Editing University of Virginia (section)

===1800s===
[[File:Gilbert Stuart Thomas Jefferson.jpg|thumb|upright=0.95|[[Thomas Jefferson]], the university's founder, by [[Gilbert Stuart]] ({{circa|1821}})]]

<!--Paragraph #1: Topic: Background, planning, context-->[[File:University of Virginia Rotunda in 2006.jpg|thumb|[[The Rotunda (University of Virginia)|The Rotunda]], as pictured from the South Lawn|left]]In 1802, while serving as president of the United States, [[Thomas Jefferson]] wrote to artist [[Charles Willson Peale]] that his concept of the new university would be "on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for and our faculties meet," and it might even attract talented students from "other states to come, and drink of the cup of knowledge."<ref name="Peale">Alf J. Mapp, Jr., ''Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim'', p. 19.</ref> Virginia was already home to the [[College of William & Mary]] in Williamsburg, but Jefferson lost all confidence in his ''alma mater,'' partly because of its religious nature—it required all its students to recite a [[catechism]]—and its stifling of the sciences.<ref name="yalereview1878">''New Englander and Yale Review'', Volume 37, W. L. Kingsley, "Ought the State provide for Higher Education?", 1878, page 378.</ref><ref name="russell">Phillips Russell, ''Jefferson, Champion of the Free Mind'', p. 335.</ref> Jefferson had flourished under William & Mary professors [[William Small]] and [[George Wythe]] decades earlier, but the college was in a period of great decline and his concern became so dire by 1800 that he expressed to British chemist [[Joseph Priestley]], "we have in that State, a college just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it." These words would ring true some seventy years later when William & Mary fell bankrupt after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] and the Williamsburg college was shuttered completely in 1881, later being revived as primarily a small college for teachers until it regained university status later in the twentieth century.<ref>[https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/17228 An Act to Establish A Normal School, 5 March 1888] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905235712/https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/17228 |date=September 5, 2014 }}, accessed September 5, 2014</ref> Jefferson envisioned his new university would "be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."<ref name="Reason">[[Dumas Malone]], ''Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello'', p. 417-418.</ref>

<!--Paragraph #2: Formal founding and construction-->
In 1817, three presidents (Jefferson, [[James Monroe]], and [[James Madison]]) and [[Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court]] [[John Marshall]] joined 24 other dignitaries at a meeting held in the Mountain Top Tavern at [[Rockfish Gap]]. After some deliberation, they selected nearby Charlottesville as the site of the new University of Virginia.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.snp.guide/p/turk-mountain-overlook-to-rockfish-gap.html |title="Guide to SNP" – Turk Mountain Overlook to Rockfish Gap |website=snp.guide |access-date=June 19, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100603010939/http://www.guidetosnp.com/web/LogoftheDrive/logs6.aspx |archive-date=June 3, 2010 }}</ref> The UVA Board of Visitors purchased just outside [[Charlottesville, Virginia|Charlottesville]] a farm that had once been owned by James Monroe.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/highland/ashlawn2.html |title=An Account of James Monroe's Land Holdings |access-date=December 1, 2023 |archive-date=December 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203214038/http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/highland/ashlawn2.html |url-status=live }} Research conducted for the Ash Lawn-Highland Museum and the Institute for Public History of the University of Virginia in 1998: in 1788-9 George Nicholas had sold the land to James Monroe (without a recorded deed); in 1810 Monroe's attorney sold it to George Divers to pay Monroe's creditors; in 1810 it was resold to John Nicholas; in 1814 resold again to John Perry; and in 1820 the Proctor of the University bought the land from its then-owner John Perry for the University.</ref> The Commonwealth of Virginia chartered a new flagship university to be based on the site in Charlottesville on January 25, 1819.

