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Polk Letters: October 8, 1860
1860, Oct.8
A. T. Bledsoe, The University of Virginia, to Bishop Polk, re: regretting that he cannot attend the laying of the cornerstone, expressing pleasure in the prospect of being offered a professorship in the new university and asking questions about it. 6 pp.
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U. Va. Oct. 8th 1860
My dearest Bishop,
I do most sincerely regret that I cannot be with you on the occasion of the laying of the Cornerstone of the University of the South, which will be, I trust, long remembered as a grand era in the annals of Southern Education. I will be with you. however, in soul & spirit, if not in body. God speed the great work!
There are other causes, beside the pressing nature of my ordinary dates at the season of the year, which prevent me from being at
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the University Place on the 10th. Mr [Bledsoe?] has urgent reason for wishing to be absent from home after to-morrow, and has promised her Sister to with her {sic}. I do not wish to disappoint them. But the main additional reason is, that I have a book going through the press, which it is important to have ready for the Senior Class in Mathematics. It is on the Philosophy of the Calculus; and will make its appearance - the month of Jan. 1861.
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the possibility of my own election. Indeed, I do not hope to teach after I am sixty years of age, even if I should live so long.
You were kind enough to offer me as far as you could, a place in the University of the South; and after mature reflection, I have been inclined to accept it in case I should be elected.
Hence I wish to know several things, in relation to which I made enquiry in a former letter, which, it seems, did not reach you. When do you expect the University will go into operation? When will the professor of Moral Philosophy & the Evidence of Christianity be elected? Do you wish me to become a candidate for the place, or merely permit you
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to present my name?
I wish to know these things, as I intend, in the near time, to shape my course with reference to them.
As soon as I finish the work on the "Philosophy of the Calculus," I intend to complete a text book on Moral Philosophy, which is already more than half written. Would you wish the book published before or after the election of your faculty? It would not aid in my election. For if you desire testimonials for that chair, I already hear, from the best sources, a story as could be written in favor of any one. These testimonials were given, incidentally,, when my friend brought me forward as a candidate for