The Univezsity of *Uitginia 
 
 in the Life of the Ration 
 
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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 IN THE 
 LIFE OF THE NA TION 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF VIRGINIA 
 IN THE LIFE 
 OF THE NATION 
 
 ACADEMIC ADDRESSES DELIVERED ON THE 
 OCCASION OF THE INSTALLATION OF 
 EDWIN ANDERSON ALDERMAN AS PRESIDENT 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 
 APRIL THIRTEENTH, YEAR OF OUR LORD 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE 
 
 FOR THE SISTER UNIVERSITIES : 
 
 EAST : ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGB 
 
 NORTH : NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 SOUTH: WALTER BARNARD HILL 
 
 WEST : RICHARD HENRY JESSE 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS : 
 EDWIN ANDERSON ALDERMAN 
 
 or THC 
 ( UNIVERSITY ) 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 IN THE 
 LIFE OF THE NA TION 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 IN THE 
 LIFE OF THE NA TION 
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 BY THE REV. RICHARD D. SMART, D.D. 
 
 Almighty God, our heavenly Father, 
 from everlasting to everlasting Thou art 
 God, high over all, blessed for evermore. 
 We acknowledge Thee as the source of 
 all life and light and truth, so that it is 
 in Thee that we live and move and have 
 our being. We pray that Thou wilt 
 graciously smile upon us as we are here 
 assembled in the interest of higher edu- 
 cation and of the highest development 
 of the best that is in us. We thank 
 Thee for this institution of learning. 
 We thank Thee for the wise men of old 
 who laid its foundations broad and deep 
 and well. We thank Thee for the work 
 
l)e ftmfcer^itp of Virginia 
 
 it has accomplished, for the high ideals 
 it has ever held up before the people, 
 and for the many illustrious sons who, 
 having gone forth from its walls into all 
 the walks of life, have rendered high and 
 helpful service to mankind. And now, 
 O Lord, as this day marks a new depart- 
 ure in the history of this institution, we 
 invoke Thy special blessings upon it. 
 May its friends far and near rally to its 
 support as never before. May its equip- 
 ment for the work required of it in the 
 century upon which we are now entering 
 be large and ample. Bless the great 
 Commonwealth that fosters it; the Board 
 of Visitors that controls it ; the officers 
 and teachers who serve it; and the stu- 
 dents who from time to time may seek 
 instruction within its walls. May they 
 not only have their intellects disciplined 
 and their minds well stored with useful 
 
in tJje Kite of tJje Ration 
 
 information, but may they also imbibe 
 those nobler lessons of virtue and of 
 truth that shall make them wise unto 
 salvation. Especially do we invoke Thy 
 blessings, O Lord, upon Thy servant 
 who has been called to preside over 
 the destinies of this University. In the 
 discharge of the responsible and deli- 
 cate duties of this newly created office 
 vouchsafe unto him that wisdom which 
 cometh down from above and is profit- 
 able to direct. And so may this insti- 
 tution, in a larger sense than ever 
 before, be a fountain, the streams of 
 which shall roll on broad and deep and 
 pure down through many generations, 
 blessing children yet unborn. These 
 things we ask in His name, who hath 
 taught us when we pray to say, Our 
 Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be 
 thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will 
 
of Virginia 
 
 be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 
 Give us this day our daily bread. And 
 forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive 
 those who trespass against us. And lead 
 us not into temptation; but deliver us 
 from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and 
 the power, and the glory, for ever and 
 ever. Amen. 
 
 INDUCTION OF THE 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 BY THE RECTOR, HON. CHARLES PINCKNEY JONES 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 A growing public sentiment in favor of 
 a change in the government of this Uni- 
 versity caused the General Assembly of 
 the Commonwealth to impose upon the 
 Rector and Visitors, as the governing 
 body, the duty of electing a President. 
 This sentiment was based on the loyalty 
 
in tfje Sife of tfte Ration 
 
 and devotion to the best interests of the 
 University of all her friends; and the 
 Board of Visitors, after patient and anx- 
 ious thought on the subject, finally con- 
 cluded the duty assigned it by the election 
 of Dr. Edwin Anderson Alderman to the 
 high and responsible trust. We are 
 therefore met, on this anniversary of the 
 birth of our great founder, to formally 
 inaugurate this change in our government, 
 and induct Dr. Alderman into office as 
 our first President. 
 
 To the alumni and friends of the insti- 
 tution who know the mode in which the 
 government has been administered in the 
 past through a Chairman of the Faculty, 
 the change possesses much significance. 
 After following the plan of Mr. Jefferson 
 for three-quarters of a century, we have 
 come to depart from that feature of our 
 educational government inaugurated by 
 
of Virginia 
 
 him, and to fall in line with our sister 
 universities in this respect, so that in the 
 future we will have a single head devoted 
 to the service of education and with more 
 time to give to special interests than could 
 possibly have been given by the Chair- 
 man of the Faculty. And while we are 
 carrying into effect this change, we are 
 doing so with the hope that the office 
 will be so administered as to depart as 
 little as may be from the constitution 
 of Mr. Jefferson, and with the confident 
 assurance that it will be so administered 
 as to change in no respect the unwrit- 
 ten law of honesty and truthfulness, 
 which are leading, and, it may be said, 
 fundamental features of our government 
 And may we not believe that the change 
 now made would have been sanctioned 
 by Mr. Jefferson under conditions as 
 they now exist ? 
 
in rtje ilife of tlje Ration 
 
 It only remains for me, sir, acting 
 for the Board of Visitors, to declare you 
 the President of the University of Vir- 
 ginia, and to deliver you its charter, and 
 to pledge to you the heartiest support 
 that the Board of Visitors can give you. 
 
 You will now receive your oath of 
 office: "Do you solemnly swear that 
 you will faithfully discharge and perform 
 all the duties incumbent upon you as 
 President of the University of Virginia, 
 according to the best of your ability, so 
 help you God?" 
 
 The President: "I do." 
 
 RESPONSE OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 I accept the Presidency of this Uni- 
 versity, Mr. Rector, with humility and 
 yet with pride. Sustained and strength- 
 ened by the counsel and co-operation of 
 
ftnitoergitp of Virginia 
 
 the Board of Visitors, of my colleagues 
 of the Faculty, of the sons of this Uni- 
 versity, and of good citizens everywhere, 
 I undertake this task with hope and 
 courage. To obey its statutes; to respect 
 its ancient spirit; to maintain its lofty 
 ideals ; to seek with patience the laws 
 of its growth ; to give to its service, 
 with gladness, whatever strength I have; 
 all this I shall seek to do. By God's 
 help, I will. 
 
 FOR THE FACULTY 
 
 BY PROFESSOR FRANCIS HENRY SMITH 
 
 It has perhaps been observed that Vir- 
 ginians from this section, when speaking 
 in public whatever their theme may be 
 rarely close without swerving toward 
 Monticello and circulating about Thomas 
 Jefferson. That eminent man reminds us 
 
in tfte Hife of tfje Ration 
 
 of a giant planet that captures every comet 
 and meteor which dashes into its sphere. 
 
 Surely, however, on this day and at 
 this place, it is natural that our thoughts 
 should turn to him of whom our country- 
 men everywhere are thinking. A few 
 years since one of my colleagues at a 
 Faculty meeting said that, in all but the 
 name, Mr. Jefferson was President of the 
 University of Virginia. Indeed, it looks 
 so. From his aerie on yonder mountain 
 he watched the progress of these build- 
 ings. In a room near by is the telescope 
 he is said to have used. If he saw any- 
 thing wrong, tradition says, a gallop of 
 twenty minutes brought him to the spot. 
 He searched this and other lands for his 
 Faculty, inviting Ticknor from Boston, 
 Cooper from Charleston, and, I believe, 
 Priestley from Pennsylvania, He main- 
 tained close personal and social relations 
 
ftnitoergitp of Virginia 
 
 with the professors and leading students. 
 He conducted the University's corre- 
 spondence with learned men like Dupont, 
 of Delaware, and Barlow, of Woolwich. 
 He was mediator between the University 
 and the Legislature and people of Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 After an interval of eighty years, it 
 seemed wise to the General Assembly and 
 to the alumni, to the Board of Visitors 
 and to the Faculty, that the University 
 should again have a leader, with nothing 
 to do but to lead. Virginia could offer no 
 higher honor to any man than to invite 
 him to succeed her great son. The office 
 of President was created, and the Board, 
 after two years of patient search, selected 
 for its first occupant a son of the South, 
 devoted to the South, and at the same 
 time an American with sympathies as 
 broad as our great land. After a* pleas- 
 
 16 
 
in tlje nift of tfyt Ration 
 
 ant association with him for six months, 
 filled with new inspiration and hope, the 
 Faculty heartily and unanimously ratifies 
 the selection of the Board. 
 
 On this impressive occasion the Faculty 
 might offer many subjects of congratula- 
 tion. Time allows us only to mention 
 two. 
 
 In the first place, the Faculty congratu- 
 lates the University, and you, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, that you do not come to us to take 
 charge of a sickly or dying institution. 
 They rejoice, as you rejoice, that Virginia 
 has not called you here to raise the dead. 
 If the testimony of one who has been 
 here for many years, and has known the 
 University in the old days and now in 
 the new days, may be received, the insti- 
 tution had never been in a more vigorous 
 condition than on that bright day when 
 you came to us. Her Faculty and stu- 
 
 17 
 
Jje ftnitoer^itp of Bitginia 
 
 dents were more than doubled in number. 
 Her halls were filled with a company of 
 young men who, in manliness, loyalty to 
 truth and honor, devotion to and success 
 in study, were not unworthy successors of 
 those fine fellows, often their fathers and 
 grandfathers, who brightened these arcades 
 fifty years ago. Our equipment in libra- 
 ries, apparatus, laboratories, and buildings 
 generally was better than ever ; more than 
 all this the University had a larger num- 
 ber of devoted alumni and was nearer to 
 the people of Virginia than ever before. 
 In the promising future and the enlarged 
 possibilities which your coming, Mr. Pres- 
 ident, has opened to us, may we not re- 
 joice with you that you head a column 
 whose faces are already turned toward 
 the morning? 
 
 In the second place, the Faculty would 
 congratulate the University, and yourself, 
 
 i3 
 
in tfje Eife of tfte Ration 
 
 that you come from North Carolina. Our 
 hearts grow a little warmer at the men- 
 tion of a name with which Virginia has 
 been bound in many tender memories. 
 These two States have, side by side, 
 passed through bright days and dark 
 days. Virginia sacredly keeps the dust 
 of many of Carolina's brave boys, and her 
 living sons fill places of honor and trust 
 among us to our great advantage. We 
 are proud of her grand mountains, her 
 noble forests, her sparkling rivers, and 
 broad savannahs, possessed by a people 
 worthy of so beautiful a home a gallant 
 race, and one which has ever been among 
 the foremost in peace and in war. We 
 remember that within her borders was 
 born the first white child of this great 
 land, and, as was fitting in what was to 
 be a Southern State, that child was a 
 girl, and her name was Virgina, North 
 
of Virginia 
 
 Carolina, like Massachusetts, was then a 
 part of Virginia. May they always be 
 united in feeling and in friendship, if not 
 in name. In 1728 Colonel William Byrd 
 drew what he called "the dividing line 
 between Virginia and North Carolina." 
 If that dividing line exists to-day except 
 as a geographical fiction, may your com- 
 ing to us help to obliterate it finally and 
 forever. 
 
 It only remains to say, Mr. President, 
 that with regard to the future the Fac- 
 ulty, I am sure, will promise you two 
 things, both of which they believe to be 
 dear to your heart. 
 
