II
MATRICULATION
1888 In the days of my youth when I was a student in the University of
Virginia, 1888-1893. | ||
II
MATRICULATION
1888
SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON in The Caxtons.
It was in the consulship of William M. Thornton (1851-1935), who succeeded Colonel Charles S. Venable as Chairman of the Faculty, that I both began and ended my career as student and instructor in the University of Virginia. Then he himself was just a young professor of Applied Mathematics, but had he been Agamemnon, he could not have seemed to me more born to be feared and obeyed. In those simple days when Romans were like brothers, the modest office of the ruler of the campus was naught but an ordinary student's room adjoining the residence of Professor John R. Page in the pavilion at the north end of West Lawn. The session used to begin regularly on the first day of October, and I suppose it was on that very day in the year 1888 — to me it seems no longer ago than if it had been yesterday — that, accompanied by my father, I stood before the Chairman's door and found myself a moment later in Mr. Thornton's presence. He rose from his chair behind the table as we entered and coming forward greeted my fattier cordially. He extended his hand to me also and was affable and
As o'er some stranger glancing,
It took only a short time to transact the business in the Chairman's office. Mr. Thornton agreed with my father that for the present I had already gone far enough in Latin, but that another year could be devoted with advantage to concentrated study of Greek and Mathematics. Accordingly, it was decided without a dissenting voice that I was to take concurrently the intermediate and senior classes in each of these subjects, with a view to completing the requirements for graduation in both schools by the end of my first session, as indeed seemed reasonable enough in view of my previous preparation.
The next step was to see the Proctor and conclude the business of matriculation by paying the required fees and making arrangements for my board and lodging. The Proctor was Major Green Peyton whose home and office were in the pavilion in the middle of East Range, and after our interview with the Chairman, we repaired thither immediately. Major Peyton and my father were friends of long standing, his wife being indeed my father's first
By nightfall of that first eventful day, I had received my father's last injunctions, and when he bade me farewell and took the train back to Richmond, I was already installed in my new lodgings at No. 14 Monroe Hill, doubtless not a little elated by a strange feeling of self-reliance, that "glorious privilege" every youth longs for "of being independent." The rent of the unfurnished room was only $30 for the entire session of nine months. How I got the furniture I have now only the dimmest recollection, except that, such as it was, it was all bought second-hand, plain enough when it was new and bruised subsequently by rough usage. The bed, somewhat wider than single, occupied one corner of the room and a pine bureau another corner, the two being separated by the intervening back window and an old trunk whose curved top ascended at its highest point not very far above the level of the window sill and which held inside nearly all my lares et penates and other earthly possessions. Later on I acquired in some way a low steamer trunk also, as it used to be called, which was conveniently, perhaps a little contemptuously, shoved out of sight under the bed. It generally contained apples and other raw materials collected for consumption between meals, especially late at night just before descending into the peaceful arms of Morpheus. The door of the room was directly opposite the window, and on the right-hand side next to the door was the closet closed in front by a calico curtain that had to be pulled to one side in order to see inside. Built into the room in a shallow recess on the side of the mantelpiece opposite the bureau, the closet served the double purpose of wardrobe and washstand. There were several hooks on one side for hanging towels and the suit of clothes which was not in use for the time
In the fourth corner of the room, on the other side of the door opposite the closet, a bookshelf was fastened tight against the north wall. The two upper shelves held all my textbooks and a few miscellaneous books of one kind and another, including the Oxford Bible my mother gave me when I left home, the Works of Shakespeare all in a single cheap volume, Lord Byron's Poems, Pope's translation of Homer's Iliad, a duodecimo edition of Don Quixote in two volumes, Dr. Smith's History of Greece, Hume's History of England (5 volumes), Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Smollett's Humphrey Clinker, Fielding's Tom Jones, Dickens's David Copperfield, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's Robert Elsmere, besides some other more or less standard works that I cannot positively recall. The truth is, during the whole time I was a student in the University of Virginia, I affected to be a young gentleman of catholic literary tastes, and I tried and contrived to produce that impression to a certain extent. As a matter of fact, the collection of authors above mentioned was, I suppose, largely accidental and happened to consist mainly of such volumes as I had been able to purloin from my father's library in Richmond before leaving home. The two lower shelves of the bookcase were reserved for such flotsam and jetsam as could find no other convenient place of repose — loose articles, a hat, an extra pair of shoes, a tennis racquet, etc.
