To know his rights; to exercise with order & justice those he retains
This idea is a little ironic because the university allowed students to beat and harm slaves. Beating other people is clearly not orderly, yet it was accepted. The ideas of order, justice, and humanity have surely changed since this document was created.
To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express & preserve his ideas, his contracts & accounts in writing.
University is still a place where students come into their ideas and harness the abilities to express and spread these beliefs. Even though a lot has changed from when these men wrote this document, this understanding of the universities purpose holds true. Throughout my first semester at UVA, I have absolutely felt the desire to come into my beliefs and ideas and the university has absolutely helped me express myself more concisely.
within the powers of a single professor.
It's interesting that a single professor would teach each of the groups. Now, professors have very specific fields, rather than broad groups of study, so it is fascinating to see the differences between the current institution and the UVA when it was first created.
mproves what in his nature was vicious & perverse, into qualities of virtue and social worth
This is saying that education helps turn an unmoral man into a moral man, but what was moral to them? In Gayle M. Schulman's article about Slavery at UVA, she describes a student beating a black girl because she said "what," and he was allowed to continue on as a student. I don't see how that is teaching morals. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/Slaves_University_Virginia.pdf #tooearlyonaMonday