Today we have the Honor Committee, run by students only, to enforce UVA's strong sense of morality, for every student not to lie, cheat, or steal. I find it really interesting to point out that the men who wrote this document did not know what to say about the best mode of government for students, and that they acknowledged that they were unsure how to go about the issue. It wasn't until 1912 that a student named Churchill Humphrey proposed the student-led honor committee. Although I'm certainly glad that the Honor committee was created and that it exists now, this may have been a flaw in the document. Maybe if the men who wrote the Rockfish Gap Report had put more time into considering the best mode of government for the students, the murder of law professor James A. G. Davis by a student in 1840 could have been avoided. http://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_evolution_of_honor

The document says that all who entered the University had to be able to "read the easier authors, Latin and Greek," and then here it says that everyone would have to spend a portion of their time at the university finishing their knowledge of these ancient languages. This is especially interesting to me, because now most people at the University focus on a spoken language such as Spanish, and some people here have even fulfilled the language requirement from prior high school classes. Learning about the classics used to represent an education of morality and reason, and gave educated people a way to communicate across all spheres by referring back to the same well-known classical texts. The founders considered classics to be so important in an education because they considered the history lessons from Greece and Rome to be ever-important since the principles from the Roman Republic were so similar to the principles of the United States' new democracy. https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/spring-2011-the-city-bounces-back-four-portraits/classical-education-in-america/ I think that it's especially interesting how our consideration of languages has changed, probably due to the advancement of technology and our necessity to be able to communicate with others around the world in present-day. It seems now that Spanish is the most useful language to learn in college, because it is so widely spoken, while Latin is mostly just taken by pre-med students because of the Latin base of many medical words.

I find it extremely interesting that Jefferson and the board would make special note to cover the walkway around the lawn. This is honestly my favorite part about the lawn--I am a runner and I try to jog ten laps around the lawn every day. It's beautiful, peaceful, and makes for a perfect five mile run, and the best part is that I'm protected from the rain on rainy days! I recently toured Monticello for the first time and was fascinated with the numerous architectural advancements that Thomas Jefferson had installed in his home. He had pulleys everywhere--he could open his bedroom door and pull the curtain over his window across the room from the comfort of his bed, and had a system that sent wine bottles up to the dining room from the cellar. He also had a revolving kitchen door that would make the passage of food from the kitchen to the dining room easier, and had strategically placed windows, mirrors, and skyights around rooms in order to maximize daylight. Since I learned all of this about Monticello, I have been absolutely fascinated with the architecture at UVA, and with Jefferson's wit and attention to detail. Of course he would think to cover the path along the lawn and to have justifications for all of the other basic structures such as the two-student dormitories and pavilions for professors and lectures with a lawn of "proper breadth." It's become apparent to me that Jefferson loved simple beauty, symmetry, and convenience. I'm fascinated that I'm able to read a description of the lawn before it even existed, as its easy to take those little details for granted and this reading allows me to really appreciate the thought that went into them.

https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/rooms-and-furnishings

Staunton is my home. I have lived there my entire life, considered UVA to be my dream school my entire life, and never knew that it was one of the three cities considered for placing the University. This fact really makes me think about the qualities of my hometown. Although the "degree of centrality to the white population of the state" was upsettingly the reason why Albemarle County was chosen as the site, I can imagine how similar the three cities of Charlottesville, Lexington, and Staunton must have been at the time, with the wealthy population density being one of the only separating factors. This really makes me wonder what my hometown would have grown to be had it been chosen for the site of the University. Today, the population of Staunton is a little over half that of Charlottesville, is 272% less dense than Charlottesville, and has a white population of 82.03% to Charlottesville's 66.4% white population.

I find that last fact especially interesting and almost ironic--the board chose Charlottesville because of its minimal minority population, yet today Charlottesville has much more diversity than Staunton. This leaves me wondering what my town would have been like had UVA been placed there. Staunton is a small college town today, home of Mary Balwin College, one of the first all-girls' colleges in the country founded in 1842.

It is a funny fact to think that such a progressive institution was founded in Staunton, and that my town was once too diverse for UVA, as now my tiny town of Staunton seems so backwards compared to the forward-thinking city of Charlottesville. It's almost as if the University is the reason for Charlottesville's diversity, which is ironic considering the original goals of the board.

(http://www.bestplaces.net/compare-cities/staunton_va/charlottesville_va/people)

http://www.marybaldwin.edu/about-us/history/