Alexandria Gazette

The University of Virginia,
This noble institution—the pride and ornament of the South—is in a high state of prosperity. Since the opening of the current session in October more than six hundred students have matriculated in the different schools of science, literature, and professional study, which are comprised within the university, and there is a fair prospect that the number will reach seven hundred. Situated in one of the most beautiful and highly cultivated parts of the Old Dominion, and easily accessible by lines of railroad from every part of the country, it promises to become one of the largest seats of thorough education in the world. If the illustrious founder, whose mortal remains repose at his loved Monticello, in the neighborhood, could be permitted to look from his state of exalted purity and wisdom on the scene of his former exertions, how he would rejoice in this glorious result of his enlightened and patriotic labors! Not intending any invidious comparison with other institutions, we may yet say that the tutorial system of this University embraces some features of noble and inspiring usefulness which might be adopted with advantage in the oldest and most renowned colleges of the North. The faculty is composed of laborious teachers, profoundly versed in the various subjects assigned to their respective chairs, and endowed especially with the talent and tact indispensable to those whose business is to communicate knowledge. The majority of the professors and assistants are hard-working men, no less, probably, than are to be found elsewhere. The requirements for graduation are correspondingly high: so that the degree of master of arts "of the University of Virginia" may well be regarded as a reliable assurance of eminent attainments in science and scholarship. There is nothing like "the graduating class" usual in other seminaries, each of whose members receives a diploma, as a matter of course, at the end of the regular curriculum. No; the high academic honors of this university are never conferred "in course," but only after a series of rigorous examinations, fitted to test the ability, the diligence and the success of the candidate in the studies of the different schools.—Cincinnati Times.