Two indispensable articles of furniture had to be kept outdoors. One was a large wooden coal chest that held perhaps as much as half a ton of soft coal. This oblong box rested on the ground with one of the two narrow sides close against the outside wall below the window, the lid of the box, which could be lifted on a pair of hinges when the padlock was removed, being nearly flush with the window sill. The little grate beneath the mantelpiece was hardly big enough to hold more than two or three ordinary lumps of coal; yet small as the fire was in it, it sufficed to keep the room snug and comfortable even in the coldest weather. The initials and other insignia of all the previous denizens of my abode had been piously carved — more often than not burned by a red-hot poker — in the old woodwork around the fireplace.
The other utensil that had to be kept outdoors also for lack of space inside was my tin bath tub or "hat tub," as it was called from its shape being like that of a girl's large hat 'turned upside down. Somewhat precariously, perhaps a little ostentatiously also, this outward and visible symbol was suspended under the arcade against the brick wall on one side of my front door, and when the wind howled, it rocked back and forth on the rusty old nail and banged against the wall with a noise like stage thunder. Sometimes indeed the nail pulled loose from the mortar, and then there was a loud crash on the pavement below that roused all the inhabitants of Monroe Hill. On such occasions everybody rushed
One drawback about my new domicile, as I was soon to find out, was that it was not only in plain view of Mr. Thornton's imposing residence on the crest of Monroe Hill but within hailing distance also, for it is never quite safe for a subaltern to be under his master's watchful eye by day as well as exposed to his wakeful ear by night. As a matter of fact, the shorter arm of the L-shaped row of dormitories on Monroe Hill was joined to Mr. Thornton's house by a pair of communicating rooms that were used for his library and study. Archer Anderson and his younger brother Joe, old schoolmates of mine in Richmond who had both come to college two or three years before me, occupied the two rooms in the angle of the L; then on the long side towards Dawson's Row came first Billy Magill, then Joe Dunn, both from Petersburg and both from McCabe's School in that town; and, third, Julian Wells, of Charleston, South Carolina, whose room was adjacent to mine. On the other side Randolph Hicks, of The Plains in Fauquier County, was my next-door neighbour. Jim Stevens and his roommate Boyle, Boyle and Stevens as they were usually known because they were almost as inseparable as Siamese twins, lived in the last room at the end of the row. I believe they were both from Mississippi.
Among them all my best and dearest friend was Joe Dunn (the Reverend Dr. Joseph B. Dunn, '90, of Richmond, Virginia), who afterwards married my beautiful cousin Martha Southall, a famous belle in Charlottesville in those days. He and I had many congenial tastes and bonds of union. Yet even then his aims were higher than mine, and though now living in retirement in his home in Richmond, he was for many years a very distinguished clergyman in the Episcopal Church, widely known and much beloved in Virginia. Few persons that I have ever encountered had a greater flair for literature than Joe Dunn, and even in his boyhood he showed great talent for writing. He was much
I oft could wish my neck were his'n,
My next-door neighbour, Julian Wells, was a perfect gentleman if one ever lived in this world, not exactly unsociable, yet somewhat shy and solitary. His aloofness might have passed unnoticed except for a curious way he had of reminding us of his presence in our midst. Without rhyme or reason and invariably without the slightest warning, suddenly in broad daylight Julian Wells would throw the door of his room wide-open and, standing there on the threshold with a loaded revolver in his hand, would discharge a volley of bullets in the plaster ceiling of the arcade just above his head, much to the consternation of all the peaceful and law-abiding inhabitants of Monroe Hill and Dawson's Row. At first we conjectured that our friend was perhaps celebrating the anniversary of some glorious and patriotic deed that had been done once upon a time in his native state, but the theory broke down unless there was a legal holiday in South Carolina nearly every month of the year. Wells's fusillade was of short duration, but it reverberated far and wide while it lasted. I never ceased from wondering why Mr. Thornton and his