 In the first place, they promise to 
 maintain at its old level and standard 
 the faithful work done in these lecture 
 rooms. They know that this quiet, 
 unostentatious labor does not arrest the 
 public eye, but they believe that it is 
 
in tfje Sife of tfte Ration 
 
 their chief business here. Not more 
 surely do the architectural glories of a 
 great building rest upon and owe their 
 permanency to the courses of masonry 
 hidden out of sight below the soil, 
 than do the rank and fame of this 
 University depend at last upon the good 
 work done day by day in her class- 
 rooms. How dreary is this daily grind 
 to a teacher who is only a hireling; 
 but to him who values aright the priv- 
 ilege and responsibility of molding these 
 young lives, the dull routine loses its 
 tedium and becomes divine. The Fac- 
 ulty promise you that this prime part 
 of their duty, including interest in all 
 that goes to make up our internal life, 
 shall be loyally performed. 
 
 They recognize, however, that a new 
 day has arisen upon our land, and that 
 an American university is no longer a 
 
ftnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 local institution, but an important factor 
 in our national life. Universities were 
 once cloisters, beautiful within, but frown- 
 ing without, training their members 
 away from and not into society. Now 
 their quadrangles are open to the light 
 and air; and the pulses of the national 
 life invade and thrill all their recesses. 
 The universities of our country belong 
 to a real union, though with an unwrit- 
 ten constitution. What happens to one 
 concerns all. When a fire sweeps away 
 all that fire can destroy, messages of 
 sympathy and offers of help burden 
 every mail. Fifty years ago such a 
 scene as this around us now was 
 unknown. The Faculty feels that in 
 this modern extension of a university's 
 external relations and duties you will 
 have a burden upon you almost too 
 great for any man. They respectfully 
 
in tfje Hife of tfte Ration 
 
 offer you such co-operation within their 
 ability as you may honor them by 
 requesting. 
 
 In conclusion, the Faculty express to 
 you, Mr. President, the hope, rising to 
 a prayer, that your future leadership 
 may be as successful as the beginning 
 of it has been auspicious. 
 
 FOR SISTER UNIVERSITIES OF 
 THE EAST 
 
 BY PROFESSOR ARCHIBALD GARY COOLIDGE, OF 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: You have 
 been listening to the words of your 
 nearer brethren, to the Governor of the 
 State, the representatives of the Faculty 
 and of the alumni of your own Uni- 
 versity. They have dwelt in eloquent 
 tones on the loftiness of her ideals, on 
 
Ctnifcer#itp of Virginia 
 
 the nobility of her achievement, and on 
 the manifold service which she has 
 rendered to this State, to the South, to 
 the whole country. But the voices that 
 should testify in her praise are not 
 merely those of her own children. Her 
 name is known far and wide, and her 
 influence has affected many who have 
 had no claim to direct connection with 
 her. It is meet, therefore, that on an 
 occasion like the present the sister uni- 
 versities from near and far should send 
 their message of good-will and rejoicing; 
 and to me has fallen the high honor of 
 being the first to speak in a greeting 
 in the name of the universities of the 
 East, many of which are among the 
 oldest in the land. It is true that I am 
 but the insufficient substitute of the man 
 who more fittingly than any other could 
 convey to you this greeting. I would 
 
in tfje aife of tlje Ration 
 
 that it might reach you from the lips 
 of President Eliot, of Harvard, whose 
 own character and position would give 
 additional weight to the words. For 
 more than thirty years he has guided 
 and directed the institution committed to 
 his care; he has met with bitter oppo- 
 sition as well as unsparing criticism; 
 he has changed methods whose value 
 time appeared to have consecrated ; he 
 has risked experiments that were pro- 
 nounced the height of rashness. And 
 now that he has won the day, that his 
 place is assured among the foremost 
 names in the history of American educa- 
 tion, it is he that should be here to 
 declare what not only Harvard, but all our 
 Eastern universities feel about their sister 
 of Virginia. Unavoidable absence in 
 Europe has prevented him from appear- 
 ing in your midst ; still much as this is 
 
l)e Ctnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 to be regretted, at least it has the advan- 
 tage that I can bear witness with a 
 freedom that would be impossible for 
 him as to what can be accomplished by 
 the right college president, what a power 
 for good he may be in the community, 
 and how much he can add to the 
 strength of his institution, be it ever so 
 much attached to the methods under 
 which it has long prospered, be it ever 
 so justly proud of its traditions. 
 
 Even to the University of Virginia 
 time brings its necessary revolutions. 
 The truth is eternal, but the ways in 
 which it should be taught may vary 
 from age to age, and no system is so 
 sanctified by its triumphs in the past as 
 to be beyond the need of change to 
 meet changed conditions in the future. 
 You have recognized that the moment 
 has come when without sacrificing any 
 
 26 
 
in tfte nift of tfte Ration 
 
 of that spirit which has made your Uni- 
 versity what she is, it has been deemed 
 best to modify her organization, to cen- 
 tralize her control, and to add to her 
 executive efficiency, so that she may still 
 better play her part in molding the 
 thought of this rapidly growing nation. 
 At this crucial point in her destinies it 
 befits her sister universities to wish her 
 Godspeed. Speaking in the name of 
 those of the East, I can assure you that 
 we have not failed to appreciate what 
 she has achieved and what she repre- 
 sents to-day. 
 
 More than a generation before the 
 University of Virginia was founded, Yale 
 and Harvard had already shown their 
 estimation of the man that was to be 
 her founder by conferring upon him 
 their degrees of Doctor of Laws, the 
 highest honor which it was in their 
 
 27 
 
Jje ttnifoer^itp of Bitginia 
 
 power to bestow. Many years after- 
 wards, in 1819, Mr. George Ticknor, 
 the well-known historian of Spanish liter- 
 ature, then teaching in Cambridge, wrote 
 to Mr. Jefferson about his favorite pro- 
 ject, as follows: "I rejoice in it, not 
 only disinterestedly, as a means of pro- 
 moting knowledge and happiness, but 
 selfishly, as the means of exciting by 
 powerful and dangerous rivalship the 
 emulation of our college at the North." 
 And in our colleges we can echo these 
 words to this hour. 
 
 All our universities are striving with 
 limited resources to do great things. 
 Each in her own way is following out 
 her ideals and trying to the best of her 
 abilities to train her children and to 
 inspire them to live for something higher 
 than themselves. In this community of 
 effort each has taken her share and has 
 
 28 
 
in tf>e Hife of tije Ration 
 
 deserved our gratitude. In the minds 
 of her sisters, the University of Vir- 
 ginia has particularly stood for two prin- 
 ciples, one of them academic, though 
 based partly on moral grounds, the 
 other moral alone. 
 
 At the present day what is termed 
 the elective system of studies has found 
 its way in one form or another into 
 most of our higher institutions of learn- 
 ing ; it has begun to penetrate into the 
 schools, and it has almost threatened 
 the kindergartens. This liberty of choice, 
 which at times can degenerate into 
 license, has now become an educational 
 commonplace. We argue about the 
 question of more or less, of the appli- 
 cability of the system under a given 
 set of circumstances, of the measures 
 that shall insure its more judicious use. 
 But the idea has lost all novelty for 
 
 29 
 
of Virginia 
 
 us. People no longer even stop to ask 
 where it came from. And yet, when 
 eighty years ago the University of Vir- 
 ginia was founded on a basis broader 
 than that of any other college in the 
 country, the elective system, which you 
 alone at that early day dared to intro- 
 duce, was, indeed, a startling innovation, 
 one that long could find but few imi- 
 tators. Verily, it must have caused 
 much shaking of the head among the 
 wiseacres, who believed that for a path 
 to be straight it must be narrow, and 
 that the way of learning which they 
 had followed themselves was the only 
 proper one along which to guide the 
 footsteps of others. Time has vindicated 
 your wisdom and the foresight of your 
 founder. The principle for which you 
 contended has become a common her- 
 itage. You have shown that a broad 
 
 30 
 
in tfje 3tife of tfje jjlation 
 
 road to knowledge need not be an easy 
 one, for you have kept your standards 
 so high that you have discouraged many 
 an applicant who would gladly have 
 won your degree if it could have been 
 obtained at any other cost than that of 
 long and patient toil. All this we of 
 the sister universities appreciate per- 
 haps not without jealousy. 
 
 There is, moreover, another principle 
 which we who live at a distance asso- 
 ciate with the University of Virginia. 
 High as she has put knowledge as her 
 ideal, she has put something else higher 
 still. She has recognized from the 
 beginning that her institution which has 
 charge of youth, to mold them for after- 
 life, fulfils but a part of its duty if it 
 ministers merely to their intellects. The 
 distinguishing mark of its graduates 
 should be not only learning, but char- 
 si 
 
ftttitoergitp of Virginia 
 
 acter. That they should be gentlemen 
 before scholars. This truth, which in 
 our modern striving for efficiency some- 
 times appears to be dropping into the 
 background, has never been forgotten 
 here. 
 
 Who is there in the United States 
 who knows of the University of Vir- 
 ginia and does not think of her as the 
 home of the honor system, the priceless 
 possession of which others may well be 
 envious? To you it seems as natural 
 as the air you breathe. To those less 
 fortunate in this respect it remains, even 
 if different conditions make it difficult 
 of attainment, an ideal, an encourage- 
 ment toward a better state of things 
 in the future. This is well, for never 
 in our history has there been a greater 
 need of a steadfast maintenance of the 
 principles of character for which you 
 
 32 
 
in tfyt 2Ufe of tlje Ration 
 
 have stood with such noble results. In 
 this day of triumphant materialism, when 
 faiths are rambling and nothing goes 
 unquestioned, when success at any price 
 is the one achievement that seems to 
 appeal to a large portion of the com- 
 munity, when consciences are weakened 
 by casuistry, when simplicity is looked 
 upon as foolishness, and when the 
 almighty dollar tends openly or insid- 
 iously to enslave us all, may the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia with an ever-enlarged 
 sphere of influence stand as she always 
 has stood, for the principle of the Scotch 
 poet, "The man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 33 
 
lje CJnitoer^itp of Birgiuia 
 
 FOR SISTER UNIVERSITIES OF 
 THE NORTH 
 
 BY PRESIDENT NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, OF 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: One of the 
 most charming of the shorter Dialogues 
 of Plato has for its subject friendship. 
 After subtle and amusing discussions, you 
 will remember, Socrates and his two 
 young friends profess themselves unable 
 to discover what is a friend ! If fools 
 may rush in where angels fear to tread, 
 shall we not say that intimate association, 
 complete confidence, and intellectual sym- 
 pathy are the sure bases of friendship 
 between men? Then are we met to-day 
 some of us, I know, many of us, no 
 doubt to hail a friend, to bid him God- 
 speed, and to stand at his side while he 
 publicly consecrates himself to the service 
 of an ideal. And than that ideal there 
 
 34 
 
in t&e Slife of tfte Ration 
 
 is none loftier or more noble. It is the 
 service of truth and of mankind, sur- 
 rounded by all the uplift, all the vigor, 
 and all the opportunity of our American 
 democracy. 
 
 The human brain has conceived no 
 finer career than that offered by a uni- 
 versity in a democracy. No longer do 
 universities, however beautiful their fab- 
 ric, content themselves with " whispering 
 from their towers the last enchantments 
 of the Middle Age," for they must busily 
 explain to a new age the manifold en- 
 chantments of its own making. No long- 
 er do universities, however ancient their 
 traditions, carefully shun the practical, for 
 they must ceaselessly teach that the truly 
 practical is but the embodiment of those 
 everlasting principles which have been 
 since the world began. The shackles, 
 too, are gone the shackles theologic, the 
 
 35 
 
of Birginia 
 
 shackles philosophic, the shackles scien- 
 tific. The truth has made us free. 
 
