page_title: History of the University of Virginia
section_title: Founding
hierarchical_section_title: History of the University of Virginia / 19th century / Founding
caption_attribution_description: English: I took photo of inside the chapel at the Univ. of VA in Charlottesville, with a Canon camera.
context_page_description: The history of the University of Virginia opens with its conception by Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the early 19th century. The university was chartered in 1819, and classes commenced in 1825.
context_section_description: The University of Virginia stands on land purchased in 1788 by an American Revolutionary War veteran (and eventual fifth President of the United States), James Monroe. The farmland just outside Charlottesville was purchased from Monroe by the Board of Visitors as Central College in 1817; Monroe was beginning the first of two terms in the White House. Guided by Jefferson, the school laid its first building's cornerstone in late 1817, and the Commonwealth of Virginia chartered the new college on January 25, 1819. John Hartwell Cocke collaborated with James Madison, Monroe, and Joseph Carrington Cabell to fulfill Jefferson's dream to establish the university. Cocke and Jefferson were appointed to the building committee to supervise the construction.
  In the presence of James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette toasted Jefferson as "father" of the University of Virginia at the school's inaugural banquet in 1824. The university's first classes met on March 7, 1825. Other universities of the day allowed only three choices of specialization: medicine, law, and religion. Under Jefferson's guidance, the University of Virginia became the first in the United States to allow specializations in such diverse fields as astronomy, architecture, botany, philosophy, and political science. Jefferson explained, "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
  An even more controversial direction was taken for the new university based on a daring vision that higher education should be completely separated from religious doctrine. One of the largest construction projects in North America up to that time, the new Grounds were centered upon a library (then housed in the Rotunda) rather than a church – further distinguishing it from peer universities of the United States, most of which were still primarily functioning as seminaries for one particular religion or another. Jefferson even went so far as to ban the teaching of theology altogether. In a letter to Thomas Cooper in October 1814, Jefferson stated, "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution" and, true to form, the university has never had a divinity school; it was established independent of any religious sect. Replacing the then-standard specialization in religion, the university undertook groundbreaking specializations in scientific subjects such as astronomy and botany. (However, today UVA does maintain a strong religious studies department. A non-denominational chapel, notably absent from Jefferson's original plans, was constructed in 1890.)
caption: Inside the UVA Chapel
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