The Education of a Southern Gentleman

Next, Davis was enrolled at Jefferson College near Natchez, but he did not stay there long given the brutal whippings students endured if they did not learn their lessons quickly. Later in 1818 he returned to Rosemont and took up studies for the next five years at the Wilkinson County Academy that had just been founded at Woodville.
Davis was in Lexington, attending Transylvania University, from the fall of 1823 ― his name is listed as a junior on page 13 of the catalogue for that year ― until he left for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in August 1824.
Of the 400 students enrolled at Transylvania in 1823, about half came from Kentucky. Except for 40 from the North, the balance of the student body was from other slave states.
Davis’ introduction to Transylvania was a rude one when he tested poorly in mathematics, and stood to be put back as a freshman.
The school year ended on June 4, 1824 ― the day after Davis’s birthday ― with grueling oral examinations, lasting more than seven-hour with only a brief lunch break. Townspeople would turn out to watch the students perform, with the outcome determining if they would advance as seniors. Davis’s performance earned him honors in at least one course (an achievement he would later brag over; this from a man who rarely gave himself credit for his accomplishments). The honors included an invitation to deliver a public address during the university’s June 18 Exhibition, a time when the school officially put its academic product on display. The third speaker on the program, Davis delivered his address on Friendship. Nothing of the speech survives, but the Lexington Monitor reported, “Davis on Friendship made friends of the hearers.”
Even before Davis had entered Transylvania University, his brother Joseph had submitted his name for consideration for an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point, New York. On March 11, 1824, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun issued Davis a commission as cadet. News of the appointment, sent initially to Natchez, did not reach Lexington until the first week in July 1824. Davis immediately replied ― and thus began a relationship with the fiery South Carolinian that would shape Davis’ and the nation’s destiny.