The buildings were easily adaptable to the purposes in hand. The old hotel, consisting of a basement and two stories, provided a dining hall, a chapel, and thirty-one rooms. Then, there were seven smaller buildings with two to four rooms each. These latter were ranged on opposite sides of the front yard, at right angles to the main building. In the fall of 1842 the "Valley Union Seminary" was launched, under encouraging conditions, with Mr. Bradley at the head. The patronage was large and the prospects alluring at the outset, but soon the relations of the Principal with his faculty and students became unhappy. He was a worthy, irreproachable man, and intellectually competent, but it seemed impossible for him to make tactful adjustments with the young Virginians. The management was changed, attendance was large, and the only cloud on the enterprise was the unpaid notes. The affairs of Mr. Johnston's estate must be wound up. The young Seminary in its third year was in the breakers, and looked disaster in the face. It was now in the spring of 1845. Deliverance must come speedily, or another dead school would pass into the abyss. In this critical hour, two or three students just returned from Richmond College said to members of the society: "We know a man who can handle your Seminary and make it go." Any remark that hinted at relief was more than welcomed by the trustees, who asked whom the students had in mind. "It is Professor Charles L. Cocke of Richmond College. He is only twenty-five years old but he has had five years' experience in teaching. He knows how to bring things to pass, and if your school can be pulled out of a hole, he is the man you want." Such was the homely but emphatic tribute of the college boys, and it did not pass unheeded. Propositions from the Society went promptly to Richmond, and the Professor was induced to come to the mountains to look the situation over. The Society was pleased with him, and he was impressed with the possibilities of the Seminary. The call of the great Southwest sounded in his ears and the visions of the things that may be, beckoned him on. The call was made in the spring of 1845. He would ponder it devoutly.