Boyle and Stevens were two amateur musicians as wedded to their art as they were devoted to each other, Banjo or guitar, mandolin or zither, never for a moment day or night, so at least it seemed to me, were not both of them plucking one instrument or the other as if they were alone together in the wide, wide world and it mattered not how long the performance lasted. I myself am not a judge of music in all its varieties, and all I can say with certainty is that in this particular instance
It wandered about into several keys;
Randolph Flicks, who got to be an eminent lawyer in New York, was a fellow of infinite jest besides being a great lady's' man and society leader. He was handsome withal and immaculately dressed always. If he lacked a new shirt or was at a loss for the proper necktie to wear on some particular occasion, he had no scruples about invading the room of his next-door neighbour and selecting the most suitable article of apparel he could find in his wardrobe. If afterwards I happened to meet Randolph Hicks that same evening in one of the fashionable drawing rooms
Late one Sunday morning I woke up and remembered with joy that I had an engagement to go to church with lovely Maggie Mason. To sit by her side in the family pew in old Christ Church in Charlottesville, then to escort her home (which was quite a long stroll), and almost certainly to be invited to stay to dinner surely that was as blissful a prospect as any youth on earth could have that heavenly day in early autumn! I opened my eyes and yawned. There in front of me a cheerful fire glowed on the hearth, and a jet of steam issued from the spout of the iron kettle on the bracket of the grate. Andrew Jackson, the coloured janitor who waited on me had his faults, but he had his virtues also. Evidently, a little while before, he had tiptoed in my room as usual, and lighted the fire without disturbing me; evidently too he had remembered that it was Sunday and it was my bounden duty to take a bath before breakfast. Now all was in readiness for that hebdomadal act of ablution. The tub had been brought indoors and placed in front of the fire. A pail of cold water was on the rug beside it, to be used to temper the hot water in the kettle. A towel and a cake of soap were laid on the seat of the hat tub, and another towel was spread on the floor for me to step on when I got out of the bath. I glanced at the watch under my pillow — Goodness gracious! it was already after half-past nine o'clock, and I had to bathe, dress, get breakfast, and be downtown at the church door, more than a mile away, by eleven o'clock sharp. Mrs. Burthe's boardinghouse where I took my meals was at the end of West Range not much farther than a hundred yards from my door. The breakfast-hour on Sunday was always later than usual, but the door of the dining room was
When I first came to the University, the two great rival fraternities were the DKE's and the ATO's, and so far as college politics was concerned, nor much love was lost between these powerful cliques. The high quality of the personnel of the ATO's was measured by such typical representatives as Archer Anderson and Reid Hobson, but in order to match them it was enough for the DKE's to point to their own Hampden Bagby and Raleigh Minor, who certainly ranked as high in those days as any pair of students in college. A few months previously, namely, in June, 1888, the hard-earned and much-coveted degree of Master of Arts had been conferred on each of perhaps as notable a group of candidates as had ever been presented for
Two large round tables were reserved in Mrs. Burthe's dining room on West Range, one for the ATO's and the other for the DKE's, and that was about. the closest those two organizations ever got together. At 'least a year before I came to college, I had been pledged to join the DKE's, and now at last that boyhood ambition had been realized; I myself was one of the élite as I fondly imagined. The other members of Eta Chapter of DKE in 1888-89, as well as I can recall, were: Charles Baskerville, William Cameron, W. Robertson Gordon, Robert Tate Irvine, E. 0. McCabe, Joseph McElroy, Robert French Mason, F. A. Meacham, Raleigh Colston Minor, Sidney M. Neely, Jefferson Davis Norris, Allen Potts, Francis P. Salas, Muir Weissinger, Joseph P. Winston, Thomas Longstreet Wood, and Elisha E. Wright.
