The clean, lovely manuscript in Jefferson’s handwriting, of the first Anglo-Saxon grammar written in the United States, is to be seen in the university library; Jefferson was Vice-President of the United States when he wrote it; he put Anglo-Saxon in the first curriculum of the university, and it has been taught there ever since.  In a note which is a part of the manuscript, he advocates the study of Anglo-Saxon as an introduction to modern English on the ground that though about half the words in our present language are derived from Latin and Greek, these being the scholarly words, the other half, the words we use most often, are Anglo-Saxon.

Before the war it was not uncommon for students at the university to have their negro body servants with them, and it has occasionally happened since that some young sprig of southern aristocracy has come to college thus attended.

Perhaps the most striking and characteristic feature of student life to-day, from the point of view of the stray visitor, is the formal attitude of students toward one another.  There is no easy-going casualness between them, no calling back and forth, no “hello,” by way of greeting.  They pass each other on the walks either without speaking (men have been punished at the university by being ignored by the entire student body), or if they do greet each other the customary salutation is “How are you, sir?” or “How are you, gentlemen?” First-year men are expected to wear hats, and not to speak to upper classmen until they have been spoken to; and, though there is no hazing at the university, woe betide them if they do not heed these rules.

In the early days of the university there was an effort to exercise restraint over students, to make them account for their goings and comings, and to prevent their going to taverns or betting upon horse races.  Also they were obliged to wear a uniform.  The severity was so great that they appealed to Jefferson, who sided with them.  He, however, died in the same year, and friction prevailed for perhaps a decade longer, with many student disorders, culminating in the shooting of a professor by a student.  In 1840 the students were at last granted full freedom, and two years later the honor system was adopted.

During the university’s first years young men from the far South, where dueling was especially prevalent, did not come in large numbers to the University of Virginia, but went, as a rule, to the northern colleges, but about the middle of the century, as feeling between North and South over taxation, States’ Rights and slavery became more acute, these men began to flock to the college at Charlottesville.  Between 1850 and 1860 the university almost doubled in size, and at about the same time there developed a good deal of dueling between students.