 Our political liberty and our university 
 freedom grew up side by side. The same 
 promptings of the spirit that brought to 
 pass the one gave us also the other. It 
 is worth minding, too, that it was not 
 blind passion, not untamed and reckless 
 force, but reflective thought that sowed 
 the seeds of both. Moreover, political 
 liberty and university freedom have this 
 in common the making of men. Tyr- 
 anny and censored thinking may con- 
 ceivably make a man or two now and 
 then, but they could never make men. 
 And men, real men, with disciplined 
 minds, with finely formed and tempered 
 characters, with the power to grow by 
 serving, are the best product of the ages; 
 for with our political liberty and our uni- 
 versities does freedom exist. 
 
 36 
 
in tfte Hife of tfte Ration 
 
 Consider for a moment what it is that 
 our democracy demands of its universi- 
 ties. It demands a detachment which 
 judges fairly without an aloofness that 
 fails to sympathize. It demands a pro- 
 gressiveness which presses forward with- 
 out a pace that leaves appreciation 
 breathless. It demands a scholarship 
 which is solid and sure without a 
 pedantry that is sterile and suffocating. 
 It demands a historic sense which inter- 
 prets the present by the past, without 
 an ancestor-worship that bows the head 
 in contemplative awe. It demands a 
 catholicity of spirit which bars no excel- 
 lence without a superficial sentimentality 
 that stops short of having convictions. 
 Out of these elements is the atmosphere 
 of a university compounded detachment, 
 progressiveness, scholarship, historic sense, 
 catholicity. Is it possible for a democ- 
 
 37 
 
anibergitp of Virginia 
 
 racy to pay too much honor to its uni- 
 versities? What life is better than a life 
 which helps a university on its way ? 
 
 It is trite to say that universities are 
 among the oldest of human institutions, 
 yet it is worth repeating now and then. 
 Universities are older than parliamentary 
 government, older even than our familiar 
 spoken tongues ; they are but a little 
 younger than the Roman law and the 
 Roman Church. Stately, then, they are, 
 and wise with watching many men and 
 many moods, as well as useful and 
 skilful, too, both to inquire and to teach. 
 In the beginning the universities never 
 doubted the validity of their method ; it 
 was an all-conquering syllogistic logic. 
 To-day the universities are little given 
 to doubt the validity of that scientific 
 method which has displaced the syllo- 
 gistic. It may be well for the confident 
 
 38 
 
in tfte Xife of tfje Ration 
 
 modern to remember the errors of the 
 equally confident scholar of the Middle 
 Age and to profit by his example, if 
 possible. If, as Socrates said, an unex- 
 amined life is not worth living, then 
 surely an uncriticised method abounds 
 in danger. The university that does not 
 persistently examine the validity of its 
 method; that does not question its assump- 
 tions ; that does not, in other words, pay 
 to philosophy its just and necessary due, 
 will not remain a university long. 
 
 To a university in a democracy you 
 come, old friend, as counselor and guide. 
 The task is not a new one to your 
 head and hand. Yonder in the old North 
 State, and across the mountains in the 
 Cresent City, where the mighty father 
 of waters halts for a moment before 
 ending his winding course, you have 
 taken the reins and driven skilfully the 
 
 39 
 
ftnifcergitp of Itoginia 
 
 chariot of scholarship and of service. 
 To-day the scene is new. Here are fine 
 traditions, noble ideals, brilliant achieve- 
 ment. May the passing years bring 
 only glory to the nation's University 
 that is set in the Old Dominion's crown, 
 and which bears her splendid name, and 
 only happiness and honor to the Presi- 
 dent to whom to-day with high hope 
 and sincere affection we bid Godspeed. 
 
 FOR SISTER UNIVERSITIES OF 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 BY CHANCELLOR WALTER BARNARD HILL, OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA 
 
 Mr. President: Assuming that the 
 geographical idea has had some influ- 
 ence in the making of the program for 
 this auspicious occasion, I shall take the 
 liberty of differentiating my congratula- 
 
 40 
 
in tfte fUfe of tfte Ration 
 
 tions from those of others upon the 
 installation of your new President by 
 claiming the privilege of speaking as 
 the representative of the South. Unde- 
 terred, though, I confess, not unabashed, 
 by this great fanfare and this august 
 presence, I shall speak without reserve 
 of him, and in a sense to him, of the 
 affection of his brothers in the work 
 of Southern education an affection called 
 forth by his inimitable personal charm, 
 his great gifts of intellect, scholarship, 
 and eloquence, his pure and lofty char- 
 acter. Speaking in this intimate way, 
 I am but one among the thousands 
 that love him, and whose prayers will 
 " rise like a fountain for him day and 
 night," that he may here work out in 
 conspicuous realization the high ideal of 
 a great university an ideal which he, 
 when taking up elsewhere years ago 
 
f)e anifcer^itp of Virginia 
 
 the duties of a university president, 
 pictured in these glowing words: 
 
 "My desire would have it a place 
 where there is always a breath of free- 
 dom in the air; where a sound and 
 various learning is taught heartily, with- 
 out sham or pretense; where the life 
 and teachings of Jesus Christ furnish 
 forth the ideal of right living and true 
 manhood; where manners are gentle, 
 and courtesies daily multiply between 
 teacher and taught; where all classes 
 and conditions and beliefs are welcome, 
 and men may rise in earnest striving 
 by the right of merit; where wealth is 
 no prejudice and poverty no shame; 
 where honorable labor, even rough labor 
 of the hands, is glorified by high pur- 
 pose and strenuous desire for the clearer 
 air and the larger view; where there is 
 a will to serve all high ends of a great 
 
 42 
 
in tfje Hife of tlje Ration 
 
 State struggling up out of ignorance 
 into general power; where men are 
 trained to observe closely, to imagine 
 vividly, to reason accurately, and to have 
 about them some humility and some 
 toleration; where, finally, truth shining 
 patiently like a star bids us advance, 
 and we will not turn aside." 
 
 When I said, Mr. President, that I 
 took the liberty of assuming that I rep- 
 resented the South, I used the phrase in 
 its widest and most cosmopolitan mean- 
 ing. In 1717, when Sir Robert Mont- 
 gomery applied to the King of England 
 for a grant of lands between the rivers 
 Savannah and Altamaha, to be named 
 Azalia, he issued a prospectus to attract 
 colonists a document which might give 
 points even to Wall Street promoters in 
 which he called attention to the fact that 
 the new territory was "in the same par- 
 
 43 
 
lje ftnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 allel as Palestine, and pointed out by 
 God's own choice." This prospectus is 
 a warrant respectable in its antiquity, if 
 not in its modesty, for claiming credit 
 for Southerners for all that is achieved 
 within our parallels of latitude around 
 the globe. The belt of earth correspond- 
 ing to the South makes Moses, as Bishop 
 Candler, of Georgia, loves to say, "one 
 of the first Southern gentlemen." It takes 
 in Greece, and gives us for Southerners 
 Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander 
 the Great. It takes in the southern end 
 of Italy, and a slight curve of the line 
 permissible to one who is constructing a 
 theory, as it is to the maker of a railroad 
 map, brings in all of that wondrous land, 
 adding to our glories Caesar, Virgil, and 
 Dante. It includes the birthplace of Na- 
 poleon, though we do not claim Napoleon 
 as a typical Southern gentleman. It 
 
in tlje Siife of tlje Ration 
 
 comprises Japan, and while some people 
 have been mystified at the marvelous 
 development of the Flowery Kingdom, 
 we have had the key to the fact in the 
 advantage of its southern climate. Great 
 Britain is apparently alien to this clime, 
 but the exception is only apparent, for 
 what is it that has made possible the 
 climate and thereby made possible the 
 civilization of England? It is that south- 
 ern gulf stream, that "river of the ocean," 
 as your own Maury has called it " that 
 wandering summer of the seas;" so that 
 Englishmen are only Southerners at long 
 distance a theory which gives us Shake- 
 speare, Milton, and Tennyson, Chatham, 
 Burke, and Gladstone. 
 
 In the South, then, have dwelt, if you 
 have followed me in this excursion around 
 the globe, the Hebrew people, whose gift 
 to the world was the idea of holiness; 
 
 45 
 
of Virginia 
 
 the Greeks, whose gift to the world has 
 been the idea of art; the Romans, whose 
 gift to the world was the idea of law ; and 
 the Anglo-Saxons (by courtesy of their 
 hypothesis), whose gift to the world is 
 liberty. These are large inclusions, I 
 admit, but I avoid insistence on these 
 "Alabama claims," and hasten on to one 
 conclusion which I know will pass un- 
 challenged, and that is, in Dr. Alderman's 
 noble vision of the University, and I 
 trust he will forgive me for saying in 
 the heart and soul of the seer, there 
 have entered the highest and best of all 
 the inspirations of the Hebrew ethical 
 ideal, of Greek culture and beauty, of 
 Roman administration, and Anglo-Saxon 
 freedom. 
 
 Speaking on behalf of the other insti- 
 tutions of learning in the South, I wish 
 to say that we recognize the strategic 
 
 46 
 
in tfje ife of tlje Ration 
 
 position of the University of Virginia, its 
 unique situation, its peculiar national rela- 
 tion, and its leadership. Endeavoring to 
 make plain the spirit of this recognition, 
 I have recourse to one of the noblest 
 orations of American eloquence, an ad- 
 dress delivered by Hon. James C. Carter, 
 of New York, on the occasion of the 
 dedication of the new buildings of the 
 University, June, 1898. I may say here, 
 in parenthesis, that the University of 
 Virginia has, in my judgment, received 
 no more splendid tribute in all its history 
 than its recognition in the last will 
 and testament of that great man, who 
 stood, in the esteem of his brethren, 
 at the head of the American bar. In 
 concluding his great address, Mr. Carter 
 said: 
 
 " And the ancient Commonwealth of 
 Virginia to what nobler object can she 
 
 47 
 
ftnifoergitp of Virginia 
 
 extend her favor and support than the 
 building up upon this historic spot of a 
 great university which shall be at once 
 the home of the sciences and the arts, 
 and the nursery of political freedom ? 
 Outshining all her sister colonies in the 
 splendor of her contribution to the gal- 
 axy of great names which adorns our 
 Revolutionary history, how can she bet- 
 ter perpetuate that glory than by send- 
 ing forth from her own soil a new line 
 of patriot statesmen ? No jealousies will 
 attend her efforts to this great end, and 
 her sister States would greet with de- 
 light her reascending star once more 
 blazing in the zenith of its own proper 
 firmament." 
 