One of the most popular and conspicuous Eli Banana's in college before my time was Beverly Randolph Harrison, eldest son of Mrs. Julian Harrison and at least four or five years older than his half-brother Peyton Harrison, who was, about my own age. He used to return to the University fairly regularly two or three times every session for several years after he graduated, if indeed "Bev," as everybody called him, ever did graduate; the main if not the only object of his periodic visits being to attend the Eli initiations, which were celebrated with much revelry. Being also an ardent DKE, "Bev" kept in touch with the affairs of the local chapter and was a kind of patron of the new members from year to year. So it came to pass that one day early in the autumn of 18 88, without appointment or previous advertisement and much to my bewilderment, "Bev" Harrison appeared at my door on Monroe Hill attended by two coloured porters each
The orgy did not escape official notice. That same evening when quiet was restored, a note was delivered to me from the Chairman of the Faculty, and I opened it with trepidation. It was couched in polite terms; yet there was an ominous tone in it. It asked me to report to the Chairman's office at nine o'clock
Simplicity is the handmaid of sincerity. Now as I look backward over an interval of more than half a century, simplicity and sincerity seem to me to have been the cardinal and distinguishing characteristics of the University of Virginia in my student days. It set great store on its high standards of honour and scholarship; above all its aim was. not so much size and quantity is it was strength and quality. Whether in any single year of my residence the number of students ever got as high as five hundred, I cannot say, but I believe it is safe to say that in 1888 the entire faculty did not much exceed a score of professors, without counting three or four assistants who were called instructors. What counted most was the personnel of teachers and pupils alike. The former were as a rule men of high character and refinement, while the latter came almost exclusively from the upper classes in the South between Maryland and Texas, with just enough matriculates from north of Mason and Dixon's line to leaven the lump and add to its flavour. In this congenial community mutual reserve and mutual respect ripened easily and
In 1888 a remnant was still left of the illustrious faculty that had tided the University through the difficult and anxious years of the Civil War. John B. Minor (1813-1895), great expounder of the Common Law, and Francis Henry Smith (1829-1928), worthy successor of William B. Rogers ( 1804-1882) in the chair of Natural Philosophy, were indeed active and vigourous yet as in (lays of yore; but the venerable and beloved Dr. James Lawrence Cabell (1813-1889), professor of Physiology and Surgery, who as Chairman of the Faculty in the far-off days before the War with Mexico had conferred the degree of Master of Arts on my father, ended his useful and honourable life during my first session in the University. Dr. Maximilian Schele de Vere (d. 1898), professor of Modern Languages, who I believe was a native of Sweden, and Dr. George Frederick Holmes (1820-1897), professor of History, who was born in British Guiana, certainly two of the most erudite and renowned scholars in all the land, were both on the verge of retirement. Indeed ere my college days were over, William Howard Perkinson (1861-1898) had succeeded "Mr. Schele," and, similarly, Richard Heath Dabney, now the sole survivor of the faculty as it was in 1889, was even then all but nominally head of the School of History.
