Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small]

system of general instruction which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the highest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, sc will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest." In early life he was eager to transform the College of William and Mary into a university. The geographical disadvantages of its sit uation became more apparent, however, as the center of population moved westward, and "a new college in a more central part of the State" became the project and dream of his maturer. years. Five years of residence in Europe, beginning in 1784, afforded ample opportunities for the study of foreign universities. His interest in the Italian universities was early awakened; then he became convinced that Geneva was the best place for study on the Continent; Edinburgh also evoked his admiration, and he declared that the Swiss and Scotch cities were "the two eyes of Europe." In 1794 the French faculty of the University of Geneva, finding their political environment uncongenial, proposed to Mr. Jefferson to transfer their work to Virginia if proper arrangements could be made. The great Virginian, who was a provincial only by the accident of birth, but a true cosmopolitan by the very temper of his mind, caught at the hope of establishing a center of OldWorld culture in the New World, and urged the Legislature of Virginia to make proper provision for the establishment of the Genevan faculty on an adequate foundation in Virginia. The scheme was contemporary with Mr. Jefferson's large-minded view of human affairs, but it was many decades in advance of the average breadth of vision of any legislature in the New World; indeed, it is doubtful if any legislative body in this country or abroad is to-day on a level with the Jeffersonian conception of international relations along intellectual lines. Washington understood the situation much better; he doubted the expediency of importing a body of foreign scholars, and suggested, if such a step were taken, that they ought not to be taken from one country; he was of opinion that eminent Scotchmen should be included. It developed later that Mr. Jefferson craved the society of scholars and men of science, whom he found in such numbers in Europe, and was eager to command these

higher resources of civilization at home. There are some things, however, which cannot be imported; they must be developed at home; and Mr. Jefferson, though he did not realize his dream, did much to prepare the way for its realization.

The exact date of the birth in Mr. Jefferson's mind of the idea of a university for the State of Virginia is unknown; from early manhood he meditated upon the best method of securing popular education for all citizens of the State; he had, at different times, worked out different plans towards the accomplishment of this great end; when the War of the Revolution began in 1776, the university idea had taken definite shape; through the dark years which followed he never abandoned it; during his residence in Europe he diligently sought light on university methods; while he was absorbed by the work and perplexities of the Presidency, he never for a moment lost interest in the project, and it filled and crowned the period of his retirement from active political work. For forty years, through every medium of influence, he strove to awaken interest in education in Virginia; he wrote for the press; he conducted a voluminous correspondence; he laid the matter before hosts of people in personal interviews. In the end he created a widespread interest. and prepared the way for legislative action.

The most difficult and trying part of the work was still to be done, and in this final stage Mr. Jefferson had the eager and effective aid of Mr. Joseph C. Cabell, who deserves to be remembered as a cofounder of the university. Through manifold perplexities, in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties arising from local jealousies, the opposition of other schools, the apathy in which such efforts are often suffocated, these two tireless servants of the higher education pushed their great enterprise to completion. By an act, passed by the Legislature in 1816, Albemarle Academy was enlarged in scope to become Central College, of which the Governor of the Commonwealth was to be the patron, with a board of visitors which included Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Joseph C. Cabell, and the corner-stone of the college was laid in the autumn of 1817. There was still another stage to be taken in the remarkable evolution of a university which

[graphic]

THE REAR OF MONTICELLO

Mr. Jefferson had carried on with indomitable patience and persistency, and that step was taken when the General Assembly, on the 25th of January, 1819, united the Central College and the University of Virginia. On the 7th of March, 1825, the University opened its doors and started on its remarkable career. On the 4th of July of the following year Mr. Jefferson died, but not until he had seen the large lines of the University distinctly marked, its work thoroughly in hand, and its character determined.

Looking down from the heights of Monticello, where he spent an old age full of honor and work, with troops of friends coming and going, depleting his fortunes, but giving the stately old house association with whatever was best in the intellectual and social life of the time, Mr. Jefferson saw the beginnings of the academic community which is so strikingly and nobly housed on, the broad plateau on the skirts of Charlottesville. Το the west rise the peaks of the Blue Ridge, so set against the horizon that they seem to gather and hold the fading splendor of the day until the stars are in their places. On the right, as one turns from

the Rotunda facing the Lawn, stand the irregular summits of the Ragged Mountains which every reader of Poe knows well. The scenery has strength and boldness without severity. From Monticello the landscape has the quietness of large spaces, the freshness of rich vegetation, and the variety and beauty of distant ranges of wooded hills with long stretches of green meadows. The home of Monroe is within sight, and not many miles away is Montpellier, the residence of Madison.