 As the orator was speaking for Vir- 
 ginia's sister States, so undertaking to 
 speak for the educational institutions in 
 the South, I would say, " no jealousies, 
 
 48 
 
in tf)e Eife of tfje Ration 
 
 Mr. President, will attend your efforts " 
 to realize the great ideal of your life 
 here. Without envy, we see that yours 
 is the first Southern institution in whose 
 very birth national influences were at 
 work in that unpretending tavern in 
 Rockfish Gap, where three presidents 
 of the United States, with other distin- 
 guished men, met to prepare a report 
 upon a rounded scheme of State educa- 
 tion. We recognize, too, that Virginia 
 occupies a peculiar relation to the South 
 in the fact that it was on her territory 
 that the tremendous issues of the war 
 between the States were fought out and 
 settled, thus linking the very names of 
 her battlefields with the traditions of 
 every Southern State ; that it was Vir- 
 ginia's soil alone that drank the blood 
 of the brave souls of all the South, thus 
 linking your name with the fireside tra- 
 
 49 
 
Che ambcrBitp of Virginia 
 
 ditions of every Southern home. There 
 were other Southern universities whose 
 existence began before yours. The Uni- 
 versity of Georgia was chartered in 
 
 1785- 
 
 You remember, with James C. Carter, 
 whom I again quote, that "the youth 
 who are brought here should study not 
 only the principles of liberty and free 
 government as taught by the founder, 
 but the new problems arising from the 
 prodigious growth of the nation and its 
 rapid material consolidation; the true 
 principles of legislation, and by what 
 methods liberty is best reconciled with 
 order and with law; teaching them to 
 prefer for their country that renown 
 among the nations which comes from 
 the constant display of the love of 
 peace and justice." You will look to 
 the future, for, in the language of the 
 
 50 
 
in tftc Ilifc of tfje Ration 
 
 poet who should have been heir to the 
 laurel of Tennyson, 
 
 " He loves man's noble memories too well 
 Who does not love man's nobler hopes yet more." 
 
 For the fulfilment of this great ideal 
 the man and the hour have met. Prov- 
 idence has given you a leader: 
 
 " One who counts no public toil so hard 
 
 As idly glittering pleasures ; one controlled 
 By no mob's haste, nor swayed by gods of gold ; 
 
 Prizing, not courting, all just men's regard ; 
 
 With none but Manhood's ancient Order starred, 
 Nor crowned with titles less august and old 
 Than human greatness ; large-brained, limpid-souled ; 
 
 Whom dreams can hurry not, nor doubts retard ; 
 
 Born, nurtured of the People, living still 
 The People's life ; and though their noblest flower, 
 
 In nought removed above them, save alone 
 In loftier virtue wisdom, courage, power." 
 
5Jniberitp of Virginia 
 
 FOR SISTER UNIVERSITIES OF 
 THE WEST 
 
 BY PRESIDENT R. H. JESSE, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 MISSOURI 
 
 I bring, Mr. President, greetings from 
 the University of Missouri to my Alma 
 Mater, the University of Virginia 
 greetings from the Louisiana Purchase 
 acquired by Thomas Jefferson, to this 
 Mother of State Universities founded 
 by him. 
 
 Jefferson was the greatest prophet of 
 public education that our country has 
 yet produced. For fifty years he was 
 dominated by a passion for civil and 
 religious freedom through republican 
 institutions, and by a passion for public 
 education in common schools, and in 
 State universities. 
 
 For a season, at least, Mr. Jefferson's 
 
in tf>e itife of tfte Ration 
 
 ideas in behalf of education did not bear 
 much fruit in the Old Dominion, but the 
 yield from them was magnificent in the 
 daughters of Virginia beyond the Alle- 
 ghany Mountains. As every student of 
 history knows, Virginia ceded to the Fed- 
 eral Government most of the land em- 
 braced in the " Northwest Territory" the 
 vast region lying north of the Ohio River, 
 east of the Mississippi, south of Canada, 
 and west of the Alleghany Mountains. 
 
 In 1803, Ohio, Virginia's latest daugh- 
 ter from the West, knocked for admission 
 into this sisterhood of States. Jefferson 
 was at that time President of the United 
 States. Congress imposed upon Ohio 
 certain conditions which she must faith- 
 fully observe before being admitted into 
 the Union; and with these two conditions 
 were two large grants of land, one for 
 the endowment of what ultimately became 
 
 53 
 
of Virginia 
 
 a State university. This magnificent pol- 
 icy in regard to public education, estab- 
 lished under the presidency of Jefferson, 
 has been pursued by our country in the 
 admission of Western States for over one 
 hundred years. If we except West Vir- 
 ginia and Texas, no State from the crest 
 of the Alleghany Mountains to the shores 
 of the Pacific Ocean for 102 years has 
 been admitted into the Union without 
 pledging the support of its people to com- 
 mon schools and State universities. 
 
 And in these later days this policy, so 
 to speak, this policy first established by 
 Jefferson, has stretched its wings beyond 
 the confines of our continent, and touched 
 with pinion tips our island possessions in 
 the eastern and western seas. We, there- 
 fore, who believe in public schools and 
 State universities, and especially the peo- 
 ple of the West, may well cry unto him 
 
 54 
 
iu tfje Sife of tfje Ration 
 
 as the lesser prophets of old cried ever 
 unto the greater, "My father, my father, 
 the chariots of Israel and the horsemen 
 thereof." For verily unto our Israel of 
 public education, from kindergarten to 
 State university, Jefferson has been as a 
 squadron of armed chariots and as a 
 legion of mailed horsemen. He has been 
 father also of public schools and State 
 universities, beginning with Ohio and 
 stretching out to the shores of the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 Compelled, finally, against his will, to 
 abandon the idea of public schools in 
 Virginia, Jefferson still struggled for the 
 last twenty-five years of his life with 
 tongue and with pen and with zeal for 
 a great State university. Time fails me 
 to tell you even briefly of his ideal of 
 higher education. 
 
 Let me call your attention to the 
 
 55 
 
of Virginia 
 
 fact that the best seats of learning on 
 earth in Jefferson's day consisted of 
 departments of Law, Medicine, Theol- 
 ogy, and Philosophy. He had no pre- 
 cedent in Europe or in America for 
 going beyond this concentrated quadriv- 
 ium. But these departments, important 
 as they are, represented but a tithe of 
 the instruction which Mr. Jefferson 
 planned here. For example, without the 
 precedent therefor among institutions 
 then existing in America and Europe, 
 he advocated instruction in the "use 
 of tools," and in Technical Philosophy, 
 or, as we should say now, in Manual 
 Training and in Engineering. To the 
 dismay of educators, he laid out here 
 courses in Agriculture, Horticulture, Vet- 
 erinary Surgery, and in Military Science. 
 Not until 1862 did our country finally 
 realize that a College of Agriculture, em- 
 
 56 
 
in t&e Jlife of tJje Ration 
 
 bracing also the Science of Warfare, might 
 be added to a great university without 
 utterly destroying its dignity. It was here 
 among these Ragged Mountains he 
 pleaded for courses in Fine Art, and in 
 Tools, in Architecture, " Civil, Military, 
 and Naval." And schools of Commerce 
 and Manufacture, schools of States- 
 manship and Diplomacy he would have 
 established here when the nineteenth 
 century was yet in its teens had Vir- 
 ginia only hearkened unto his advice. 
 Nor did he forget to plead for the 
 "Theory of Music." Indeed there is 
 scarcely a large division of learning that 
 has been added within the past one hun- 
 dred years to any considerable college or 
 university in this country that Jefferson 
 did not clearly outline as a part of his 
 ideal State University of Virginia; and I 
 can not find a department for which he 
 
 57 
 
f)e &nitoer#itp of Virginia 
 
 pleaded, saving only a School of Manu- 
 facture, that has not subsequently been 
 adopted in more than one American insti- 
 tution of unquestionable renown. 
 
 Indeed, Engineering, for example, has 
 been developed in the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology far beyond that 
 " Technical Philosophy" which Jefferson 
 had in mind, and so with everything else. 
 But of what other man in the history of 
 the human race can it be said that stand- 
 ing on the threshold of a period of rapid 
 change, he forecast the development 
 of higher education for a century of 
 time? 
 
 The University which he finally 
 founded here, in the twilight of his days, 
 was but a part of that institution which 
 he had fancied; nevertheless, in spite of 
 all its shortcomings, for the space of fifty 
 years it was perhaps the foremost seat of 
 
 58 
 
in tfje %iit of tlje Ration 
 
 learning on this continent. But when, in 
 1876, the Johns Hopkins opened its doors, 
 then for a season, at least, "the sceptre 
 departed from Judah and a lawgiver 
 from between his feet." Then arose 
 among our American universities that 
 fierce struggle for pre-eminence which for 
 thirty years has raged North and South, 
 and East and West. 
 
 It may well be, Mr. President, that be- 
 ginning from to-day there shall yet come 
 an era of rapid growth and expansion to 
 this Mother of State Universities, the 
 daughter of Thomas Jefferson. It may 
 be that ere long his vision shall yet be 
 fulfilled here in a full-orbed university, the 
 embodiment of all that he hoped for, and 
 of all that has been achieved in higher 
 education in our country in a century of 
 time. The All Gracious God grant that 
 this come to pass quickly for the repose 
 
 59 
 
anttootfttp of Virginia 
 
 of his soul who was father unto the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia. 
 
 Long ago the Prophet went up from 
 among his disciples. His mantle, in mid- 
 air long suspended, as it were, seems to 
 have fallen upon your shoulders, Mr. 
 President. May a double portion of his 
 spirit be upon you! 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY 
 PRESIDENT ALDERMAN. 
 
 Your Excellency, Mr. Rector, Gentle- 
 men of the Board of Visitors and the 
 Faculties, our Welcome Guests, Students 
 of the University, Ladies and Gentle- 
 men : Eighty-seven years ago, the 
 Commonwealth of Virginia, inspired by 
 the genius of Thomas Jefferson, guided 
 by the patient good sense of Joseph 
 Cabell, and heartened by the encour- 
 
in tf)e Jtife of tfje Ration 
 
 agement of James Madison and James 
 Monroe, laid the foundation of this 
 University, and dedicated it consciously 
 to freedom for mind and soul, to desire 
 for knowledge and truth, and to solemn 
 faith in the justice and slow progres- 
 siveness of a democratic society. Men 
 of English and Scotch-Irish breeding 
 long settled on the soil of the State, 
 had evolved a free and forceful society 
 of gracious charm and distinction, and 
 leadership in the republic then belonged 
 to Virginia through the rare greatness 
 of her sons. 
 
 Out of her social conditions had come 
 the spirit that called for revolution in 
 voices singularly clear and sweet. From 
 her independent life had arisen the forces 
 that clothed in noble phrase the reasons 
 for revolution; that guided victoriously 
 the legions of war ; that bore just part 
 
 61 
 
hc &nitoeritp of Virginia 
 
 in the shaping of the Constitution, so 
 compact of high sense and tragic com- 
 promise ; that interpreted its spirit ; that 
 widened Colonial vision from provin- 
 cialism to empire ; that fixed faith in 
 average humanity as the philosophy of 
 a new civilization, and that set the 
 frame work of the great popular experi- 
 ment in forms of imperishable strength 
 and beauty. 
 
 The illustrious man who inspired this 
 foundation has eternal honor here. Here 
 he lived, here they laid his mortal body, 
 and here dwells in ceaseless energy his 
 immortal spirit. But Thomas Jefferson, 
 like George Washington, is a world 
 name and a world force. His phrases, 
 on the lips of aspiration, stand every- 
 where as a rebuke and a stumbling- 
 block to tyranny and oppression. His 
 ideals, far spreading in all lands, have 
 
 62 
 
in tlje %iit of tlje Ration 
 
 given energy and reality to the demo- 
 cratic movement of the modern age in 
 Europe and America. To this Univer- 
 sity Thomas Jefferson is something more 
 than a philosopher, or a figure in a pan- 
 theon. He is a friend, a founder, a 
 father. No university in the world 
 not Bologna, or El Ashar, or Oxford, 
 or Prague is so intimately associated 
 with so immortal a name. To us he 
 inhabits his high hill forever, an un- 
 wearied, versatile, myriad-minded old 
 man, acquainted with glory and high 
 station, a smile of faith forever on his 
 lips, a passion for freedom forever at 
 his heart, knowing men deeply and yet 
 believing in them and having patience 
 with them ; subjecting everything with 
 thoughtful radicalism to the test of their 
 advancement; watching with patient eyes 
 the slow rising walls of this University 
 
 63 
 
of Virginia 
 
 for their training, and counting that foun- 
 dation the greatest in the sum of his 
 vast human achievement. 
 
