University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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e13 CORKS AND FCUriS OF NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR worried a great deal concerning the amount of gambling and drinking which they suspected was going on in the student body. In fact, the odor of mint in a students room or on his person was takeni as evidence that he had been imbibing. Professorial wrath was also drawn down on the heads of students who indulged in marbles and who made a terrific noise with their arguments, presumably about knuckling over or hunching. More serious, perhaps, was the prevalence of duelling among the students. A case is cited of one young man who was found carrying a large knife and who explained it by stating that it was carried in the event that someone might insult him and refuse to give him satisfaction. The faculty was extremely w atchful, and the mere w hisper of a duel was usually follow ed by instant dismissal. More harmless diversions were those found 1n the exercise classes which engaged in boxing, fencing, and singlestick. This early enthusiasm for boxing, by the way, might have been a harbinger of the joyous events which take place in our present winters. Various literary societies were also formed, the first of which was named for Patrick Henry and was founded in 1825. Soon afterward, a schism occurred and half of the members established. a new organization called the Jefferson Society. The latter society has, save for the war years in the 60's, functioned continuously. These societies enjoyed considerable popularity and importance in the activities of the school. Their debates and elections were occasions for great excitement and representatives from each were allowed to give speeches at various University celebrations. The faculty, however, with its fear of student criticism and administrative thought, promptly put an end to this custom. In 1836, the first Greek Letter social fraternity was formed in Gamma Pi Delta, and the popularity of debating among the student is shown by the fact that even this organization attempted to gain a place on the programs for its own representative. Dances were also a form of student diversions and were frequently given by groups of students. Literary lights in the student body brought out plans for a college magazine as early as 1831. Despite repeated discouraging comments from the worried faculty, a magazine was started late in that year under the name, The Chameleon. This survived until I838, when a new one named The Collegian was started to take its place. It was in 18.1.2 that an event took place which was to change the entire course of the University and to give it the finest and most distinguishing of its features. Judge Henry St. George Tucker, of the law faculty, who, with his kinsman, George Tucker, had been instrumental in removing the early-rising regulations and had been among those who were largely responsible for the repeal of the rule requiring students to wear a University uniform, became disgusted with the rigid surveillance E161

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CORKS AND CLIBLS OF NINETEEPJI4UBHDRED ANETTFHRTY-FOUR and a military guard over the Rotunda quieted things down and a large number of the mutinous crew were expelled from the University. The facultyis troubles, however, were not yet ended. Just two years later, a number of the students engineered a riot in protest against a ruling refusing them permission to give a dance because of the drunkenness which had prevailed at the last one. Smaller uprisings, accompanied by vandalism and rowdiness, broke out during the next two years until, in 1840, the climax was reached when Professor John A. Davis, a not unpopular member of the faculty, in attempting to strip a mask from the face of a student rioter, was shot and fatally wounded. A few days afterward, he died. His murderer was apprehended, but later jumped his bail and escaped without punishment. The system of graduates and degrees which Jefferson designed was very com- plicated, and is diHicult in these times to understand. He had wished the University to be of the continental type, having more of the characteristics of a graduate than an undergraduate institution. Although he could not make it an entirely graduate in- stitution, he still believed that no one should receive a diploma except those who had graduated from more than one of the various Schools and had shown talent in research. Anyone who had passed the courses of a School was ofhcially designated as a graduate and the only degrees given were those in the doctrinate and vocational categories. Honorary degrees were banned. The main reason for this system seems to have been that Jefferson was determined to stress the elective side of the educational curriculum and to give no degrees which necessitated the taking of courses in which the applicant held no interest. This idea, left no room for the M. A., B. A., or B. S. concepts. JeHersonis system was changed by the faculty in 1831 when that body set about to re-define the various honors awarded by the University. Four categories were then established: The graduate, who was defined as one who had mastered the courses of any one school; the winner of a certificate of proficiency in some section of a school; the Doctor of NIedicine ; and the IVIaster of Arts, who was required to have mastered the fields of Chemistry, Ancient Languages, NIathematics, Natural Philosophy, and IVIoral Philosophy. The Master of Arts, as you can see, had to be quite a boy. In these days, we would consider him a genius or a fool, depending on our respective outlooks. The diversions of the students in the first years were, for the most part, completely unorganized. NIainly, they consisted of running around at night, blowing horns, and, like the students of the present, ringing the college bell. The faculty seems to have I151

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CORiS AND CURLS OF NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR of examinations which college faculties carried on at that time. In an eEort to do away with this at the University of Virginia, he submitted a resolution to the faculty that a pledge be signed by each student on his examination paper to the effect that he had received no assistance, and that all tutorial espionage be abolished. This was the beginning of the present Honor System and, although for a number of years, the pledge was still directed to the faculty and was under its administration, the matter was soon recognized as a right and possession of the student body who came to guard it jealously from any attempt at faculty or any other supervision. The social life of the students had already, by 1844, taken on many of the aspects which it shows to-day. We find a commentator in the magazine bemoaning the fact that the students were divided into small cliches and that they had become unsociable except in their own sets. He divided all of the students into four categories which could, interestingly enough, he applied with success to-day. They were: The swells, the sheepskins twe call them grinds to-dayi, the men of leisure who talk osten- tatiously of experiences in Europe and . . . complain that the local beauties fall short of what they have recently seen . . . , and the good-for-nothing man, who thinks himself a wit but is really a bore . . . a mannerless man. One of the first purely social organizations was formed in this same year under the name of the Calathumpian band. The membership of this organization was composed, apparently, of the more lawless element and in the next year, the riot fever which had died down after Professor Davis' murder was revived by them. The up- rising started with an attack on the home of the chairman of the faculty and spread from there, starting a week-long ruction. Again, the authorities were forced to call for civil aid. When calm was finally effected, 126 students out of the 194 registered, withdrew from the University and we can suppose that all 126 had been implicated in the riot. The effect of this, coupled with the earlier murder of a professor, had a bad etiect on the impressions of the public concerning the University, and registration fell 03 considerably in the ensuing years. Nevertheless, riots continued. A circus riot in 1846, a political riot the next year, a pitched battle between the Charlottesville police and the students in 1850, and numerous other smaller uprisings, marked gala days for the students of those times. So great was the fear of the people of Charlottes- ville that they stationed a bugler at the top of Vinegar Hill and instructed him to blow a warning blast if he saw a large body of students approaching. As late as 1859, the students were required to pledge themselves unarmed with either pistol or dirk. The last of the riots took place, as many of the older students can remember, in 1929 as a consequence of alleged unfair prices at the local movies. Virginia gentlemen have, from I171