Polk Family Papers Box 9 Document 43

POLK Letters: April 18, 1860

1860, April 18

J. A. Cambell, The University of Virginia, to Bishop Polk, re: answering a request that he comment and express his views with absolute freedom on things omitted or things embraced in the report of the Committee on a code of statutes for the University; very detailed and lengthy statements concerning the duty of the Vice Chancellor, appointment of professors, ect. advising that the scheme seems to embrace too many schools, giving reasons; discipline... 7 pp. ( 1 mss. original, 1 Photostat copy).

University of Virginia

April 18. 1860.

Right Reverend & dear sir

Owing to circumstances which I could not alter an unusual amount of professional but extracollegiate duty has devolved on me for the last two or three months and has precluded the possibility of of an earlier answer to your communication of the 5th ultimo. I beg you to be assured that I have neither been unmindful of the subject to which you have invited my attention nor indifferent to the respect with which you have honored me to express my views "with unrestrained freedom, whether upon things omitted or things embraced" in the Report of the Committee on a Code of Statutes for your University.

It is, however, with real and unaffected distrust of my ability to furnish you with any suggestion likely to be useful that I yet venture to give expression to some of the reflections which have occured to my mind during the perusal of the Report in question.

It is proper to premise that I have had no personal experience in connection with any other collegiate system than the one adopted in this institution, where either as Student or Professor I have passed the whole of my life since boyhood with the exception of {illegible: five? four?} years of medical pupilage in the northern cities and in Paris. I am aware that this circumstance must detract very largely from the value of any opinions

I may have been led to adopt touching the comparative merits of distinct systems or of their respective features in detail. Not that I am blindly wedded to every feature of the scholastic & disciplinary systems adopted here. On the contrary I sometimes find myself prone to ascribe to our regulations imperfect and which may not be peculiar to them but may be unavoidably incidental to all human institutions. I can, indeed, claim a title to cooperate with the earnest friends of educational improvements on one{underlined} ground. It is that of not underrating the difficulty of the problem. It is, therefore, with diffidence and doubt that I would apply to any different combination of circumstances the results of an experience acquired during my connection with this institution.

(1) . I doubt the advantage or safety of the plan of charging your Vice-Chancellor with the duty of supervising the Professors. Undoubtedly cases of delinguency will occur. But even though there were no other method of reaching them I have a strong conviction that the remedy would prove far more mischievous than the disease. I can recal to mind some half dozen instances in which colleges of the highest {illegible} have been completely disorganized by reason of dissensions springing from the authorized{underlined} exercise by the President of the right of supervising the teaching departments, whereas in almost every institution of learning in which harmony in the Faculty has continued to exist without serious interruption the fact is ascribed by all parties to the prudence of the President in virtually dispossessing himself of an authority which it seems can scarcely be exercised without {illegible: empending?} discord & dissensions far more mischievous than any official delinguency on the part of Professors --

I speak with some degree of confidence on this subject as I am conscious of being free from any bias of judgment having its origin in my own personal feelings. My instinctive love of order & discipline is so strong that I have many times felt disposed to purchase them at the sacrifice of the independence of the several schools of this institution. The opinions I now entertain and have just expression are in no degree, therefore, the product of prejudice but are based on an attentive observation of the workings of the two contrasted systems and are at variance with my original prepossessions. Do you ask whether official delinquency on the part of the Professors should be entirely overlooked ? Certainly not. While I would allow to each Professor entire independence in his own department as far as might be consistent with the statutes I would hold him responsible to the Trustees for the faithful discharge of his duties. The Vice Chancellor should be required to report to the Board of Trustees any alleged delinquency which might come to his knowledge by means of rumour or otherwise, but I would not charge him with the incidious duty of supervising the lecturing department as if in search of subjects of report. The love of power is so inherent in the human heart that not one man in a thousand could be expected to exercise so delicate a trust with prudence & discretion. Depend upon it the regulation in question contains the power of great mischief. I would strongly urge you to make further inquiries on this subject.

(2) . The plan of limiting the tenure of office in the case of the Professors to a term of five years with the condition of reeligibility is, to me, entirely novel & I should think very objectionable. The practice is to appoint for one year on trial and then the appointment is made for life or rather on the good behavior tenure. Your proposed plan is obnoxious to some of the objections which apply to the radicalising system of an elective judiciary on short tenure, as encounters a

much stronger objection in the fact that few if any men of science & letters will consent to hold office on such terms.

(3). I question very much the value of the system prescribed in the 7th section of Part III, so far as it relates to the preserving a numerical record as an exact {illegible} of the absolute & relative proficiency of the students. At a special written examination in which the same questions are propounded to every member of the class {illegible: its? the?} numerical value may be assigned to the questions & a fair numerical estimate of the merit of the answers may be given. But in the daily oral recitations the Professors consciously or unconsciously graduates the difficulty of his questions to the capacity of the pupils. As a means of instruction this is admissible and even desirable but would be precluded by your system. A much more serious objection rests upon the tendency of this system to discourage all but the few who being near the top may reasonably hope to attain the very highest rank. To these few the stimulus is very strong. To all others, constituting the immense majority, the influences will, I think, prove to be of rather a repressive tendency. A system of numerical notation may be useful & indeed necessary as a memoria{underlined} technica{underlined} but the significance of it as used by different professors will be different. I would, therefore & for the reasons already stated, have each Professor make his regular {illegible} touching the proficiency of his pupils in {illegible struckthrough} {illegible struckthrough} descriptive phrases admitting a nearer approximation to a representation of nice shades of distinction than can be conveyed through the {illegible} of numerical symbols. This system was once tried by us for three or four successive years, at the instance of the late Professor Courtenay, but by universal consent, including his own, it was abandoned subsequently. I still {illegible: persue?} the plan of {illegible struckthrough} {illegible struckthrough} of putting on record my estimate of the value of the students' anwers in the daily recitation & of using numerical symbols, but long before the close of the session I am able to express a much reliable opinion of the absolute & relative merits of the members of my class from my general impressions than could be inferred from