 Born thus of the union of human en- 
 thusiasm and civic impulse, the University 
 of Virginia seems to me the first deliberate 
 gift of democratic idealism to the nation 
 and century, though one score and seven- 
 teen institutions had preceded it in the 
 national life, owing their origin to the 
 great historic causes of religious zeal, 
 private beneficence, and high community 
 impulses for wisdom and guidance. 
 
 In our satisfaction that we stand so 
 impressively as an expression of the na- 
 tional mind toward political self-direction, 
 let us not forget the debt that we owe to 
 the great forces that had already builded 
 the pioneer American institutions, Har- 
 vard, William and Mary, Yale, Columbia, 
 Princeton, the universities of Pennsyl- 
 
in tfte itife of tfyt Ration 
 
 vania, the Carolinas, and Georgia out of 
 which had come the inspiration for Lex- 
 ington and Yorktown, the Continental 
 Congress, and the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion. In particular, let us not forget the 
 religious motive that gave sacredness and 
 moral direction to our ideals, that held us 
 to the faith that man's relation to God is 
 the supreme essence of human culture, 
 and that admonishes us, day by day, that 
 " through wisdom is an house builded, and 
 by understanding it is established, and by 
 knowledge shall the chambers be filled 
 with all precious and pleasant riches." 
 
 Universities stand both as servants and 
 as symbols of the spiritual insight and the 
 social needs of their epochs. The Greek 
 peoples studied philosophy because the 
 need of their time was ethical. The 
 Englishman is intent upon the getting of 
 general culture, because his need is for 
 
 65 
 
t)e UmfcrrBttp of Birgnnn 
 
 the man of breadth and cultured will. In 
 the second decade of the republic popular 
 thought centered upon the rights of man 
 and the bounds of political freedom. 
 The statement of the purpose in the 
 founding of the University, therefore, 
 drawn up by the same hand that had 
 drawn up the Declaration of American 
 Independence, while reflecting this mood 
 of the age, passed beyond it with a daring 
 comprehensiveness that marks our founder 
 as a master of foresight and interpretation. 
 "This University shall exist," said Jeffer- 
 son, 
 
 "(i) To form the statesmen, legisla- 
 tors, and judges on whom public pros- 
 perity and individual happiness are so 
 much to depend; 
 
 " (2) To expound the principles and 
 structure of government, the laws which 
 regulate the intercourse of nations, those 
 
 66 
 
in rtje Hiife of tf>e Ration 
 
 formed municipally for our own govern- 
 ment, and a sound spirit of legislation 
 which, banishing all unnecessary restraint 
 on individual action, shall leave us free to 
 do whatever does not violate the equal 
 rights of another; 
 
 " (3) To harmonize and promote the in- 
 terests of agriculture, manufactures, and 
 commerce, and by well informed views of 
 political economy, to give a free scope to 
 the public industry; 
 
 " (4) To develop the reasoning faculties 
 of our youth, enlarge their minds, culti- 
 vate their morals, and instil into them 
 the precepts of virtue and order ; 
 
 " (5) To enlighten them with mathe- 
 matical and physical sciences, which 
 advance the arts and administer to the 
 health, the subsistence and comforts of 
 human life; 
 
 " (6) And, generally, to form them to 
 
of Virginia 
 
 habits of reflection and correct action, 
 rendering them examples of virtue to 
 others and of happiness within them- 
 selves." 
 
 Not since John Milton had declared 
 that to be "a compleat and generous edu- 
 cation which fits a man to perform justly, 
 skilfully, and magnanimously all the offi- 
 ces, both public and private, of peace 
 and war," had there been put forth such 
 a classic statement of educational purpose, 
 and as only he who could draw the bow 
 of Ulysses could realize the Miltonic 
 ideal, so all the constructive thinking and 
 piled-up wealth of succeeding generations 
 have left unattained the Jeffersonian pro- 
 gramme. In its academic structure and 
 in the scope and grouping of its work, 
 Jefferson had spiritual sight of the mod- 
 ern American University, even now but 
 dimly taking shape out of the needs of a 
 
 68 
 
in tfte nift of tf)e Ration 
 
 new society, the efforts of countless men 
 and unmeasured power, as our greatest 
 intellectual achievement. His revolution- 
 ary mind put aside the English college 
 model as the proper force for training 
 the American democrat, with its exclusive 
 tradition of humanistic culture, and the 
 formalism of the English country gentle- 
 man, though he was broad enough to 
 recognize the wisdom of halls of resi- 
 dence and the communal life therein 
 which the English had evolved, and 
 which they believe has contributed to 
 produce the type of man who has wid- 
 ened the arch of the British Empire. 
 
 President Eliot, a great modern mas- 
 ter and interpreter of educational method 
 and purpose, has recently declared that 
 there are three indispensable attributes of 
 a true university: Freedom in the choice 
 of studies; opportunity to win distinction 
 
 69 
 
l)e CJnifcer^itp of Virginia 
 
 in special lines of study; a discipline 
 which imposes on each individual the 
 responsibility for forming his own habits 
 and guiding his own conduct. 
 
 Our great dreamer seized just these 
 three essentials, and upon them shaped 
 the life of the University of Virginia, as 
 necessary conditions, at a time when 
 they were not only unrealized but unim- 
 agined in American educational practice. 
 To this absolutely right foundation are 
 due the just claims that here began 
 the first real American university, and 
 the first whole-hearted experiment with 
 the elective principle, and the interest- 
 ing result that there has always been 
 a true university at Charlottesville. In 
 spite of meager equipment, though at 
 its birth it was probably the most 
 liberally planned institution of the coun- 
 try; in spite of insufficient preparatory 
 
 70 
 
in tljc Xtfe of tfte Ration 
 
 training at times for its students ; in 
 spite of restricted scope and inability 
 to welcome into the circle of liberal 
 arts the growing mass of new studies, 
 the university spirit has always informed 
 our life a spirit that beheld the scholar's 
 life as a fair and fruitful thing, begot in 
 youth a desire not only to acquire, but 
 to add somewhat to the sum of knowl- 
 edge, and evolved a method of intensive 
 thoroughness that yielded knowledge of 
 how truth may be won. 
 
 The character of an institution is the 
 resultant of its ideals and of the social 
 forces that cry out to it for direction. 
 The first three decades in the life of 
 this University, like the first three in 
 the life of man, forever fixed its char- 
 acter. The revolutionary dynasty had 
 passed away, the battle for equality 
 and human sympathy securely won. A 
 
 71 
 
ftnifcer^itp of Birginia 
 
 young republic, its concept of democracy 
 suddenly shifted from sovereignty to 
 omnipotence, stood up before the world, 
 lacking the instinct of unity, virile and 
 wayward in its confident strength. 
 
 Steam and inventive genius touched 
 its heart with desire and pointed the 
 way for material advancement. A vast 
 untouched empire beckoned adventurous 
 spirits from all lands to enterprise and 
 conquest. There was brewing the storm 
 of a great argument as to the nature 
 of this Union, made necessary by the 
 silence and indecision of the Consti- 
 tution, and made imminent by the 
 presence of a vast human problem in 
 economics bequeathed to us by the 
 industrial need and moral callousness 
 of ages past. Men in America have 
 never been so much in earnest about 
 vital things as they were in these days. 
 
in t&e nift of tfte Ration 
 
 Their hearts were touched with fire and 
 their very lives did not appear to them 
 so indispensable as their ideas. The 
 passion of the time was a passion for 
 principle and loyalty. The aptitude of 
 the time was for the building of States. 
 There was no room in high places for 
 the cynic, the idler, the self seeker. 
 Cleared of human weakness and hot 
 temper, one sees in these sad, earnest 
 years a time of single mindedness and 
 sincerity, of the uplifted heart and of 
 steadfast gazing upon the heights of 
 honor and duty, and they must ever 
 remain the epic period of the struggle 
 of democracy, under crushing difficul- 
 ties, after self-consciousness and unity 
 of purpose. 
 
 True wisdom guided the selection of 
 the formative men who came here to 
 teach, whether from Europe or America, 
 
 73 
 
of Virginia 
 
 for they were high-statured men and 
 great teachers, as well as scholars, evok- 
 ing enthusiasm for letters in their disci- 
 ples, setting high and necessary standards 
 of scholarship in the land, and leaving 
 behind them an enduring education of 
 sweet and vital memories. Dunglison, 
 Emmet, Tucker, Cabell, Rogers, Gessner 
 Harrison, Davis, McGuffey, Courtenay, 
 Venable, Minor, to mention only some of 
 the dead. The mere intonation of their 
 names, each a unit of power, of sacrifice, 
 and of service, is the best celebration of 
 their fame my tongue can fashion. The 
 old graduate here recalls men, not build- 
 ings. When he accounts for his measure 
 of virtue, he calls the roll of his old 
 teachers, as Marcus Aurelius did, long ages 
 ago, on the banks of the Danube. Indeed, 
 the distinction of this life has been the con- 
 tact of the individual with the great teacher. 
 
 74 
 
in tfje Eife of tfte Ration 
 
 The youth who came here to learn 
 were such youth as such times breed. 
 They were heedless of much that is 
 heeded now. But they were afire with 
 the impulses of their generation. There 
 dwelt in them the root of a deep serious- 
 ness, an earnest ambition for service to 
 the State, and a calm faith in the power 
 of the cultured will and the honorable 
 life. It was the golden age of education 
 in the Southern States the high water 
 mark of individual effort in behalf of the 
 training of picked youth. " Studies were 
 blooming and minds awakening." More 
 than eight thousand young scholars, from 
 a varied territory, passed through these 
 walls between i83O-'6o to the larger life 
 of leadership in Church and State, as cab- 
 inet ministers, jurists, physicians, senators, 
 governors, scholars, preachers, and great 
 cultured gentlemen. The spirit of the 
 
 75 
 
of Virginia 
 
 time sent most of them into the public 
 service, where they made of politics a 
 lofty profession, the tradition of which 
 informs and ennobles American political 
 life to-day. But they may be found all 
 along the wide lines of life, finding eternal 
 beauty in form like Poe, searching the 
 Arctic seas like Kane, joining New Eng- 
 land's scholars in the great movement 
 which brought Germanic scholarship to 
 our shores, seeking and serving God like 
 Broadus and Dudley, or yielding up their 
 lives in righteous consecration on the 
 battle's edge. 
 
 Out of the interplay of such forces, 
 in a time of such intensity and per- 
 sonality, was won the intimate character 
 of the University of Virginia. One does 
 not have to search for this institutional 
 character as for something elusive and 
 subtle. It shines out before the face 
 
 76 
 
in tfte mtt of tfje Ration 
 
 of the stranger in five clear points of 
 light: 
 
 A sympathetic understanding of de- 
 mocracy as a working hypothesis of life, 
 guaranteeing to every man a chance to 
 realize the best that is in him. 
 
 An absolute religious freedom, com- 
 bined with wide and vital religious 
 opportunities. 
 
 An appeal to the best in young men, 
 resulting in the creation of a student 
 public opinion and a student system of 
 honor, which endowed the University 
 of the past, and endows the Univer- 
 sity of to-day with its richest asset of 
 reputation and fame. 
 
 A high standard of scholarship rigidly 
 maintained, in an air of freedom of 
 learning and freedom of teaching, beget- 
 ting an austere ideal of intellectual thor- 
 oughness and honesty. 
 
