This would generally be about the 15th year of their age
I find it interesting that the Board of Commissioners believed that kids at the age of 15 are ready to attend the university. Today, kids at the age of 15 are beginning high school and are far from ready to go to college. However, the lifespan in 1818 was much different than it is today and the country needed young scholars to be ready to take on the challenges of the country as soon as it was possible.
healthiness & fertility. It was the degree of centrality to the white population of the state which alone then constituted the important point of comparison between these places
I believe these two sentences to be very contradictory. The Board of Commissioners wants the University of Virginia to be a place of healthiness and fertility, yet they also believe it needs to be located in an area with a population of white people only. Leaving out African-Americans only hinders the learning experiences of everyone in the university as they won't be able to learn from other peoples' perspectives. Also, not providing African-Americans' an education only hurts the country because educating more people creates more growth for the country. However, we have to put the time period into perspective and in 1818 slaves were not even considered people, which provides the reason for why they were not allowed an education but does not excuse the ignorance and racism by the Board of Commissioners.
To improve by reading, his morals and faculties. To understand his duties to his neighbours, & country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either.
It's interesting and noteworthy that the Board of Commissioners founded the University with a goal of improving the student's morals and teaching them duties as citizens of the United States. I believe that teaching student's morals is an essential part of higher education, and I think that this part of an education is somewhat lost in today's society. Even though the morals in 1818 were very different than the morals in 2017 (i.e. slavery was still alive and very prevalent), I still believe a core part of higher education should be to teach morals as it seems like we have lost sight in the importance of morals, especially some of the most important people in our country (i.e. President Trump).
Also the whole of his Slaves amounting to 57 in number.
When reading this, it disturbed me to see how the Board of Commissioners decided to put this statement here. Preceding this sentence is a list of property and while slaves were treated as property during this time, it's very unsettling to actually see human beings being listed under a section of the document as property. It's also interesting to note that "Slaves" is capitalized in this statement. Even though I'm not sure why "Slaves" is capitalized, I'm highly certain it has a significant purpose, and a different meaning than if it wasn't capitalized.