Blair chose Middle Plantation, a struggling settlement that, when the first college building was completed in 1698, was renamed Williamsburg. Burkina Faso Map Tourist Attractions Following the destruction of the capitol in Jamestown in 1699, Blair and Governor Francis Nicholson relocated the seat of government to Williamsburg. Although well-equipped with a royal charter, a sizable endowment, and a campus, the college lay bereft of any students or faculty and operated as little more than a grammar school for boys until 1705.
A half-hearted attempt to establish an Indian school was failing, and local gentry continued to send their sons abroad to be educated. It was only in the 1720s, as the second generation was followed by the third, that Virginia’s elite began to realize the benefits of local higher education. By 1729, the college had finally secured sufficient faculty and students to allow the transfer of administrative control from the trustees to the faculty. With his authority now assured, President Blair set to work on the curriculum.
After completing their courses in the Grammar School, boys entered the School of Philosophy, where they followed a curriculum heavily reliant on English and Scottish models: rhetoric, logic, and ethics were followed by advanced study in physics, metaphysics, and mathematics. Students might then proceed to the graduate School of Divinity before being confirmed as Anglican ministers.
