I found this passage particularly striking and relevant even today. The fact that the university recognized the lack of privilege but untapped abundance of potential in people as young as 15 and wanted to cultivate that within them gives me so much hope that this institution is truly a benevolent force working even to better the lives of those who may have been neglected due to status. While the premise is vastly different, as these individuals would be classically trained for Latin or Greek and then offered admittance (not to mention it was a boy's club), now we have the community college program that has changed so many of my friends' lives. It is truly heartening to see that this is a common theme that has spanned the entire duration of the University.

This particular phrasing, "degree of centrality to the white population which constituted the important point of comparison between these places" was startling to me and once I began to read more into it, both puzzling and disturbing. I was puzzled at how one might measure the "degree" of the white population, be it census or by general surveying of the area by a designated determiner. Also, I would like to know how the prospect of utilizing slavery and access to viable workers played into this particular phrasing or if there was literally no regard for anything in terms of demographics except for the white audience that it could reach. What disturbed me deeply about this particular phrasing for the determination of location is the fact that these nuances on which our esteemed university was erected upon are not discussed, and furthermore contradicted what I had thought was the University's aim at this point in history, which was to reach many walks of life in the name of higher learning.