 77 
 
UmfccrsttjLJ of Birgnna 
 
 A conception of culture as a com- 
 pound of sound learning and gracious 
 conduct, as an inheritance of manhood 
 and moral will won through discipline 
 and conquest, and as a capacity to deal 
 with men in the rough work of the 
 world with gentleness and simplicity. 
 
 When the tempest of war finally fell, 
 it was this spirit that possessed the 
 twenty-five hundred ardent young souls 
 who went forth from these doors, and 
 " on war's red touchstone rang true 
 metal." When the tempest ceased, it was 
 this same spirit that bred in the men 
 of to-day strength and patience, and a 
 genius of common sense that enabled 
 them to endure, to rebuild and to pre- 
 serve for the world things the world 
 should not lose. I pledge myself, under 
 God, to do what I can to cherish and 
 to magnify, come good days or ill, this 
 
 78 
 
in ttje Jlifc of tljc Ration 
 
 inspiring university character. I do not 
 mean that there should not be readjust- 
 ment here change, if you will the 
 growth that is conservative of life and 
 that conies somehow out of the tissues 
 of ancient strength. A changing society 
 means a changing curriculum, and a uni- 
 versity is society shaping itself to future 
 needs. But there are things that are eter- 
 nal, and the substance of this ancient 
 spirit of the University of Virginia is 
 one of them. 
 
 The Americans of the Southern States 
 are the only Americans who have known 
 in direst form the discipline of war and 
 the education of defeat. They alone of 
 this unbeaten land have had intimate 
 experience of revolution and despair. 
 The University of Virginia, as their 
 chiefest servant, has shared with them 
 this stern self-revealing tutelage. One 
 
 79 
 
ftnifcergitp of Birginia 
 
 can never know what fair visions of 
 its destiny filled the eye of Thomas 
 Jefferson. He beheld it guiding wisely 
 the local life of Virginia. He beheld 
 it as a training place for democratic leader- 
 ship in the State and nation; as an in- 
 spirer to the great Northwest and South- 
 west, as those States swept into ordered 
 life; but his optimism, as well as human 
 limitations, shut it out from his sight, in 
 its sacredest relation, as the source of 
 light to a land left in darkness and silence 
 by the storm of war. Is there in aca- 
 demic annals such a story of precious priv- 
 ilege and fulfilment? As each stricken 
 State found heart to relight its ancient 
 torches, its sons came here for the sacred 
 fire, where patient hands had kept it burn- 
 ing, or to our sister University in the 
 Valley, where the great soldier sat at the 
 teacher's desk, revealing a moral splendor 
 
 so 
 
in tlje 3iift of tJje Ration 
 
 more touching and glorious than his 
 martial fame. To the Southern man of 
 middle life, the University meant this Uni- 
 versity. The world has deemed this a 
 gentle and lovable provincialism, but in a 
 deep sense it was true, for here, indeed, 
 was the home of his ideals, and hence 
 had come the men, the methods, the 
 re-awakened educational desire, the noble 
 consolation of unweakened spirit, and 
 even amid the ravages of war, the unrav- 
 aged vision of arts and philosophy. 
 
 Secure, therefore, in the dignity of an 
 intellectual authority which it has earned, 
 and a national service which it has 
 rendered, enriched by the currents of a 
 gentle civilization flowing about it for 
 generations, protected by the love and 
 veneration of thousands, seated among 
 hills of quiet strength and beauty, and 
 stamped upon its outward form with "the 
 
anitirrritp of Virginia 
 
 glory that was Greece, and the grandeur 
 that was Rome," if I may use the very 
 words of its most gifted child of genius 
 and song, this University faces the future, 
 which summons you and me to-day to 
 preserve and strengthen, as it summoned 
 the founders long ages past to conceive 
 and create. 
 
 The glory of Jefferson was his enthusi- 
 asm for the future. It was the prophecy 
 in democracy that charmed his spirit. A 
 noble past might be a dangerous thing, 
 he thought, if it brought contentment with 
 a complacent present or an uncertain 
 future, and there was no splendor in it 
 for him if it did not urge men onward. 
 It has been given to this University to 
 render wide and definite service for polit- 
 ical freedom and human culture and char- 
 acter in an age of national development 
 and trial, Is there not equal work for 
 
 83 
 
in tfte Hiit of tfte Ration 
 
 it to do in behalf of spiritual freedom, 
 intellectual courage, and economic inde- 
 pendence and justice in an age of social 
 expansion and experiment? Is it not just 
 as much a pioneer in the latter struggle 
 for a larger life as it was when it came 
 from the hand of its founder in the gen- 
 erous fervor of a new hope? There is 
 still a democracy to be served, with its 
 dreams unrealized, its ideals changed, its 
 point of view advanced. The democracy 
 of the young century was a theory of 
 politics and philosophy. The democracy 
 of to-day is society, fused by the divine 
 energy of the Master, seeking unity and 
 development, a common heart and con- 
 science, but beset everywhere by reason 
 of our passionate social movement, by 
 new forms of wrongdoing and new shapes 
 of unrighteousness. If some of its early 
 dreams have faded in the light of com- 
 
 83 
 
CJnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 mon day, it is because economic and 
 social questions strike deeper than issues 
 formal and political, and for their solution 
 make demand less upon emotions and 
 impulses, and more upon sound knowledge, 
 ordered thinking and constructive imagi- 
 nation. The craving of the present mood 
 of democracy is for opportunity to share 
 in the fulness of life, to break up its 
 masses into units, to sift its units for 
 hidden treasures, and to enter into the 
 finer inheritances of the civilization which 
 it has helped to build. The great-grand- 
 sons of the men who fancied the suffrage 
 would bring Utopia now set their hearts 
 more upon the wages of labor, the nature 
 of capital, good country roads, the enrich- 
 ment of rural life, the village library, the 
 comely school house, the unimpeded path 
 to some such spot as this. 
 
 There is still the republic to be served, 
 84 
 
in tfyt Hiit of tfte Ration 
 
 venerable now, for all its brilliancy, and 
 literally made over in outward form, in 
 spiritual purpose, and in industrial capa- 
 city since 1850. Who shall leaven this 
 tumult of peoples with soberness and sim- 
 plicity and Americanism? What is Amer- 
 icanism coming to signify spiritually to 
 the world? Shall it be alone pride 01 
 power, passion for achievement, genius 
 for self-indulgence, mad waste of energy, 
 as in the ant-hill ; or shall it mean stead- 
 fast justice, respect for law, sober disci- 
 pline, responsible citizenship, and moral 
 sturdiness? 
 
 This University is just one of the 
 circle of American institutions, seeking to 
 guarantee the right answer to these large 
 questions of human welfare. A sectional, 
 like a sectarian, university is unthinkable, 
 and we are spiritual neighbor to Harvard 
 and Columbia, to Michigan and Texas, 
 
 85 
 
ftnitoertfitp of Virginia 
 
 to Oxford and Cambridge. President 
 Hadley has recently pointed out the 
 potential value to the unity of our na- 
 tional life of the presence in Northern 
 universities of Southern boys, spreading 
 their sentiments of personal and intel- 
 lectual honor, winning trust and friendship 
 through their personalities, and revealing 
 the best side of our distinctive life. 
 Would not the end be even more cer- 
 tainly attained by the presence in South- 
 ern universities of Northern boys, coming 
 under the influence of the land and the 
 people, seeing with their keen eyes, 
 trained to observation and inference, the 
 philosophy of our past, the sources of our 
 strength, and the genius of our life, and 
 giving out to us the right interpreta- 
 tion of the nobler life of their region ? 
 Hitherto we have depended largely upon 
 the tradesman, the traveler, and the 
 
 86 
 
in tfje Sife of tfte Ration 
 
 commercialist for the knowledge and 
 sympathy that come of commingling. I 
 believe that a surer way is to bring about 
 intellectual and spiritual intercourse be- 
 tween ingenuous youth when life is young 
 and the soul is free of bias and the heart 
 is swift to sympathy. We have much to 
 learn of the North and West of moral 
 persistence, of resolute achievement, of 
 community effort, of the miracles that 
 may be wrought by concerted action. 
 May we not claim that these great sec- 
 tions of our country have much to learn 
 of us, of the dignity of personality, of 
 idealism, of unsordidness, of the indivi- 
 dualism bred in the bone of the American 
 as yet untouched by the mingling of 
 races, and unmodified by relentless urban 
 influences? As a brief answer to the vital 
 question, What sort of men have you 
 made? I may reply: Forty-seven per 
 
 87 
 
of Bitginia 
 
 cent, of our students came to us from 
 thirty-nine States other than Virginia; 
 500 of our alumni have preached the 
 Gospel throughout the world; 411 have 
 occupied chairs in 151 universities and 
 colleges in 33 States and 4 foreign 
 countries, 57 of these being elected in 
 17 Northern and Western States. Our 
 sons have governed 12 States and 
 administered supreme justice in 17 
 States ; 112 of them have enacted laws 
 in the Federal Congress ; and in law, 
 medicine, business, and engineering a 
 host of them are serving men about 
 the world. 
 
 It is too clear to call for proof, how- 
 ever, that the chief allegiance of this 
 University is to Virginia and to its 
 natural contributing territory. Its ele- 
 mentary duties are to furnish a liberal 
 education substantially free to the youth 
 
Of TH 
 
 ( UNIVERSITY 
 X. or J 
 
 in tfte %iit of tfte Ration 
 
 of Virginia, and to care for Virginia 
 and the South in their growing life, 
 in educational, cultural, economic direc- 
 tions. If there be a question touch- 
 ing life on the farm or in the 
 factory, in institutional development, in 
 the public schools, in manufacturing or 
 municipal problems, some intelligent 
 answer should issue from the Univer- 
 sity. If this Union symbolizes the 
 effort of freemen to combine freedom 
 and justice with wealth and power, the 
 most impressive phase of this effort is 
 the proud, self-reliant re-entrance of the 
 South, after isolation and submersion, 
 into the work of the modern world 
 without loss of ancient lovableness and 
 with access of modern vigor and mobil- 
 ity. This is still a land of romanticism 
 and personality, of conservatism and 
 reverence, of loyalty and capacity for 
 
Onifcergitp of Birginia 
 
 devotion, but it is as well a land of 
 community, progress, and social sym- 
 pathy, perceiving the necessity and dig- 
 nity of industrial efficiency, and realiz- 
 ing and mastering the economic forces 
 of society. It has indeed begun an 
 economic movement destined to revo- 
 lutionize its life. Disciplined and homo- 
 geneous, our educable youth are reach- 
 ing up into life, through sacrifice. They 
 are no better than other American 
 youth, but God has been good to them, 
 because He has let their young eyes 
 see life as duty and opportunity and 
 not as pleasure, and the republic needs 
 their tempered strength and their quality 
 of soul and their scorn of dishonor. 
 Nowhere in the world are there more 
 difficult and dangerous domestic prob- 
 lems. Nowhere in the world do both 
 nature and man ask so plainly for -the 
 
 90 
 
in t&e 3life of tfte Ration 
 
 trained hand, the trained mind, and the 
 trained will. Everywhere there is wealth 
 to be won and institutions to be molded 
 and ideals to be maintained, and a giant 
 task accomplished of relating in demo- 
 cratic life a master race and freed race 
 on the basis of justice, but comformable 
 to the solemn obligations of racial integ- 
 rity and growth and of an unimpaired 
 civilization. 
 
