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Page 29 text:
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A History of the Foundation and Development of the Virginia Mihtary Institute THE eleventh day of November, 1839, was a day big with rfate for the educational and material interest of the good old Commonwealth of Vir- ginia, at least, so think the cadets and alnmni of the Virginia Military In- stitute, which was founded on that day. The Institute was a military school from the start, in a sense in which no other school in the country was a military school, not even West Point. Like the Institute, West Point started from a very small beginning, but the cadets of that institution never did duty as garrison of a military post; this duty was performed by soldiers of the army. At the Institute the cadets relieved the enlisted men in the service of the state, who were the guards of the Western Arsenal of Virginia, and thereafter performed all the military duties of the soldiers, at the same time pursuing the prescribed course of scientific and military studies. The first Board of Visitors met in May, 1839. The president of the board was Col. Claude Crozet, a higlily educated and accomplished French soldier who had served in the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, under the great ISTapoleon. Coming to this country, he was professor of mathematics, and civil and military engineering, at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Having resigned this position, he took service under the State of Virginia as chief engineer. There were other distinguished soldiers on this first board, three of whom had served as officers in the War of 1812 ; one of these three, Captain Wiley, had marched with his company from Petersburg, Virginia, to Quebec, Canada. Then there were jDrominent and able men who had not been soldiers, most prominent amongst whom were Governor James McDowell and John T. L. Preston, Esq., of Lexington, Virginia. The latter, a highly educated and ciiltured gentleman, may, in a marked sense, be re- garded as the founder of the Institute. It was he who most earnestly and ably argued with voice and pen during those three years in which was pending the question of supplanting the garrison of soldiers with a garrison of young Vir- ginians, who should do the duty of the soldiers and at the same time qualify themselves by study to do their part as teachers and workers in the great in- dustrial development about to da vn upon the old State. The primary idea was to get rid of the rather vagabondish old soldiers, and to educate, in their places , twenty young men, to be boarded and educated
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Page 30 text:
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free of charge, in consideration of their niilitarv service. The jDrogram of study, and the mode of training and life submitted to the public by the board and superintendent, proved so attractive that many sought the jDrivileges of the infant iustitution, upon the condition that they should pay their own way and voluntarily assume, under formal written obligations in the nature of articles of enlistment, to render subordination and do the military duties im- ]30sed by law upon state cadets. The restricted accommodations of the old soldier barracks limited the number which could be admitted ; but twelve of these ' olunteers were accepted, who, with the twenty to be maintained by the State, made a corps consisting of one company of thirty-two young soldiers. The conditions of life surrounding these yovmg pioneers were harsh and uninviting. Quartet ' s were cramped, and rooms were crowded, even for the small number of thirty-two, and the fare, while abundant, was rough. There were no proper classrooms, no library, no apparatus of any kind ; and the old flint-lock muskets, caliber .69, were clumsy, heavy, and hard to keep clean. The band consisted of two old negroes, Eeuben and Alike ; one lieat the kettledrum, the other whistled through the fife. The board made a wise choice in the selection of a su]:)erintendent. Prof. Francis IT. Smith, professor of mathematics in the honored old College of Hampden-Sidney, Va. Professor Smith was born in Norfolk, Ya. ; after re- ceiving the usual education taught in the best classical schools of the times, he was appointed a cadet in the U. S. Military Academy in 1S29, and was graduated in 18.3.3. Fpon graduation he was tendered an appointment as an assistant ])rofessor of mathematics and also of artillery in the Academy, both of which he declined, and joined his regiment, the first V. S. Artillery at Fort Turnbull, Conn. After serving with his regiment at various stations, he was ordered to West Point as assistant ])rofessor of moral and political philosophy and rhetoric in October, 1834. This duty he discharged until 1835, when he resigned with the intention of entering civil life. This intention was some- what deferred and he did duty with the V. S. Corps of Topographical Engin- eers, exploring an inland route through the souikIs of North Carolina, between Norfolk and Charleston. While engaged in this duty, he was elected profes- sor of mathematics in ITami)den-Sidney College, which position he acce]itcd September, 1837; while discharging the duties of his chair, he was called to take charge of the Virginia Military Institute as superintendent and professor of mathematics, in 1839. Although the class to be taught in mathematics was small when Professor Smith entered iqion his duties at the IMilitary Institute.,
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