[[John Hartwell Cocke]] collaborated with James Madison, Monroe, and Joseph Carrington Cabell to fulfill Jefferson's dream to establish the university. Cocke and Jefferson were appointed to the building committee to supervise the construction.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dabney |first=Virginius |author-link=Virginius Dabney |url=http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:179274/uva-lib-bdef:100/getFullView |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715002828/http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:179274/uva-lib-bdef:100/getFullView |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 15, 2012 |title=Mr. Jefferson's University: A History |location=[[Charlottesville]] |publisher=[[University of Virginia Press]] |year=1981 |isbn=0-8139-0904-X |page=3 }}</ref> The UVA Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights is continuing to "seek opportunities to engage and acknowledge with respect that we live, learn, and work on [what once was] the territory of the [[Monacan Indian Nation]]."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://eocr.virginia.edu/monacan |title=Indigenous/UVA Relating |author=<!--Not stated--> |website=eocr.virginia.edu |date=November 2019 |publisher= |access-date= |quote='acknowledge with respect that we live, learn, and work on the traditional territory of the Monacan Indian Nation.' |archive-date=September 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926201759/https://eocr.virginia.edu/monacan |url-status=live }}</ref> Like many of its peers,<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/23/university.slavery/index.html Colleges come to terms with slave-owning pasts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009061334/http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/23/university.slavery/index.html |date=October 9, 2018 }}, accessed October 8, 2018</ref> the university owned slaves who helped build the campus.<ref name="apmreportsshackledlegacy">{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Stephen |title=Shackled Legacy: History shows slavery helped build many U.S. colleges and universities |url=https://www.apmreports.org/story/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy |access-date=June 9, 2018 |work=American Public Media |date=September 4, 2017 |quote=The university bought a number slaves to work with free black and white laborers. Slaves did all facets of the work, leveling the ground, planing the timber, quarrying the stone and firing the bricks. ... More than 100 slaves worked on campus at a given time, serving more than 600 students and faculty, records show. |archive-date=June 15, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615195420/https://www.apmreports.org/story/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy |url-status=live }}</ref> They also served students and professors.<ref name="apmreportsshackledlegacy" /> The university's first classes met on March 7, 1825.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bruce |first=Philip Alexander |title=History of the University of Virginia, vol. II |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924092701618 |place=New York City |publisher=Macmillan |year=1920 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316094745/https://archive.org/details/cu31924092701618 |archive-date=March 16, 2016 }}</ref>

In contrast to other universities of the day, at which one could study in either medicine, law, or divinity, the first students at the University of Virginia could study in one or several of eight independent schools – medicine, law, mathematics, chemistry, ancient languages, modern languages, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy.<ref>''Popular Science'', July 1905, "The Progress of Science"</ref> Another innovation of the new university was that higher education would be separated from religious doctrine. UVA had no divinity school, was established independently of any religious sect, and [[#Campus|the Grounds]] were planned and centered upon a library, [[Rotunda (University of Virginia)|the Rotunda]], rather than a church, distinguishing it from peer universities still primarily functioning as seminaries for one particular strain of Protestantism or another.<ref name="sem">[[Joseph J. Ellis]], ''American Sphinx'', p. 283.</ref> Jefferson opined to philosopher [[Thomas Cooper (American politician, born 1759)|Thomas Cooper]] that "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution",<ref>“Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 7 October 1814,” Founders Online, [[National Archives and Records Administration]], https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0007 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240115022428/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0007 |date=January 15, 2024 }}. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 8, 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: [[Princeton University Press]], 2011, pp. 12–13.]</ref> and never has there been one. There were initially two degrees awarded by the university: ''Graduate,'' to a student who had completed the courses of one school; and ''Doctor'' to a graduate in more than one school who had shown research prowess.<ref name="1911EB">{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Virginia, University of |volume=28 |pages=125–126}}</ref>

[[File:James Madison.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|[[James Madison]] was the second rector of the University of Virginia until 1836.]]

Jefferson was intimately involved in the university to the end, hosting Sunday dinners at his [[Monticello]] home for faculty and students. Jefferson viewed the university's foundation as having such great importance and potential that he counted it among his greatest accomplishments and insisted his grave mention only his status as author of the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] and [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]], and father of the University of Virginia. Thus, he eschewed mention of his national accomplishments, such as the [[Louisiana Purchase]] and any other aspects of his presidency, in favor of his role with the young university.

