Letter to Diana Fontaine Corbin (Maury), 1871

Scope and content:

Written from VMI, Lexington, Virginia. Letter regards the situation at the University of Alabama and whether or not Matthew Fontaine Maury will take the position there.

Language:

English.

Other descriptive data:

V.M.Institute

Dear Nannie,

I returned from Ala. last Monday evening and took them all by surprise. Since graduating, Brave had made a fee and had gone off on a spree, and had gone off with Tots & Elie to the White & Capertons. I suppose his money will give out soon and we may expect them back the last of the week.

My going to Tuscaloosa, is still in abeyance. I found when I got to Montgomery that the Board of Regents at its meeting last June had gone farther in their injudicious course than I had fancied, for besides establishing chairs & filling them without conference with me, they had chalked out a plan of operations for the Univ. which appeared to me altogether impracticable.

The Board of Regents had not been called together as I had requested, but all the professors save 3 were there with Hodgson who is ex officio President of the Board of Regents. During our first session I found out that there was not only no money to fit up the Univ. but there was nothing to keep it a-going: for more than all its annual endowment had already been appropriated. The charges against the cadets were at figures so low that they would inevitably bring the Univ. in debt. A sum not exceeding $200 was to be the expense per cadet. So in the afternoon I formally proclaimed that I could not undertake the responsibility of such an institution & therefore begged leave to decline. Whereupon there was "sensation." Some made hy-falutin speeches & professors asked "what shall I do." One urging that he "had given up his house" another, "his practice," another "his business," another "his college" another that he "was engaged to be married," all under the expectation that I would accept. The strong men of the city were brought in who promised to make the legislature do the needful. And the judges of the Supreme Court who are said to hold the legislature in the hollow of their hands, black & white radicals & all- Sent word that they would do the needful at its next meeting. In short, the question was asked, that "if they would raise a launching fund, change the fees, so as to be a source of revenue, instead of loss, and alter the course of instruction so as to suit my views, would I accept"? Yes Well it was funny to see the plan they had laid down. They had three parallel course which were "selectable" and every boy that came was answered in terms "you have paid your money, take your choice" And they told me they had copied after the Univ. of Mississippi, which never did prosper, though it has a clear revenue of $77,000. So the plan that I propose requires the three Rs for admission & then curriculum all the way up to any specialty, that the student- being qualified to enter upon it- may select, all boys to be examined and to be put as high up as they are qualified to stand.

These matters are to be referred by letter to the Board of Regents, and if the majority pledge themselves by letter to stand by me , if I make the alterations & to sanction them at their next meeting in Nov. and then if the friends of the Univ. will raise a launching fund, I will go.

The earnest desire manifested by the good people of the state, for me to take charge of their Univ. was very gratifying.

It appears to me that almost all the good people in Ala. who have sons & means intend to rally around me, and among the events that were particularly gratifying was a proposition on the part of the professors to lend: some their whole salary: some $1000: and the others $500 to get the thing underway.

They were to let me know, in a telegram, whether my views would be met by the Regents. And thus the matter stands.

My plan for the present is modeled after V.M.I. with the open features of the Univ. of Va. In the mean time I am working like a Turk here in collecting statistics and transmitting "useful and entertaining knowledge" to "Tusca."

I did not go to "Tusca", because my house had not been vacated by my radical predecessor, with his three students, but hastened back for the telegram. I traveled Saturday in the cars with Dabney & Family, they have broken up in New Orleans, and have come to Va. for the summer. They were to stop a few days in Lynchburg, then go to the Bath Alum.

Kisses to the children & love to all hands. I brought some maple-sugar for them, they must make haste and come up or it will be all gone,

Subjects:

Correspondence

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