a large rectangular lawn and erected from a plan prepared by Thomas Jefferson, are noted for their architectural effect. At the head of the lawn is the Rotunda, modelled after the Roman Pantheon and now containing the university library; and at the foot of the lawn are three modern recitation and laboratory buildings. On the sides are grouped buildings for each individual professor and dormitories for students. There are also a chapel, a gymnasium, a hospital, and on the summit of Mount Jefferson Hill, a mile south-west of the campus, is, the M‘Cormick Observatory. The university comprises twenty-six independent schools, but the courses of instruction given in these are so co-ordinated as to form six departments: two academic—the college and the department of graduate studies; and four professional—law, medicine, engineering and agriculture. The institution owns 522 acres of land, has productive endowment funds amounting to $1,978,000, and receives from the state an annual appropriation of $80,000. It is governed by a rector, chosen by and from nine visitors, and a board of visitors appointed by the governor and two visitors ex officio, the state superintendent of public instruction and the president of the university; and the corporate name of the university is “The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.” In 1904 Edwin Anderson Alderman (b. 1861) was elected president. In 1910 the faculty and officers numbered 110, the students (men only) 803, and the number of volumes in the libraries 88,000.
The university traces its beginning to an act of the legislature in January 1803 for incorporating the “Trustees of Albemarle Academy.” In 1814, before the site of this proposed institution had been chosen, Thomas Jefferson was elected a trustee, and under his influence the legislature, in February 1816, authorized the establishment of Central College in lieu of Albemarle Academy. The corner-stone of Central College was laid in October 1817, and Jefferson, who was rector of its board of trustees, evolved a plan for its development into the university of Virginia. The legislature, thanks to the efforts of Joseph Carrington Cabell, a close personal friend of Jefferson, adopted the plan in 1818 and 1819, and seven independent schools—ancient languages, modern languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, chemistry and medicine—were opened to students in March 1825; a school of law was opened in 1826. In 1837 the School of Medicine became a department of three individual schools; and in 1850 the School of Law became a department of two schools. After the gift of $500,000 by Andrew Carnegie there were established in 1009 the Andrew Carnegie School of Engineering, the James Madison School of Law, the James Monroe School of International Law, the James Wilson School of Political Economy, the Edgar Allan Poe School of English and the Walter Reed School of Pathology.
Under Jefferson’s plan only two degrees were granted: "Graduate," to any student who had completed the course of any one school; and "Doctor" to a graduate in more than one school who had shown powers of research. But in 1831 for the Doctor’s degree the faculty substituted, following British custom, the degree of Master of Arts. The college now grants the degrees of “Bachelor of Arts,” “Cultural Bachelor of Science” and “Vocational Bachelor of Science”; the Department of Graduate Studies, the degrees of “Graduate in a School,” “Master of Arts,” “Master of Science” and “Doctor of Philosophy”; the Department of Law, the degree of “Bachelor of Laws”; the Department of Medicine, the degree of “Doctor of Medicine”; the Department of Engineering, the degrees of “Civil Engineer,” “Mechanical Engineer,” “Electrical Engineer,” “Mining Engineer” and “Chemical Engineer”; and the Department of Agriculture, the degree of “Bachelor of Science in Agriculture.”
See J. S. Patton, Jefferson, Cabell and the University of Virginia (New York, 1906).
VIRGIN ISLANDS, a group of small islands in the West Indies, about 100 in number, for the most part uninhabited. They extend E. from Puerto Rico, lying between 17° and 18° 50' N., and 64° 10' and 65° 30' W., their total area being about 465 sq. m. The islands are mostly rocky, or sandy and barren, but such portions as are under cultivation yield sugar, maize, coffee, cotton and indigo. Guinea grass grows abundantly on the hillsides, affording excellent pasturage; the forests, though few, include the mahogany and other useful trees. The coasts abound with fish. The climate is more healthy than that of the other West Indian islands, and the heat is not so great. Some of the islands belong to the United States, some to Denmark and some to Great Britain. The United States' possessions (once dependencies of Puerto Rico, but ceded by Spain in 1898) have an area of about 150 sq. m. and include Culehra or Snake Island, and Vieques or Crah Island. The chief Danish islands are St Thomas (q.v.), St Croix (q.v.) and St John (q.v.), the total area being about 240 sq. m. Of the British portion of the group the principal are Tortola, Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Jost van Dyke, Peter’s Island and Salt Island, in all numbering 32, with an area of 58 sq. m. With the exception of the island of Sombrero they form one of the five presidencies in the colony of the Leeward Islands. The inhabitants are peasant proprietors, mainly engaged in raising cattle and in burning charcoal, but some are fishermen and boatmen. The chief town is Roadtown (pop. 400) at the head of a splendid harbour on the S. of Tortola, and what trade there is is mostly with St Thomas. Sombrero is maintained as a lighthouse by the British government. Population of the presidency, mostly negroes (1891) 4639; (1901) 4908.
The Virgin Islands were discovered by Columbus in his second voyage, in 1494, and named Las Virgenes, in honour of St Ursula and her companions. In 1666 the British established themselves on Tortola, which has ever since remained in their possession. In the 17th century the Virgin Islands were favourite resorts of the buccaneers. The Danish islands of St Thomas and St John were taken by the British in 1801, but restored in the following year. In 1807 they surrendered to the British, and continued in their hands till 1815, when they were again restored.
VIRGINIUS RUFUS, LUCIUS (A.D. 15–97), Roman patriot and soldier, three times consul (A.D. 63, 69, 97), was born near Comum, the birthplace of the two Plinys. When governor of upper Germany under Nero (68), after he had put down the revolt of Julius Vindex in Gaul, he was more than once urged by his troops to assume the supreme power; but he firmly refused, and further declared that he would recognize no one as emperor who had not been chosen by the senate. Galba, on his accession, aware of the feelings of the German troops and uncertain as to the intentions of Virginius, induced him to accompany him to Rome. But Virginius, as always, remained loyal to the head of the state. After the death of Otho, the soldiers again offered the throne to Virginius, but he again refused it. Considering themselves slighted, they drew their swords upon him, and he only saved himself from their hands by making his escape through the back of the tent. But the soldiers never forgave the fancied insult. Under Vitellius, during a military disturbance at Ticinum, one of Virginius’s slaves was arrested and charged with the design of murdering the emperor. Virginius was accused of being implicated in the conspiracy, and his death was loudly demanded by the soldiers. To his credit Vitellius refused to sacrifice so valuable a servant, on whose loyalty he could depend, to the vengeance of a capricious army. Virginius subsequently lived in retirement, chiefly in his villa at Alsium, on the coast of Etruria, till his death in 97, in which year he held the consulship, together with the emperor Nerva. At the public burial with which he was honoured, the historian Tacitus (then consul) delivered the funeral oration. The younger Pliny, his neighbour and ward, has recorded the lines which Virginius had ordered to be engraved upon his tomb:
“Hic situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam
Imperium asseruit non sibi sed patriae.”
See Tacitus, Hist. i. ii.; Dio Cassius lxiii. 24–27, lxiv. 4, lxviii. 2; Pliny, Epp. ii. 1, vi. 10; Juvenal viii. 221, with Mayor’s note; L. Paul in Rheinisches Museum (1899), liv. pp. 602–30.
VIRGO (“the Virgin”), in astronomy, the sixth sign of the zodiac (q.v.), denoted by the symbol ♍︎. It is also a constellation mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy catalogued 32 stars, Tycho Brahe 33,
