Solomon Pool's Annual Report to the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, November 15, 1870

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President Pool read the following as his Annual report:

University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, Nov. 15th 1870

To the Honorable,

The Trustees of the University of North Carolina

Gentlemen:

During the present session, which opened on the 17th day of August last, the following young gentlemen have received instruction in the Junior, Sophomore, Freshman and Preparatory classes of the institution.

Messrs.

W. V. Andrews ∗
H. Cates
I. Daniel ∗
L. M. Earl ∗
J. C. Earl ∗
J. E. Emmerson ∗
W. C. Fields ∗
R. P. Floyd ∗
W. H. Guthrie ∗
J. Easley
A. J. Jones
E. B. Luttertoh
J. T. Lyon
W. P. Lyon
C. McCauley
A. C. McDaniel
G. W. McIver ∗
W. H. Merritt ∗
W. D. Moore
G. W. Nash ∗
W. D. Neville1
J. P. Overman ∗
T. B. Pace2
W. M. Parsons
J. H. Pitts ∗
W. F. Pitts
P. F. Powell
W. G. Pritchard
G. W. Purefoy
W. H. Riggsbee
J. A. Small
A. Spruill
C. S. Sugg
J. W. Tenny
G. W. Ward ∗
J. Q. A. Wood ∗
36

The Junior Class have pursued the following course of study, Three Books of Juvenal, Tacitus, Ancient History, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry, Differential Integral Calculus, and Chemistry.

The Sophomore Class have been engaged in the study of the Odes of Horace, Homer's Iliad, and Geometry.

The Freshman Class, in the Study of Virgil's Georgics and the Aenid, Xenophon's Anabasis, and Algebra.

The Preparatory Classes, in Caesar's Communitarius, Ruighaus Latin Grammar, Arithmetic, and Algebra. In addition to the foregoing studies, instruction is afforded on Sunday afternoon to the several Classes and lectures have been delivered upon literary and scientific subjects to the whole body of the Students.

At the annual Commencement, in June last, two prizes of $20 in gold each, were offered to the two best

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students in each of the two lower collegiate classes. These prizes will be awarded at the next annual Commencement in 1871.

The scholarship of the several collegiate classes is very gratifying. A large majority of the students are diligent and studious, and seem to be earnest in the great work of acquiring knowledge and attaining a high literary culture. It is an object with the Faculty to elevate, as far as possible, the Standard of scholarship in the institution.

The general deportment of these young gentlemen is good. They are decorous, courteous, polite. There have been a few instances of impropriety and disorder, but none that have seemed to require the dismission of any offender. The frequent rumors set afloat by the enemies of the institution and ungenerously circulated through the public press —many of which have no foundation in fact —are very damaging to its prosperity and usefulness. These publications and false reports meeting, as they do, the eyes of the young men, or rehearsed in their hearing, have a tendency to distract their attention, impede their progress in their studies, and render it more difficult to maintain a correct discipline among them. I have been reluctant thus to refer to this subject, but its influence has been sadly observed and seriously felt by those who have sought in all honesty at the University, to train the young men committed to their care, and fit them for lives of usefulness and honor. It is to be hoped that the day is not distant when the better feelings of all our people will so triumph over prejudice as to allow the worthy aspiring young men of our State to acquire that education which, but for the generosity of the University, must be denied them.

Your attention is respectfully invited to the accompanying reports of the Librarian, for the time that has elapsed since your last annual meeting.

Respectfully submitted

signed Solomon Pool President

Endnotes:

1. Possibly William David Neville (1853-1926), who would have been of an approximate age to attend the University of North Carolina as a student in 1870. The 1870 Federal Census lists a nineteen-year-old "W. Neville" residing in Bingham Township, Orange County.

2. Possibly Thomas B. Pace .