Heritage Column for April 7, 2005
By Fred Anderson
My last column concerned the various dates in the history of the University of Richmond, a school founded by Virginia Baptists, which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year. Across the long years the university has produced generations of students who became useful citizens and who excelled in their chosen professions. The university's Spiders have performed well in athletics. The university offers undergraduate colleges and schools of law, business, leadership studies and continuing studies.
The campus has long been acclaimed for its beauty. In 1922 Frederic W. Boatwright, the visionary president who created the present campus, observed his 25th anniversary as president and was granted a sabbatical. He visited universities in Europe. He observed: “Nowhere in Europe did I find a campus with so many natural advantages. We can learn from Oxford and Cambridge how to utilize more fully the values we have in our lake.” By 1939 he was calling the campus “one of the most beautiful in the nation.”
If the English Gothic campus with its woodlands and lake and magnificent buildings was considered beautiful in the early years, today it is breathtaking. Boatwright's successors have maintained the architectural integrity and improved upon the landscape.
Boatwright also was impressed with the English academic system, the close relationship between faculty and students, endowed scholarships, athletics and alumni organizations. “I came away from my studies of European universities with a new appreciation of the large sums of money required to build and administer institutions fitted to meet the ever widening demands of higher education.” In time, UR also developed a base of generous donors.
The school early adopted fiscal conservatism. Robert Ryland, the first president, stated, “The trustees are determined to avoid pecuniary embarrassment.” Of course, there were lean years, but from 1895, the beginning of the Boatwright era, to the present, the school never ended a year “in the red.” The Robins gift in 1969 propelled UR to new levels of financial advancement.
The University of Richmond is more than bricks, books and buildings. In 1908 President Boatwright said, “A Christian college stands primarily for the building of character.”
The Baptist college's history is full of examples of how the school helped improve the lives of thousands of young men and women. One example among many is the story of Sam Morgan, who as a young man came from Culpeper to enroll in the college of the 1890s.
As an old man, Morgan, who spent a lifetime as a Baptist preacher and published writer, remembered with gratitude the old-time profs who had taken an interest in him. He mentioned Professor John Pollard and said: “I have never ceased to be grateful for his actually forcing me to learn the fine points of English. His pet hobby was drilling us on how to use ‘sit and set, lie and lay'-‘You set the hen, and she sits; you lay the book down and it lies.' That he would repeat ad nauseam to many of the boys.”
Professor S.C. Mitchell made the greatest impression upon Sam Morgan. “Of all teachers, Mitchell was the most dynamic and inspiring, with the keenest interest in the individual. He made us feel, ‘We must work hard for him because he cares.' I could never forget the morning when he came before the Latin class tense and broke into a passionate appeal, ‘I was awake hours last night thinking about each of you individually and wondering how I could help you!' It left me feeling I would be a despicable ingrate if I fell below my best. I often pause to wonder what my life would have been but for sitting under such teachers; maybe useless and unknown.”
The University of Richmond characterized certain values which were Baptistic in nature. The value of the individual was one of those, as was a realization that mankind depended upon the Creator. From its beginnings, the school recognized the spiritual dimension. Today there yet remains a commitment to keep alive those most precious values.
A century ago, President Boatwright reflected: “We have unselfishly undertaken to set forward Christian education in Virginia, and the eyes of the world are upon us. The prayers of our brethren are for us. No more important task can engage our thought. Let us thank God for the splendid opportunity that is ours. It is our high privilege to be called to the Kingdom having the glorious work of building an institution that shall glorify God and bless the youth of our land through the uncounted years. Let us thank God and take courage.”
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.