University of Virginia Library

Capstone of Education

The unhurried outlook seems to
be one thing; the University itself is
another, as charged with energy
beneath as its reactor. At last it is
becoming what Mr. Jefferson wanted
it to be-the capstone of the
state's system of education, a
well-spring of diversified learning
and the source of stimulating
intellectual inquiry...

But behind all the latter-day
vitality, pervading it as mint does a
julep, is the Jeffersonian tradition,
and definitions of what that is
depend on to whom you are
talking, and when. On the one
hand, it is the student honor
system; on the other, as someone
has put it, "the God-given right to
go to hell in your own way." It is
abstract and material-the faculty's
jealous guardianship of its academic
and intellectual freedom, and the
buildings which constitute Mr.
Jefferson's physical legacy...