Initially, some of the students arriving at the university matched the then-common picture of college students: wealthy, spoiled aristocrats with a sense of privilege which often led to brawling, or worse. This was a source of frustration for Jefferson, who assembled the students during the school's first year, on October 3, 1825, to criticize such behavior; but was too overcome to speak. He later spoke of this moment as "the most painful event" of his life.<ref name="bb">"[http://uvamagazine.org/articles/bad_boys Bad Boys] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161229101436/http://uvamagazine.org/articles/bad_boys |date=December 29, 2016 }}", ''Virginia'', Carlos Santos</ref>

Although the frequency of such irresponsible behavior dropped after Jefferson's expression of concern, it did not die away completely. Like many universities and colleges, it experienced periodic [[student riots]], culminating in the shooting death of Professor [[John A. G. Davis]], Chairman of the Faculty, in 1840. This event, in conjunction with [[Honor system at the University of Virginia|the new UVA Honor System]] and the growing popularity of temperance and a rise in religious affiliation in society in general, seems to have resulted in a permanent change in student attitudes toward reporting the bad behavior, and thus such behavior among students that had so greatly bothered Jefferson finally vanished.<ref name="bb"/>

In the year of Jefferson's death in 1826, poet [[Edgar Allan Poe]] enrolled at the university, where he excelled in Latin.<ref>"[https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/rotunda/prefire/early/poe Edgar Allan Poe at the University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224183900/https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/rotunda/prefire/early/poe |date=February 24, 2021 }}," ''University of Virginia Library.'' 2018. Accessed May 19, 2018.</ref> The [[Raven Society]], an organization named after Poe's most famous poem, continues to maintain 13 West Range, the room Poe inhabited during the single semester he attended the university.<ref>"[https://aig.alumni.virginia.edu/raven/history-raven-society/ History of the Raven Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924123705/https://aig.alumni.virginia.edu/raven/history-raven-society/ |date=September 24, 2020 }}," ''The Raven Society,'' 2018. Accessed May 19, 2018.</ref> He left because of financial difficulties. The [[University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science|School of Engineering and Applied Science]] opened in 1836, making UVA the first comprehensive university to open an engineering school.

Unlike the majority of Southern colleges, the university was kept open throughout the Civil War, despite its state seeing more bloodshed than any other and the near 100% [[conscription]] of the [[American South]].<ref name="CivilWarTrust">[http://www.civilwar.org/education/civil-war-casualties.html Civil War Casualties by the Civil War Trust] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130113041950/http://www.civilwar.org/education/civil-war-casualties.html |date=January 13, 2013 }}, accessed September 5, 2014</ref> After [[Jubal Early]]'s total loss at the [[Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia|Battle of Waynesboro]], Charlottesville was willingly surrendered to Union forces to avoid mass bloodshed, and UVA faculty convinced [[George Armstrong Custer]] to preserve Jefferson's university.<ref>[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War Charlottesville During the Civil War] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140906043011/http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War |date=September 6, 2014 }}, accessed September 5, 2014</ref> Although [[Union Army|Union troops]] camped on the Lawn and damaged many of the Pavilions, Custer's men left four days later without bloodshed and the university was able to return to its educational mission. However, an extremely high number of officers of both Confederacy and Union were alumni.<ref name="1913alumninews">''University of Virginia Alumni News'', Volume II, Issue 7, page 74, December 10, 1913. Accessed September 5, 2014</ref> UVA produced 1,481 officers in the [[Confederate Army]] alone, including four major-generals, twenty-one brigadier-generals, and sixty-seven colonels from ten different states.<ref name="1913alumninews" /> [[John S. Mosby]], the infamous "Gray Ghost" and commander of the lightning-fast [[43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry]] ranger unit, had also been a UVA student.

{{AmCyc Poster|Virginia, University of|UVA's 16 schools in operation as of 1879}}

Thanks to a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia, tuition became free for all Virginians in the year 1875.<ref name="AmCyc">See wikisource link to the right</ref> During this period, the University of Virginia remained unique in that it had no president and mandated no [[core curriculum]] from its students, who often studied in and took degrees from more than one school.<ref name="AmCyc" /> However, the university was also experiencing growing pains. As the original [[The Rotunda (University of Virginia)|Rotunda]] caught fire and [[#Academical Village|was gutted]] in 1895, there would soon be sweeping changes, much greater than merely reconstructing the Rotunda in 1899.