The Lee Memorial Journalism Foundation: Its History

Abstract

Following the War Between the States and as the South began to rebuild there came to Lexington, Virginia, the leader of the Confederate cause, General Robert E. Lee. He came to assume the presidency of a little college in Lexington, known then as Washington College. Lee had refused more profitable offers and had told his friends that he felt it his duty to help in the rebuilding of the South, and he thought he should do that by training the young men of the South how they might best go about the period of reconstruction. As a part of his plan to teach the young men how to rebuild he desired to see the establishment of four new courses of study at Washington College. These four courses were law, commerce, engineering and journalism. The new president of the college could foresee the advantages of training in journalism. He knew the influences an editor wields over his followers, and Lee probably saw that through proper training of the future editors of the South, the people might be better taught the needs and work that must be done. His unwillingness after the war to meet reporters who might misconstrue an interview shows that he recognized a lack of dependability in many newspapermen of the day. [From Chapter 1]