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Charles Scott Venable was born on 19 April 1827 in Prince Edward County, Virginia at Longwood, a home known for culture, hospitality, and wholesome outdoor life. His father, Nathaniel Venable, was one of the founders of Hampden-Sydney College, and from 1839 to 1845, Charles studied and then tutored there. In June of 1845, he began studies at the University of Virginia, but spent only one session here before taking a professorship of mathematics back at Hampden-Sydney. He stayed in that post for one year but was granted a leave of absence to return to the University of Virginia. During the 1847-1848 session, he resumed the work he had begun under the supervision of Edward Courtenay in mathematics, in addition to studying chemistry, natural philosophy, and modern languages. He returned to his Hampden-Sydney professorship in the fall of 1848. Four years later, he was given a second leave of absence to further his studies in Germany. He attended the lectures of the great astronomer, Johann Franz Encke, in Berlin, and Friedrich Argelander in Bonn as well as those of the brilliant young analyst, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and of the physicist, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.
After returning to the U.S. in December of 1853, Venable held successive professorships at Hampden-Sydney, the University of Georgia, and the University of South Carolina. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he promptly volunteered and served from the bombardment of Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomattox. The close of the Civil War saw Venable's return to his real life's work. In 1865 he was invited to fill the chair of mathematics at the University of Virginia that he held for the remainder of his active life. He was elected Chair of the Faculty for the years 1870-1873 and 1886-1888. As a teacher, he possessed an instinctive comprehension of the individual needs of his students, and he made the School of Mathematics one of the largest and most highly respected in the University. As a part of the post-war endeavor to provide textbooks for use in the South, Venable prepared a number of texts in mathematics. He compiled a complete series of treatises in pure mathematics that covered the full range of his University coursework. This series included: First Lessons in Numbers--A Primary Arithmetic: Combining Mental and Slate Exercises (1870); Higher Arithmetic for Advanced Students (1871); An Elementary Algebra . . . (1872); Teacher's Manual of Venable's New Practical Arithmetic . . . (1892); A Key Containing Solutions of the More Difficult Examples in Venable's Practical and Mental Arithmetic (1893); Mental Arithmetic Containing Oral Exercises in Abstract and Commercial Arithmetic (1894); An Easy Algebra for Beginners; Being a Simple, Plain Presentation of the Essentials of Elementary Algebra . . . (1895); Elementary Arithmetic (1896); Practical Arithmetic (1902); and High School Algebra . . . (1904). He also published a translation and adaptation of Legendre's Elements of Geometry (1910). In addition to the long series of mathematical textbooks, he published a number of articles, among them, "An Address Delivered before the Society of Alumni of the University of Virginia . . . July 26, 1858" (1859); "The Campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg. Address . . . before the Virginia Division of the Army of Northern Virginia . . . Oct. 30, 1873" (1879); and "Report of Prof. C. S. Venable on the Total Eclipse of July 18, 1860 in Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey . . . 1860" (1861). Compelled by ill health to retire from active service in 1896, Venable was made Professor Emeritus. He died on 11 August 1900. Selected References
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