 Humanism produced the man of cul- 
 ture and his peril was self-sufficiency 
 and a conception of culture as orna- 
 ment. Applied science and the imper- 
 ious demands of commerce have pro- 
 duced the man of efficiency, and his 
 peril is personal barrenness and instinc- 
 tive greed. Our country needs the 
 idealism of the one and the lordship 
 over things of the other, and such a 
 blend will be the great citizen whose 
 
CJnifcer^itp of Virginia 
 
 advent an industrial democracy has so 
 long foreshadowed. The kind of work 
 he shall do in the world is immaterial. 
 He shall be an upward striving man who 
 wants the truth and dares to utter it, who 
 knows his own need and the need of his 
 age, who counts adaptability and tolera- 
 tion among his virtues, who insists on a 
 little leisure for his soul's sake, and who 
 has a care, whether amid the warfare of 
 trade, or in the quiet and still air of 
 study, for the building of things ever 
 better and better about him. Fashioned 
 by the sweep of genius through experi- 
 ence, great citizens may come who have 
 never seen a university, but universities 
 are the organized efforts of monarchies 
 and democracies to produce such types, 
 and our duty is to perfect the organism 
 and to work and hope. 
 
 The last quarter of the century has 
 
in tlje ilife of tfte Ration 
 
 witnessed the organization of the Ameri- 
 can university, and the partial realization 
 of its final form. The next quarter of a 
 century will see some universities with 
 the income of empires, and a power upon 
 which cities and States will lean heavily 
 for guidance. This new educational form 
 will comprise: 
 
 (i) The College of Liberal Arts the 
 academic heart which has assimilated 
 scientific studies and thereby put itself in 
 touch with the meaning of the age. Its 
 function will be to receive immature 
 youth in an atmosphere of broad and 
 varied associations, in contact with wise 
 and noble lives, and to offer them such 
 experience in evoking manhood and 
 capacity, and such knowledge of man, 
 nature, and spirit, that they shall gain 
 power to enter into life with character, 
 enthusiasm, and conviction. The college 
 
 93 
 
of Virginia 
 
 is a social institution, enlightening and 
 guiding youth, that it may make men of 
 them. 
 
 (2) The Graduate School the aca- 
 demic brain charged with the function 
 of training mature and liberally educated 
 men to investigation and scientific pro- 
 ductiveness. Here shall be gained that 
 patience and energy, that open-mindedness 
 and sure thinking, that intellectual sin- 
 cerity, that have belonged to all of the 
 pathfinders from Aristotle to Pasteur, and 
 must belong to him who would broaden 
 the ways and enlarge the boundaries of 
 thought. The advance of civilization will 
 rest on the strength of this school and 
 through its work alone can a university 
 hope to become a school of power, bind- 
 ing other colleges to it in loyalty, and not 
 only responsive to tradition, but to new 
 truth daily appearing in the life of man. 
 
 94 
 
in tf>e fttfe of tfte Ration 
 
 Here the quiet scholar may search out 
 the truth and hold it aloft for men to see. 
 
 (3) The Professional Schools the 
 heart and brain at work on life as varied 
 in number and scope as society is com- 
 plex, seeking to provide the world with 
 the best skill needful for its growth, and 
 so justly related to the whole that we 
 shall escape the peril of the illiberal and 
 uneducated specialist. 
 
 All this shall be placed in a setting of 
 a little world of libraries, laboratories, 
 loan funds, fellowships, mechanism, and 
 beauty, and the whole vitalized and spirit- 
 ualized by men in such force that their 
 spirits shall not break and their hopes 
 shall not die. We do not need many 
 such universities, but we need them 
 strong and in the right places. The mul- 
 tiplication of weakness by weakness yields 
 weakness still. The South needs them 
 
 95 
 
of Virginia 
 
 to protect its real reconstructive era from 
 the dangers of empiricism, industrial 
 dependence, and the perils that beset char- 
 acter in all democracies. Virginia needs 
 such a university to guarantee that edu- 
 cational leadership to which it has owed 
 its greatness for two generations and to 
 light its path to that point of usefulness 
 and power which General Lee saw in the 
 dark days when he said simply: "Let us 
 work to make Virginia great again." 
 
 The building of such a national uni- 
 versity of modern type in the South is 
 the great opportunity to benefit the repub- 
 lic, now offered to the wisdom of States 
 and the imagination of farseeing men. 
 There are in the South a score of col- 
 leges of good equipments, of sound 
 standards and traditions, manned by ca- 
 pable, devoted men. Indeed, devotion 
 and sacrifice are the distinguishing marks 
 
in tfte 3life of tfte Ration 
 
 of these colleges, and the result of their 
 culture is a precious quality of manhood. 
 It is no injustice to them to declare that 
 there is no national university of modern 
 type, amply and generously equipped, 
 between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. 
 They are national enough in spirit and 
 purpose, and this University has just 
 claim to be called the most national of 
 American schools in a large sense, but 
 they have not been able to keep pace 
 with the amazing expansion of the field 
 of work undertaken by the University, 
 for good reasons clear to every modern 
 thoughtful man. This will not always 
 be so. The power necessary to trans- 
 form the University into a fortress and 
 dynamo of conservation and enlight- 
 enment is being won from forest, and 
 factory and farm, and is undergoing con- 
 secration to these high purposes in thou- 
 
 97 
 
of Virginia 
 
 sands of tender consciences and purpose- 
 ful minds. It is our part to hasten the 
 day when this power shall be put to 
 work. 
 
 The absence of such a great, national, 
 amply equipped university in this vast 
 region is imparing the homogeneity of 
 the nation. It is delaying the entrance 
 of the capable homogeneous South into 
 the inheritance of the modern world. It 
 is subtracting from the present sum of 
 national energy and power many thou- 
 sands of the best educable material that 
 ever blessed and strengthened any coun- 
 try. To build such institutions at the 
 right places in the Southern States is, as 
 I have said, the supreme spiritual and 
 intellectual achievement of our time. 
 There is a presupposition of vast power 
 in such institutions. America spends 
 thirty millions a year in maintaining them. 
 
 93 
 
in rt>e 3life of tfte Ration 
 
 Many millions a year are given for their 
 expansion. The States of the Northwest 
 Territory, much of which was formerly 
 Virginia, expend six millions yearly, and 
 upon less than four or five hundred thou- 
 sand a year one cannot be maintained. 
 Money alone cannot make such a univer- 
 sity, but vast power is necessary, and 
 though it bear the image and superscrip- 
 tion of Caesar, there is an alchemy of con- 
 secration in our laboratories which can 
 transmute money into moral force. Mere 
 individual genius, even of Plato, or Abe- 
 lard or Arnold or Hopkins, cannot make 
 such a university, though God pity it if 
 it have not such quality of soul some- 
 where in its life. Prestige will not suffice, 
 for prestige may be a gentle euphemism 
 for epitaph, if isolated from continuing 
 power, to serve a widening field. 
 
 Holding fast to all of good that we 
 
 99 
 
lje Clnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 have, let us discern four new paths of 
 service for the University of Virginia. 
 First, of English speaking statesmen, Mr. 
 Jefferson perceived the meaning of educa- 
 tion as an influence upon national as dis- 
 tinct from individual development, and for 
 forty years his mind played constantly 
 around three lines of institutional reform 
 in Virginia elementary instruction for 
 every child, in order to guarantee citizen- 
 ship, to elevate economic desire, and to 
 increase industrial capacity; secondary 
 education, or more education for those fit 
 for it; university education, or training 
 for leadership. 
 
 The largest social task of this univer- 
 sity, co-operating with all educational 
 forces, is to strive for the accomplishment 
 of these unrealized ideals. Not only in 
 Virginia, but throughout the South there 
 is enthusiasm, growth under difficulties, 
 
in tfte Slife of tfte Ration 
 
 splendid determination and progress and 
 individual excellence, but our educational 
 systems are unorganized and bear some- 
 what the relation to what they will finally 
 become that the old volunteer fire com- 
 panies bear to the organized fire depart- 
 ment. Their proper co-ordination will 
 come as a result of community effort and 
 a conception of educational unity. Edu- 
 cation is one compact interest of society, 
 and no one part can be profitably studied 
 alone, as no individual can be studied 
 isolated from his fellows. His cadaver 
 may be valuable for such purposes, but 
 not his personality. I know of no more 
 fruitful field of inquiry than that which 
 has to do with the relation of part to part 
 in our systems of education, and of the 
 intrinsic relation of the whole to State 
 and Church. The University of Virginia 
 is essentially not this particular City of 
 
of Virginia 
 
 Light, but a composite institution, in- 
 cluding every schoolhouse, academy, de- 
 nominational college, and State school tied 
 together in a union of sympathy and 
 helpfulness, and it somehow must become 
 this or confess failure. 
 
 The adoption of the mill tax idea as a 
 method of raising revenue to insure uni- 
 fied and stable educational growth is the 
 contribution of the Mississippi Valley. It 
 is the result of the teachings of Jefferson 
 and the common sense of pioneers and 
 State builders. I commend it to our law- 
 makers for their thoughtful investigation, 
 for nowhere have the dreams of Wash- 
 ington and the hopes of Jefferson ap- 
 proached so nearly to realization as in 
 this alert and unhindered territory. 
 
 We should cherish the hope that the 
 time will come when the higher institu- 
 tions of the State will be united in 
 
in r(K ilifr of tftc Ration 
 
 organic union, since local pride arid 
 enthusiasm have denied us physical 
 unity. Nor should the reciprocal obli- 
 gations be forgotten that exist between 
 the State and the private and denomi- 
 national colleges, chartered by the State, 
 protected by its laws, educating one- 
 third of its youth. We should welcome 
 the establishment here of halls and dor- 
 mitories controlled by them, availing 
 themselves of the opportunities of the 
 University, and if this be impracti- 
 cable, we should at least strive without 
 ceasing to banish from our life any sem- 
 blance of intercollegiate hostility. Let 
 co-operation supplant rivalry in the serv- 
 ice of men. This problem of unifica- 
 tion is as difficult as it is inviting. The 
 university that solves the problem holds 
 the future. The first forward step would 
 be the establishment here of a school 
 
 103 
 
ftmtoergitp of Virginia 
 
 of Education of such power that its 
 teachers could approach this and other 
 problems of educational statesmanship 
 with insight and authority. This school 
 should comprise not only the philoso- 
 pher, but the sociologist, the organizer, 
 and the sympathetic publicist. 
 
 Our distinctive contribution to Ameri- 
 can life has been political leadership. A 
 necessary condition for the holding of 
 this position would be the development 
 here of a great school complementary to 
 law, embracing the studies classified 
 under political economy, political science, 
 sociology, and history. These are no 
 longer subordinate studies. They are 
 the studies that enable the mind to 
 reach results, not so much through 
 obstructive criticism as through progres- 
 sive understanding of the soul of the 
 time in which it lives, and through 
 
 104 
 
in tlje Hife of tfte Ration 
 
 insight into conditions unfamiliar to daily 
 experience. Men trained in such studies 
 get the enlightenment upon which wise 
 social action must be based, and in 
 them lies the hope of advance in society. 
 For some decades the intensest expres- 
 sion of our power is to be along indus- 
 trial and scientific directions. The appli- 
 cation of the sciences to the enrichment 
 of life in engineering, in agriculture, in 
 business, in manufacturing, is not only a 
 movement inevitable to the national 
 development, but is also a vitalization 
 and emancipation of the liberal studies. 
 In the past five years the growth of 
 engineering students over those enrolled 
 in the courses in letters and languages 
 has been one hundred per cent. This 
 does not mean materialism, but is sim- 
 ply an expression of economic need. 
 Modern competitive living needs the 
 
 105 
 
fje ttmtoer^itp of Bitginia 
 
 trained man, not alone in law and 
 medicine, but in engineering and in the 
 great arts of production and exchange. 
 It is the duty of society to master the 
 means for the production of wealth as a 
 form of independence of the world's 
 forces, and after that to oppose moral 
 purpose and enlightened conscience to 
 the suggestions of greed and the seek- 
 ing of fortune for fortune's sake. 
 
