It is a gracious and trusting tradition that allows the president of this Society considerable latitude in selecting a subject for this annual address. I hope I have not violated that trust by proposing to discuss a topic that, by its title, may convey marks of a parochial and narrowly conceived (if not contrived) theme. For a southerner to talk on the southern past is perhaps bad enough; but for one who teaches at the University of Virginia to dare focus on that same institution runs the risk of exceeding all bounds of courtesy and custom, to say nothing of decent historical conventions and canons of scholarship. Still, begging your indulgence, I shall seek to explore with you some possible linkages between cultural ideals and youthful conduct that gave a special cast to student life and identity in antebellum Virginia. My interest in the topic of "Honor and Dishonor at Mr. Jefferson's University"-which could well be subtitled "Saints, Sinners, and Scoundrels"-stems only in part from my current association with the University of Virginia. Indeed, all students of the history of higher education in the United States are challenged to give special consideration to Thomas Jefferson's bold experiment in Charlottesville. At a time when the dominant currents in American higher education were flowing along channels most publicly charted by Jeremiah Day and his colleagues at Yale, Thomas Jefferson proposed an institution novel in many respects. Jefferson, of
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