In the heart of this noble landscape, typical of the extent and natural resources of the ancient Commonwealth, stands the University, whose outward form and inward spirit were the creation of its founder. There has been a long line of royal and noble founders, but neither William of Wykeham nor Henry VI. was able to create the institutions of which they laid the foundations. This was precisely what Mr. Jefferson did; he created the University of Virginia. He worked out the architectural scheme down to its minutest detail; and, first in many things, the University was the first college in this country to adopt a general architectural

[graphic]

THE COLONNADE

[graphic][merged small]

scheme at the start, and to preserve it intact.

True to his idea of the international character of education and the universality of its interests, Mr. Jefferson housed the University in a Rotunda, modeled after the Pantheon, with a fine dome, and faced by noble columns which serve to connect two colonnades, more than six hundred feet in length, containing students' rooms, broken by five pavilions on each side, which serve as professors' houses. This great quadrangle, which is called the Lawn, is completed at the west end by three buildings constructed since the fire which destroyed the Rotunda five years ago. These buildings, devoted to physical and mechanical laboratories and lecture-rooms and containing a fine university hall, harmonize with the general scheme of the University without imitating it. Back of these two colonnades, which face the lawn, running east and west, and separated from them by gardens, are two other rows of students' rooms, which are called Ranges, in front of which run continuous arcades. There are also a number of smaller buildings for students on the north side of the University grounds, a biological laboratory and Med ical Hall, a chemical laboratory, a Museum of Natural History, a Medical Dispensary, an observatory, the chapel, and Fayerweather gymnasium.

the

The University is unique in its housing, reproducing as it does, on a great scale,

the impressive Greek and Roman lines, and presenting every order of classical architecture in the long sweep of white columns. The great quadrangle is shaded but not dwarfed by four rows of trees which traverse it north and south, sufficiently near the colonnades to afford a grateful shade. By moonlight the effect of the long lines of white columns is enchanting, and one easily imagines himself under another sky and in the presence of an older civilization. The drawings of the founder show that the different types of well-known Roman buildings were studied and reproduced from Palladio's great work on architecture. There are reminders on every side of the Pantheon, the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the temple of Fortuna Virilis, and other famous structures. The great hall of the Rotunda contains the library, with the statue of Mr. Jefferson, the Zolnay bust of Poe, which was unveiled with appropriate exercises, on a golden autumn day last year, and other memorials. The colonnades are a single story in height, and the students' rooms form a succession of cheerful cells, decorated with the inimitable touch which only the undergraduate knows how to impart to furniture, books, photographs, balls and bats, fencing foils, and those cushions for window seats which are to be found in numbers past calculation and almost beyond belief in American colleges. A Yale Junior is reported to be

[graphic][merged small]

the happy possessor of more than one hundred and fifty of these evidences of modern luxury and feminine skill! The absence of the manifold conveniences of the modern college dormitory is noticeable, but there are many compensations; and it is a pleasure to note that simplicity is still the note of student life in Virginia. Simplicity, it is worth remembering, is always a note of the highest culture.

The University is not only unique in its housing, but for many years it was unique in its government and educational methods. Unlike the New England colleges, which followed English precedents and were gradually developed out of small beginnings, the University of Virginia came into existence upon a plan which had been matured after long study of many institutions by a man of cosmopolitan temper and original mind. Like the famous Declaration from the same hand, the plan of the University was based on a broad reading of all past history. It represented a vast amount of observation and reflection, and drew freely upon the experience of the Old World; but it was intensely American in spirit and government. Mr. Jefferson was a democrat of the democrats; more, perhaps, than any

other man of his time, he believed in unrestricted self government, in the capacity of men to rule themselves. Liberty was not an abstraction with him; it was a passion; and he founded the University of Virginia on faith in American manhood. "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," he once wrote. In the inscription written by himself on the monument over his grave in the little burying ground at Monticello, no reference is made to the distinguished positions he had filled in public life-Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Presi dent of the United States. The mind of the old statesman fastened by instinct on his services to liberty and education: "Author of the Declaration of Independence; of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom; and Father of the University of Virginia." Surely no more impressive record has been cut on any monument in this country.

This passion for liberty, and faith in the capacity of men to use without abusing it, found full expression in the organization of the University. That organization secured "freedom for the student in

« PředchozíPokračovat »