 Universities that have a clear tradition 
 are rare and fortunate. Our clearest 
 /tradition is the tradition of culture and 
 fellowship with beauty and poetic under- 
 standing. It is not a tradition to lose in 
 a world where business is king. It is a 
 morning spirit not yet numbed by sordid 
 or cynical impulses still lit with spirit- 
 ual charm and lifted above enervation 
 and self-seeking a stubborn negation of 
 Wordsworth's fear: 
 
 "The world is too much with us, soon and late; 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our power." 
 1 06 
 
in the Itifc of tl)c Ration 
 
 I would give this tradition added rich- 
 ness by putting it to work through the 
 establishment here of a nobly planned 
 school of English Writing. In such an 
 air as this, rich in life and hope and 
 ample manhood, there is room for a 
 school which would bring men together 
 more in the spirit of practical artists than 
 of critics or analysts ; a school of scholars 
 and masters, working together like good 
 craftsmen, learning from each other ; com- 
 peting with each other, producing, offer- 
 ing their products to the thought of the 
 world, and giving the training which men 
 of creative instinct get by working to- 
 gether under the sharp spur of life and 
 the just pride of accomplishment. The 
 power to use one's language clearly and 
 persuasively is a practical gain, alone 
 worth the time spent in college. The 
 power to use it as an expression of life 
 
 107 
 
CJnifcer^itp of Virginia 
 
 and emotion is the power to enter through 
 understanding into that realm of feeling 
 and faith where dwell love and liberty 
 and the unseen ideals that move the 
 race more than law or logic. Why 
 should not a university provide for pro- 
 ductive work in literature on the same 
 ample plan and scope with which it pro- 
 vides for scientific investigation and publi- 
 cation? Will not citizenship in the realm 
 of letters come soonest to him who seeks 
 to make rather than to him who seeks to 
 dissect the body of literature ; to him who 
 emphasizes the movement of spirit above 
 the phenomena of language? 
 
 Whether the University of Virginia 
 shall realize its great destiny rests upon 
 the decision of the Commonwealth of 
 Virginia, whose civic life it has ener- 
 gized and ennobled, upon the will of its 
 alumni, whom it has invested with cul- 
 
 108 
 
in tfte 3life of tfte Ration 
 
 tured manhood, and upon American citi- 
 zenship, whose public spirit it embodies. 
 I have emphasized everywhere the idea 
 of service due from the University to 
 the State and I shall continue this 
 emphasis, for I should sin against the 
 mighty dead if I did not bring to these 
 brave young men a straightforward mes- 
 sage of social duty. In Ben Hill's 
 phrase, this shall be the University for 
 Virginia as well as the University of 
 Virginia. Great States care for their 
 universities, believing such care to be 
 a mark of greatness in States. I believe 
 that this State, which has always known 
 how to act broadly, will make it an 
 axiom of its legislative life to cherish 
 and strengthen its chiefest institution 
 in proportion to income and prosperity. 
 The University calls to her sons with 
 the confidence of a mother for their con- 
 
 109 
 
t)e ambcrsitn of Virginia 
 
 structive help, and they will heed her 
 call as they have heeded every call of 
 filial love and public duty. She offers to 
 men of sentiment and foresight through- 
 out the republic the privilege and oppor- 
 tunity of an incomparable service. An 
 additional annual income of $100,000 is 
 needed here immediately. We need men 
 here, first and foremost great scholars 
 and teachers to reinforce our over-bur- 
 dened corps and books and instru- 
 ments and buildings, and then more men. 
 It would be a dull and senseless spirit 
 that did not feel the sacred meaning of 
 this hour, with its unspoken suggestion 
 of human living and human dying, of 
 patient striving, and of dauntless hope. 
 There is no despair in such a task. There 
 is simply gratitude to God for oppor- 
 tunity and prayer to God for strength. 
 I believe in the essential idealism of the 
 
in tfte life of tfte Ration 
 
 republic, in its dependence upon knowl- 
 edge and training, in a deep and heroic 
 simplicity which lies at its heart, safe- 
 guarding it forever from the tyranny of 
 mob or plutocrat. Set here so faithfully 
 for everlasting service, this university 
 seeks its share of the nation's growth 
 and its portion of the nation's burden. 
 Like the University of Berlin, it belongs 
 to the short list of institutions which 
 have scattered the despair and lightened 
 the sorrows of a great people in a time 
 of national trial. Shall it not, like the 
 University of Leyden, range itself also, 
 in the justice of God, among the great 
 schools of national rejoicing, working at 
 the tasks and solving the problems of an 
 era welded into unity by common sacri- 
 fice and thrilling with the prophecy of 
 boundless growth and triumphant peace? 
 To the absent ones whose thoughts 
 
f)e ftnibergitp of Virginia 
 
 turn hitherward to-day, for love of Alma 
 Mater and belief in her ideals, I send 
 the message of her unbroken loyalty to 
 the faith that the scholar should be a 
 patriot and the patriot a scholar, and 
 that scholarly patriotism, exalting coun- 
 try above self, rich in social knowledge 
 and sympathy, unafraid of difficulty and 
 unashamed of sentiment, is the noblest 
 offering universities can make toward 
 the integrity and majesty of republican 
 citizenship. 
 
in tlK llifc of rftr Ration 
 
 ACCOMPLISHMENT 
 
CJnitoergitp of Virginia 
 
in ti)c ffiife of tftc |i>ation 
 
 ACCOMPLISHMENT 
 
 The University of Virginia was conceived, 
 founded, and organized by Thomas Jefferson. 
 It was established by the Legislature of Virginia 
 January 25, 1819, and opened to students March 
 7, 1825. The total number of young men enrolled 
 as students during the eighty sessions which pre- 
 ceded the election of Dr. Edwin A. Alderman as 
 its first President in June, 1904, was fifteen 
 thousand nine hundred and twelve. During this 
 period three hundred and sixty-one students 
 received baccalaureate degrees: the degree of 
 Master of Arts was conferred upon three hundred 
 and ninety-three candidates; and that of Doctor 
 of Philosophy upon thirty-five. Degrees in En- 
 gineering were conferred upon ninety-nine can- 
 didates; the degree of Doctor of Medicine upon 
 one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven; and 
 that of Bachelor of Law upon one thousand three 
 hundred and thirty-five. No honorary degree 
 has ever been conferred by the University. 
 
 115 
 
Clnifcergitp of Virginia 
 
 The alumni of the University have been largely 
 represented in excutive, judiciary, and other 
 services of the National Government, and in 
 Congress, as well as in State governments and 
 legislatures. Four alumni have served as Cabinet 
 officers; one as a Justice of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States ; one as a Justice of the In- 
 ternational Court of Appeals; and eight as Am- 
 bassadors or Foreign Ministers. Twenty-five 
 have been members of the Senate, from thirteen 
 States, and eighty-six have been members of the 
 House of Representatives from fifteen States, 
 many of them for several terms. Seven Senators 
 and twelve Representatives in the present Con- 
 gress are alumni of the University a larger rep- 
 resentation than that of any other American 
 university save one. Seventeen alumni have been 
 Governors in ten States, and forty-eight Judges 
 of Supreme Courts in seventeen States, many of 
 whom are now in office. A large number have 
 served or are serving as members of State Legis- 
 latures, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General, 
 and in other offices of trust and importance. 
 
 116 
 
in tfte Hife of t&e Ration 
 
 Alumni of the University took an important 
 part in the formation of the Confederate govern- 
 ment, and a still more prominent part in the Con- 
 federate army and navy. Five alumni were mem- 
 bers of the Confederate Cabinet; fourteen were 
 members of the Provisional Congress, from eight 
 States; nine were Senators, from seven States, 
 and fourteen were Representatives, from seven 
 States, in the first and second Permanent Con- 
 gresses. The number of students matriculated 
 up to the close of the Civil War was less than nine 
 thousand; of these, two thousand four hundred 
 and eighty-one (over twenty-seven per cent.) 
 served in the field or at sea ; and of this number, 
 four hundred and seventy-one (nearly one-fifth) 
 died in service. One thousand four hundred and 
 eighty alumni (nearly sixty per cent, of the entire 
 number serving) were commissioned as officers 
 of various grades, among whom were four 
 major-generals, twenty-one brigadier generals, 
 and sixty-seven colonels, from ten States. 
 
 In addition to the large number of alumni who 
 have served as teachers in public and private high 
 
 117 
 
Uni\3cr0it>i of Virginia 
 
 schools, or as assistant professors, instructors, or 
 tutors in collegiate institutions, four hundred and 
 eleven alumni have occupied chairs in one hun- 
 dred and fifty-one universities, colleges, and pro- 
 fessional schools, located in thirty-three States 
 and four foreign countries; of these, one hun- 
 dred and seventy-one are now in positions. Sixty- 
 four alumni have been made presiding officers of 
 fifty-one institutions located in nineteen States. 
 Alumni of the University have held chairs in 
 ninety-nine institutions, located in sixteen South- 
 ern States ; of these, one hundred and forty-one 
 are at present serving in sixty-six institutions, 
 located in fourteen States, including nearly all of 
 the State universities and technical schools, and 
 the leading private foundations of the South. 
 Alumni have held chairs in fifty-seven institu- 
 tions located in seventeen Northern and Western 
 States; of these, thirty are now serving in 
 eighteen institutions, located in eight States. 
 
 While the University has no Department of 
 Theology, nor any denominational affiliation, 
 over five hundred of its alumni (over three per 
 
 kit 
 
in tJ>e aife of tJje Ration 
 
 cent, of its total enrollment) have entered the 
 ministry, chiefly of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
 Baptist, and Methodist churches ; a large number 
 of these have served or are serving as mission- 
 aries in all parts of the world. Eleven alumni 
 have been made bishops of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church; one of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church; and one of the Reformed Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 Since the opening of the University to students 
 in 1825, it has conferred the degree of Bachelor 
 of Law upon one thousand three hundred and 
 thirty-five of its graduates (a little over eight 
 per cent, of its total enrollment). To these may 
 with propriety be added a still larger number of 
 its matriculates who, without completing the en- 
 tire course in Law at the University, have there 
 obtained the larger part (if not the whole) of 
 their professional education, and have since been 
 in successful practice. Alumni in the Law have 
 attained distinction in every branch of the profes- 
 sion, and have been prominent in public life, alike 
 in the National government and in that of their 
 respective States. 
 
ftnifcergitp of Bitginia 
 
 Without taking account of a large number of 
 practitioners who have there received their aca- 
 demic (and in many instances the larger part of 
 their professional) training, the University has 
 conferred the degree of Doctor of Medicine upon 
 one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven of its 
 students (about eight per cent, of the total enroll- 
 ment). Representatives of this body have been 
 and are prominent in their profession in nearly 
 every State and large city of the land. They com- 
 prise a larger number of the surgeons of the 
 Army, Navy, and Marine Hospital Service of the 
 United States than the graduates of any other 
 medical school, forming at the present time about 
 twenty per cent, of the National Medical Staff. 
 
 Alumni of the University constitute a large 
 proportion of those American writers who, espe- 
 cially in the South, have attained distinction as 
 authors in various fields of literature, or as edi- 
 tors of leading periodicals and newspapers, both 
 religious and secular. 
 
in tlje aife of tfje Ration 
 
 Although the Department of Engineering is of 
 comparatively recent organization, its graduates 
 are filling positions of importance throughout the 
 land; the same may be said of graduates of the 
 Schools of Chemistry and of Geology. 
 
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