James Madison University - Index

James Madison University - Liberty & Learning - Index

piedmont, princeton, and an educated citizenry
preserved structure from classical antiquity. Jefferson’s domed structure was built of
brick, comprising a perfect geometric circle, and was, in Jefferson’s words, intended
“to give [the university’s grounds] unity and consolidation as a single object.” 45
The student dormitories, classrooms, and professors’ residences constituted the
remainder of the university. Built in two parallel wings, east and west lawn, they
emanated outward from the Rotunda in a horseshoe fashion with an open vista to the
southwest. There were fifty-four student rooms protected by a covered walkway that
featured 206 Doric columns, literally a visual essay on architecture. 46 Interspersed at
regular intervals were ten, two-story pavilions that served the dual function of classrooms
and housing for the faculty. Jefferson’s bold concept was for both teachers and
students to live together and freely intermingle in their daily pursuit of truth, knowledge,
and virtue. This innovative idea reflected Jefferson’s unrepentant idealism as
well as his belief that a university would be a noble place of learning, where the quest
for wisdom would be supreme. In effect, he was creating an American version of the
Greek agora. John Adams, although skeptical of the college’s ultimate success, was
impressed by Jefferson’s vision and wrote to him, “I congratulate you and Madison
and Monroe on your noble employment in founding a university. From such a noble
triumvirate, the world will expect something very great and very new.” 47
The first students arrived at the university in 1825 and quickly destroyed Jefferson’s
utopian vision for the school. Most of the young men failed to meet even
a minimal expectation for scholarship, and Jefferson was forced to acknowledge
that about one-third of them were nothing more than “idle ramblers.” 48 In October,
a group of drunk and disorderly students disguised themselves as Indians
and threw a bottle of urine (or some other foul-smelling fluid) through one of
the professor’s windows. The following night, the disorders on the Lawn continued;
when two of the professors ventured out to confront the rowdy students,
they were verbally insulted and pelted with sticks and other convenient objects.
Thomas Jefferson recounted the incident in a letter written in October 1825.
The University had gone on with a degree of order and harmony which had
strengthened the hope that much of self government might be trusted to the discretion
of students . . . until the 1 st instant in the night of that day a party of 14
students, animated first with wine, masked themselves so as not to be known, and
turned out on the lawn of the University, with no intention, it is believed but
childish noise and uproar. Two Professors hearing it went out to see what was the
matter. They were received with insult, and even brick bats were thrown at them.
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