., Columbia University 1905; L.
L. D., Yale University 1905; Member
of Southern Education Board, Vice-President
National Education Association,
1903; Phi Beta Kappa, 1905;
Member of Maryland and Louisiana
Historical Society; Phi Kappa Sigma
Fraternity; Author of a brief "History
of North Carolina" and "Life of William
Hooper," "Life of J. L. N. Curry;"
"Obligations and Opportunities
of Citizenship," "Southern Idealism,"
etc. Dr. Alderman was born in Wilmington,
North Carolina, in the
Spring of 1861. He was born a Democrat
in a city where a man's politics
and his religion are as unchangeable
as the laws of the Medes and Persians.
He is an excellent gentleman and has
been proposed by the Hartford Courant
and Harper's Weekly as a suitable
man for the Democrats to nominate for
President of the United States in 1908.
Any further information pertaining to
the University will be cheerfully furnished
by Mr. R. M. Price, the secretary,
who will be found a most obliging
and pleasing officer.