At least three members of that old faculty were outstanding not simply on account of their learning and technical fitness but above all because each of them had been a gallant and distinguished officer in the Civil War. Colonel Charles Scott Venable (1827-1900), professor of Mathematics, of whom, according to Mr. Thornton, it was not too much to say that he was
Another notable figure in those days. and for many years to come was Noah Knowles Davis (1830-1910), professor of Moral Philosophy, whose residence on West Lawn was directly opposite Colonel Venable's in the pavilion which is now the home of the Colonnade Club, the oldest structure in the University. "Noah K.," as he was familiarly known far and wide, was always bowed in thought and certainly looked the part of a philosopher, as he paced to and fro under the arcade in front of his door with his hands clasped behind his back and his body bent nearly double. Seeing him thus, I used to wonder whether he had failed to win
The sage in meditation found,
The humorous and satirical poem called "Modern Olympus," written by my friend Herbert Barry of New York, was published originally in the University Magazine in 1887. There, if anywhere, is to be found a contemporary, not altogether flattering
Other "immortals" who were celebrated in the classic poem above mentioned were "majestic Jove" himself, who of course represented Colonel Venable in his rôle of Chairman of the Faculty; "Mercury who rides upon the wind," obviously meant for James Mercer Garnett (1840-1916), professor of English; "Pallas who reigns over abstruse thought" alias "Noah K."; "Venus more than mortal fair," rather a mean fling at "old Daddy Holmes"; "the amorous Bacchus," a double entendre intended for Mr. Minor, who, 'tis true, was somewhat addicted to matrimony, yet held Bacchus in abhorrence; and "the graceful god from down below," meaning William Morris Fontaine (1835-1913), professor of Geology. The poem relates that Jove had summoned the gods to "the dread tribunal of the Olympic Hall" (in other words, Colonel Venable had called a faculty meeting) in order to ask their advice about a question as solemn as it was momentous, too hard for Jove to answer by himself. When the deities are all assembled, they are told that the disciples who "before our altars burn the midnight oil" (namely, Herbert Barry et id omne genus) had suddenly got out of hand and were restive, eager indeed for excitement or what might be called recreation. In a word, they craved leave to
On the light fantastic toe,
We used to call Mr. Garnett "dismal Jimmy" in allusion to his lugubrious countenance, though it really belied him, for he was a kind and affable gentleman and undoubtedly a foremost authority on "Beowulf" and Anglo-Saxon literature in general.
Mr. Fontaine likewise was far-renowned as a geologist. A confirmed old bachelor and very much of a recluse, he held forth somewhere in the bowels of the Lewis Brooks Museum. I cannot recall ever having laid eyes on him; nor can I call to mind the name of any student who had a class under him.
James H. Gilmore, who succeeded Stephen Osborne Southall (1816-1884) as professor of Constitutional and International Law, was Mr. Minor's colleague. I have only a dim recollection of him; yet I know he lived downtown in my grandfather's old home, where General Lee's monument now stands.
In 1888, Milton Wylie Humphreys (1844-1928), a native Virginian who had risen to distinction in the University of Texas, took Professor Wheeler's place in the chair of Greek. He was reputed to be a man of omnivourous learning, who like Lord Bacon had taken all knowledge for his realm; indeed, his greatest admirers boasted, not without exaggeration, that he would have been just as much at home in the chair of Mathematics as he was in that of Greek. Be that as it may, I can vouch for the fact that every week for many years in succession his name (or rather his
When the elder Dr. John Staige Davis (1824-1885) died in 1885, his place as professor of Anatomy and Materia Medica had been taken by Dr. William B. Towles (1847-1893), a man of imposing stature and so striking in appearance that he had only to be seen to be admired and respected. Other eminent teachers in the Medical School were William Cecil Dabney (1849-1894), professor of Obstetrics and the Practice of Medicine; Albert Henry Tuttle (b. 1844), professor of Biology; and Paul Brandon Barringer (1857-1941), destined to be the last Chairman of the Faculty in succession to Mr. Thornton before the advent of Dr. Alderman as the first President of the University of Virginia.
Dr. Tuttle quickly won a high place for himself not only among his colleagues but in the whole community. Years afterwards he and I got to know each other by virtue of our having a common interest in the theory and construction of the compound microscope, for Tuttle was exceedingly expert and ingenious in the manifold uses of that beautiful instrument.
The care of the health of the student body was confided to Dr,. Dabney and Dr. Barringer. It must have been an onerous task in addition to their other duties and responsibilities, and was discharged by either the one or the other in regular alternation over a period of several months at a time. Many doses of calomel or some other drastic concoction that was in vogue in those days
My recollection is that William Holding Echols (1859-1934) ,and Dr. Barringer both came to the University as members of the faculty during the session of 1889-90, and that Dr. William G. Christian was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy to help Dr. Towles in 1890. "Reddy" Echols, as he was called from the colour of his hair, was as distinguished in appearance as he was superior in intellect, certainly one of the handsomest men I ever beheld. He was made adjunct-professor of Applied Mathematics doubtless in order to relieve Mr. Thornton to some extent, whose duties as Chairman of the Faculty were certainly not light. About a decade later when Colonel Venable retired, Echols stepped into his shoes as professor of pure Mathematics and held that post thereafter as long as he lived. "Reddy" Echols was a
Colonel Venable had for his assistant James Shannon Miller (d. 1944), instructor in Mathematics, whom we called "Math. Miller." He bad the everlasting credit of explaining to me the real nature of a differential coefficient and putting me on really friendly terms with that chief agent in the mysterious realm of the calculus. Afterwards for more than half a century Dr. Miller was an eminent professor of Mathematics in Emory and Henry College.
