218 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



gave a lecture on "Science and the Bible; Educational 

 Ideals of the South" to further the interest in England 

 in the financial support of the University of the South 

 at Sewanee, Tennessee. In this address he contended for 

 religious education in the college, and maintained that 

 the Bible and science do not conflict if each is rightly 

 interpreted. 



Not long after Maury's return to England, his friends 

 began to urge him to return to the United States. There 

 was some talk of a professorship in astronomy for him 

 at the University of Virginia; and a definite offer of a 

 chair in the Virginia Military Institute was made to him 

 by the Superintendent as early as February, 1867. A 

 little later he was asked to become the vice-chancellor 

 of the University of the South, and for several months 

 he was favorably inclined toward accepting this position. 

 He finally decided, however, in favor of the professorship 

 at the Virginia Military Institute at $2000 a year. He 

 did not go to Sewanee, he said, because he thought the 

 Episcopalians at the North were not disposed to assist 

 the institution and the financial arrangements did not 

 give the assurance of reasonable grounds for success. 



Maury's letter of acceptance of the Chair of Meteorol- 

 ogy in Virginia Military Institute is, in part, as follows: 

 "I thank you kindly for your letter of the 3rd inst. 

 (April, 1868), explaining my duties in the new Chair. 

 They being such as therein defined, you have ihduced me 

 to accept. I should lack courage to undertake a regular 

 course of lectures as one of the faculty, simply because 

 it would lead me into an untried line of life ; and as my 

 rule is to put my heart into whatever I attempt to do, and 

 try my best, I should have to work overmuch — es- 

 pecially at the beginning — and I am afraid of that. The 



