the Oxford curriculum and adopt the "elective system," which it did in 1779. It was the first to adopt the "honor system," which discountenances the custom prevailing at some colleges even now of spying and informing on students. It was the first college in America to widen its curriculum into the scope of a university by establishing chairs of law and medicine, in addition to the classics and the sciences. It was the first to establish schools of modern languages, history, political economy and constitutional and political law. It was the first to establish, in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, an intercollegiate fraternity, having for its object purely literary improvement; and it was the first to award strictly collegiate prizes, as manifested in the gold medals donated by Lord Botetourt in 1771.
Of the seven Presidents born in Virginia, three—Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler—were educated at William and Mary. To these men is to be ascribed the annexation of Louisiana, Florida, Texas and most of the Western territory, thus trebling the original area of the Union. Four out of five judges contributed by Virginia to the Supreme Bench of the United States were