Colonel Peters had an assistant also, Robert Somerville Radford (1869-1936), young and erudite instructor in Latin, sometimes known as "the Radford," as if he were the one and only specimen of that rara avis. Certainly Bob Radford was one of the queerest of mortals, awkward, shy, and lonely, who mumbled his words and spoke a jargon that was utterly unintelligible to me; yet withal he was an undoubted prodigy and star of the first magnitude in his own peculiar sphere. His territory was in the field of the dead languages, and there he could cross swords with his official superiors, Colonel Peters and Mr. Humphreys themselves, and even come off victorious. Dr. Radford, a bachelor to the day of his death, was for many years professor of Latin in the University of Tennessee.
It has often been pointed out that puris omnia pura is not to be interpreted as meaning that to boys everything is pure and sacred, for nothing could be more contrary to the truth. Much as we admired our honoured teachers in the 1880's, we were not above poking fun at them whenever we got a chance. Herbert Barry's epic poem to which I have alluded is an instance of how irreverent and satirical we could be on occasion, especially when we had a feeling of resentment and a score to pay. In Jack
Strophe
For years collectively we've soughtTo see if we could find
A single great or little thought
Unknowen to our mind.
Yet not one instance can we "spot"
Or find the smallest grain
Of knowledge that we haven't got,
We've sought for more in vain.
Anti-strophe
We know it all, we know it all,We've sought for more in vain.
In the 1880's, the prestige of the University of Virginia throughout the South, as I have implied already, was still very high, as it had been in ante-bellum days during the first quarter of a century of its existence. I daresay it would be safe to say that a large majority of the leading instructors in the principal schools in that section of the country were themselves graduates of the University of Virginia, trained in her ideals, imbued with her traditions, and loyal to her allegiance. Thus steadily, year by year, more and more firmly the institution founded by Thomas
A half century ago the total number of students, as has been noted already, was comparatively small, more than half of them coming from Virginia alone, and perhaps more than a third from all other parts of the South including Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Nowadays the total enrollment has mounted from the hundreds into the thousands, and whereas less than a sixth of the matriculates used to come from regions outside the southern states, it was reported in the Alumni News for July, 1943, that of more than two thousand students who were in attendance in the previous session, only a hundred and sixty-five hailed from all the southern states put together outside of Virginia.
There have been profound changes all over the globe since 1890,nor is it surprising that the University of Virginia has had
In that admirable essay on the Honour System written by Mr. Thornton in 1906, the writer begins by reminding us of Mr. Jefferson's original plan for creating at the University of Virginia what he himself called an "academic village" in which "the unit was a professor's residence (including his schoolroom) and an adjoining group of single-storey dormitories for students", and then towards the end of the essay Mr. Thornton, alluding .again to this peculiar type of architectural construction, writes as follows:
"Jefferson's academic village lent itself most admirably to the creation of such an academic life. The professors lived amidst their students and the physical nearness of dormitory and pavilion translated itself into social courtesies and moral contacts. The students themselves were brought into natural and unconstrained intercourse with each other and learned to know and to trust each other and to live a common life with common aims and common ideals.
