Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

2. Latin Language and Literature.

3. Greek Language and Literature.

4. Mathematics and Physical Science.

5. Chemistry and Natural Philosophy.

Speedily after his accession, three new Chairs were added, and Professors elected to fill them; the Chair of Natural Philosophy, embracing, in addition to Physics, Acoustics, Optics, &c., the various subjects of Natural and Applied Mechanics; the Chair of Applied Mathematics, embracing Astronomy, Civil and Military Engineering; and the Chair of Modern Languages, to which was added English Philosophy. In the second year of his incumbency the Chair of History and English Literature was established, and soon afterwards the department of ‘Law and Equity,’ under that eminent jurist, Judge John W. Brockenbrough.

Several other Chairs were included in the President's programme, one of the ‘English Language,’ one of ‘Applied Chemistry,’ and also ‘A School of Medicine,’ a ‘School of Journalism’ and a ‘School of Commerce’—the latter being designed to give special instruction and systematic training in whatever pertained to business in the most enlarged sense of the term. Amongst other changes introduced by General Lee was the substitution of the elective system instead of a fixed curriculum; and the system of discipline which he adopted, in no wise partaking of the military type, to which it might have been supposed his disposition would incline—was that which has so long prospered at the University of Virginia; a system which ignored espionage and compulsion, and put every student upon a manly sense of honor—a system which especially with young men, not too immature to appreciate it, and which, with all men who have the capacity of being gentlemen, is the best calculated to develop the virtuous and independent elements of character. Here for five years the General devoted himself to the cause of education, and here under him that cause nobly flourished. Here he demonstrated that comprehensive grasp of every subject connected with his sphere; and the keen apprehension of the demands of this progressive age, and of a land entering as it were upon a new birth. His associates in the Faculty loved him as an elder brother; the students revered and loved him as a father, and all who saw or knew his work, with common voice proclaimed the conviction expressed by one of the most distinguished of his associates, that he was ‘the best College President that this country has every produced.’

His work has been established, and though the great Chief has