educator professor spokesperson
Landon Cabell Garland was the son of Alexander Spotswood and Lucinda Rose Garland. He was born on 21 Mar 1810, at his father's home, "The Grove," Nelson County, Virginia. He was descended through both his father and mother from people of wealth, social distinction and public usefulness.
When at sixteen, Landon Garland was ready for college, his Methodist parents, suspicious of "free thought" at the state university, sent him to the Presbyterian school, Hampden-Sidney. He remained there for three years, graduating in 1829.
Landon Garland's plan was to become a lawyer, and upon being appointed professor of natural science at Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, he accepted the appointment with the determination that after a year or so he would return to law.
He stayed on till the fall of 1832, however, organizing a laboratory method of instruction while there, and then went to Randolph-Macon College where from 1832 to 1836, he was a professor of natural philosophy, and from 1836 to 1846, president.
The move from Washington College cost him dearly both in salary and in the severance of friendships, but the call was to a Methodist school just being put upon its feet, and as a loyal denominationalist he felt that he could not disregard it.
During his time at Randolph-Macon, he administered the college, taught mathematics, wrote a text-book on trigonometry, and formed an intimate and lasting friendship with his predecessor as president, Stephen Olin.
Because of a breakdown in health, he resigned from the presidency, and retired to the home of his father, intending when he had recovered to carry out his early plan to be a lawyer.
After refusing requests from several colleges to become their president, including one from William and Mary, he went, however, in 1847 to teach at the University of Alabama.
He was president there from 1855 to 1865, and after the buildings were demolished by Federal troops in the final spring of the Civil War, he undertook for a while to raise funds sufficient to restore them.
From 1867 to 1875, he taught at the University of Mississippi. In 1868, at the instigation of Holland N. McTyeire, then a bishop, but a former student of his at Randolph-Macon, he wrote for the Christian Advocate of Nashville, a series of articles favoring a more thoroughly educated ministry, and advocating as a means to that end, one central theological seminary for the entire Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Since many Methodists believed that education was not unmixed with danger and that the idea of a central training place for ministers did too much violence to the principle of local self-government, there was a great conflict.
Before long, however, his plan for a section-wide seminary was incorporated with a plan for a section-wide university to be established at Nashville, and when in 1875, as a result of the friendship between Bishop McTyeire and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt University was established, it had McTyeire as president of its Board of Trust, and Garland as its first chancellor.
Until the death of Bishop McTyeire in 1889, these two worked in a harmony so close that it was hard to know which of them was first responsible for any given policy. The progress of the University was most gratifying, but in 1893 the chancellor resigned from his executive duties, and devoted himself wholly to teaching, continuing almost to the day of his death.
His "special field" in scholarship was, he said, mathematics, but at various times he taught physics, astronomy, philosophy, and literature, and he prided himself also on a knowledge of Greek, Latin, music, and theology.
Landon Cabell Garland taught chemistry and natural philosophy at Washington College, 1829-1830, and taught chemistry and natural history at Randolph-Macon College, 1833-1834, eventually being elected chair of the department. In 1837, he was elected president of Randolph-Macon College. In 1854, he was elected president of the University of Alabama. Garland Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus is named in his honor. There is also a Garland Hall on the University of Alabama campus named after him.
Garland was a proud Virginian and as a college president, he held true to the values he learned at Hampden-Sydney.
His portrait, painted by great-granddaughter Louise Lewis in 1907-1908, hangs in Kirkland Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus.
Landon Garland was an apologist for slavery in the United States before the Civil War, but afterward became a vociferous spokesperson against slavery.
Garland was unassuming, meticulous, and devout; gracious, if slightly ceremonial, in manner; and forceful, if slightly plain, in public speech.
During a cold spell, he was careful every day to feed the sparrows about his house. "St. Francis of Assisi could not have been tenderer."
Garland was an eager sportsman, a hunter, and fisher who seldom missed his game even when he was around eighty; yet, says the notice of him published in the Christian Advocate at the time of his death, that he loved all animal life, was the avowed friend of every good dog, and felt a deep interest in birds.
Landon Garland married Mary Burwell in 1831, who died a few years later. In December 1835, Garland was married to his third cousin, Louisa Frances Garland, a great-niece of Patrick Henry. The couple had ten children.
1777-1850
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1807-1901
1812-1889
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1843-1901
1847-1930
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1856-1872
1824-1889