"Virginia was happy also in the qualities of her professors. They were men of high social standards, of sound scholarship, of noble aspiration. Many of them had acquired wide experience of life and deep knowledge of men, More than one possessed rare
Now here is another point which cannot be stressed too much
or too often, especially nowadays when all over the earth men and women seem to be cast adrift from ancient moorings and are only too prone to follow strange gods and bow down before false idols. Trite as it may sound, it is worth repeating: The foundation of a great university rests above all on the character and quality of the teachers. Qualified men are not easy to find, but the search for them should be unceasing. Laboratories and libraries are good and even indispensable, but the one thing needful, the sine qua non, is the man who knows how to use them or in some cases can make shift to do without them. If he be lacking, your library or your laboratory, well appointed as it may be, is a delusion and a snare, amounting to little more than absolute zero. The professor is the life-giving spirit, the motive power, the man behind the gun. Nay, in innumerable instances the teacher himself is all in all, and his apparatus, if he has any at all, counts for very little. The whole equipment of a chair of Mathematics is little more than a blackboard and a stick of chalk; yet how it may flourish in the hands of a Gauss or a Poincaré! Willingly enough I grant that a Faraday must have his laboratory; yet behold what Faraday accomplished in the comparatively
Edward R. Courtenay (1803-1853), a native of Baltimore, graduated in 1821 at the head of his class in the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. He came to the University of Virginia in 1842 as professor of Mathematics. Colonel Mosby's testimony is supported by everybody who ever came in contact with that great gentleman and scholar.
Honour breeds manliness and courage, and courage for righteousness' sake is the highest virtue of civilization. Amid the
ravages of time and the fall of empires it is in the universities most of all that the torch of civilization is kept burning, dim and uncertain as the light sometimes is during what are called the dark ages, and thus the sacred fire has been handed down from
generation to generation.
The so-called Honour System in the University of Virginia originated, I believe, more than a century ago. It was certainly nothing new to me when I first came to college, for I had grown up in that atmosphere in McGuire's School in Richmond where the Honour System was just as simple and efficient, it seems to me, as it was in the University itself. Every boy who attended one of those old private academics in Virginia knew instinctively that he was bound by it. Noblesse oblige - that was all there was to it, and we simply took it for granted. It was above all an unwritten code, elemental, natural, not to be called in question, not even a subject of discussion, much less a source of pride or boasting. It had seldom to be enforced because it was seldom violated, and that in my opinion was the real secret of its successful operation.
Several years ago I was annoyed by a structural fault in the
A code of honour does not have to be codified and expounded. It has no legal sanction, and indeed as to its standards and penalties both, it may be open to question; only, it cannot be violated with impunity. As far as my experience. goes, that was how the Honour System operated in the University of Virginia. How adequate and salutary it was is shown by the fact that during the five years from 1888 to 1893 which covered my period of personal participation and observation, I myself was not cognisant of but one single instance in which the Honour System was invoked. The affair was not noised abroad, and here and now is the first public mention of it. Snowden Marshall and
One reason I had for quoting at length that striking passage from Mr. Thornton's essay was in order to stress the point that the faculty is as much a party to the Honour System as the student body, for in this code there is no longer any distinction between pupils and teachers, both parties being absolutely on the same footing with respect to integrity and good faith. In order for the pump in my cellar to do its appointed task, unbidden and unthwarted, the installation must have the proper setting and capacity, else the machinery will inevitably break down. So likewise the Honour System can flourish only in congenial surroundings; that is, in my judgment, in a comparatively small community composed of homogeneous parts that fit naturally in one another and are not apt to fall asunder. In the course of my life I have had some opportunity of experimenting with the Honour System in three or four colleges north and south, and I believe I have a pretty good idea of how feasible or unfeasible it is, depending on the strain to which it is subjected.
Let the teacher, to begin with, be a man with the character and qualifications of Professor Courtenay or Colonel Venable, a type, it must be admitted, not easy to reproduce, and let his class, not too large and unwieldy, be composed of average American students, sons of honest and respectable parents; then, under such favourable conditions I am disposed to believe that an Honour System is almost certain to be developed of its own accord. When the pattern of honour is held before the eyes of ingenuous youth, verily I believe, there be none so quick as they to wish in their hearts to live by it.
II
MATRICULATION
1888 In the days of my youth when I was a student in the University of
Virginia, 1888-1893. | ||