To send them away
will be discouraging, and to open an University without Mathematics or
Natural Philosophy would bring on us ridicule and disgrace. We
therefore publish an advertisement, stating that on the arrival of these
Professors, notice will be given of the day of opening the institution.
Governor Barbour writes me hopefully of getting our fifty thousand
dollars from Congress. The proposition has been originated in the House
of Representatives, referred to the committee of claims, the chairman
of which has prepared a very favorable report, and a bill conformable,
assuming the repayment of all interest which the State has actually
paid. The legislature will certainly owe to us the recovery of this
money; for had they not given it in some measure the reverenced
character of a donation for the promotion of learning, it would never
have been paid. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the displeasure
incurred by wringing it from them at the last session, will now give
way to a contrary feeling, and even place us on a ground of some merit.
Should this sentiment take place, and the arrival of our Professors, and
filling our dormitories with students on the 1st of February, encourage
them to look more favorably towards us, perhaps it might dispose them to
enlarge somewhat their order on the same fund. You observe the Proctor
has stated in a letter accompanying our Report, that it will take about
twenty-five thousand dollars more than we have to finish the Rotunda.
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