peated1 expressions of indignation in private letters to his friends. In a letter to General Taylor, May 16, 1820, Jefferson said:

"You may have heard of the hue and cry raised from the different pulpits on our appointment of Dr. Cooper, whom they charge with Unitarianism as boldly as if they knew the fact, and as presumptuously as if it were a crime, and one for which, like Servetus, he should be burned; and perhaps you may have seen the particular attack made on him in the Evangelical Magazine. For myself, I was not disposed to regard the denunciations of these satellites of religious inquisition; but our colleagues, better judges of popular feeling, thought that they were not to be altogether neglected, and that it might be better to relieve Dr. Cooper, ourselves, and the institution from this crusade. I had received a letter from him expressing his uneasiness, not only for himself, but lest this persecution should become embarrassing to the visitors and injurious to the institution, with an offer to resign if we had the same apprehensions. The visitors, therefore, desired the committee of superintendence to place him at freedom on this subject, and to arrange with him a suitable indemnification. I wrote accordingly, in answer to his, and a meeting of trustees of the college at Columbia [S. C.] happening to take place soon after his receipt of my letter, they resolved unanimously that it should be proposed to, and urged on, their Legislature to establish a professorship of geology and mineralogy, or a professorship of law, with a salary of $1,000 a year to be given him, in addition to that of chemistry, which is $2,000 a year and to purchase his collection of minerals; and they have no doubt of the Legislature's compliance. On the subject of indemnification, he is contented with the balance of the $1,500 we had before agreed to give him, and which he says will not more than cover his actual losses of time and expense. He adds: 'It is right I should acknowledge the liberality of your board with thanks. I regret the storm that has been raised on my account, for it has separated me from many fond hopes and wishes. Whatever my religious creed may be, and perhaps I do not exactly know it my self, it is pleasure to reflect that my conduct has not brought, and is not likely to bring, discredit to my friends. Wherever I have been, it has been my good fortune to meet with or to make ardent and affectionate friends. I feel persuaded I should have met with the same lot in Virginia had it been my chance to have settled there, as I had hoped and expected, for I think my course of conduct is sufficiently habitual to count on its effects.""

"I do sincerely lament," continues Jefferson, "that untoward circumstances have brought on us the irreparable loss of this professor, whom I have looked to as the corner-stone of our edifice. I know no one who could have aided us so much in forming the future regulations for our infant institution; and although we may perhaps obtain from Europe equivalents in science, they can never replace the advantages of his ex'An earlier and more indignant letter is that to William Short, April 13, 1820.

perience, his knowledge of the character, habits, and manners of our country, his identification with its sentiments and principles, and high reputation he has obtained in it generally."

DR. COOPER GOES TO SOUTH CAROLINA.

Jefferson's good-will followed Dr. Cooper to his new professorship in South Carolina College, at Columbia, whither, in 1820, Jefferson sent his grandson, Eppes, and another young Virginian for collegiate education, the University of Virginia being not yet open to students. Jeffer son wrote to Cooper that the institution at Columbia was now "of immediate interest to me," and that he had proposed to send his grandson "to Columbia, rather than anywhere northwardly." At Columbia, S. C., Cooper taught natural science, politics, and economics. He became an exponent of free-trade doctrines, and was the academic representative and supporter of the economic views of Calhoun. He was one of the greatest and most influential teachers in the entire South. Dr. Cooper, at Columbia, and Professor Dew, at William and Mary College, were the scientific advocates of the two leading ideas in Southern politics. Cooper attacked the tariff, or protection. Dew defended slavery. A study of the writings of these two men will show the influences which shaped the political opinions of Southern statesmen. The laws of South Carolina were edited by Dr. Cooper, and his influence upon legislation in that State resembles that of Jefferson in Virginia. He was a bold and aggressive character, with warm friends and bitter enemies. He provoked considerable opposition by reason of his outspoken religious views, which were not altogether in harmony with those of the society in which he lived. The man walked rough-shod over other men's opin ions, and suffered the inevitable consequences. His relation to his as sociates in South Carolina College is described at length, and with some feeling, in LaBorde's history of that institution, where he was succeeded in 1835 by Francis Lieber.

JEFFERSON ON THE QUALIFICATIONS OF PROFESSORS.

With regard to the qualifications of professors, Jefferson was from the first determined to have the best. His acquaintance with European men of learning and distinction, his correspondence with the faculty of Geneva, and with distinguished men like Dr. Priestley, Dr. Cooper, and M. Dupont de Nemours, had inspired him with a high ideal of professo rial excellence. Upon this scientific foundation he proposed that the University of Virginia should be erected. He wrote to Cabell upon this point, February 23, 1824: "You know that we have all, from the begin. ning, considered the high qualifications of our professors as the only means by which we could give to our institution splendor and preeminence over all its sister seminaries. The only question, therefore, we can ever ask ourselves, as to any candidate, will be, is he the most highly qualified? The college of Philadelphia has lost its character of

primacy by indulging motives of favoritism and nepotism, and by couferring the appointments as if the professorships were entrusted to them as provisions for their friends. And even that of Edinburgh, you know, is also much lowered from the same cause. We are next to observe that a man is not qualified for a professor, knowing nothing but merely his own profession. He should be otherwise well educated as to the sciences generally; able to converse understandingly with the scientific men with whom he is associated, and to assist in the councils of the fac ulty on any subject of science on which they may have occasion to deliberate. Without this, he will incur their contempt and bring disreputation on the institution."

IDEA OF EUROPEAN PROFESSORS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. There was at least one substantial result of Jefferson's correspondence upon university matters with men like Cooper, Pictet, Dupont de Nemours, Destutt Tracy, and other men of European training or celebrity. He determined to secure a faculty of distinguished men, who should represent the best science and academical experience of the old world. Thomas Cooper, the Englishman, educated at Oxford and rep resenting natural science and historical jurisprudence, was practically Jefferson's first choice as early as 1817. That same year he was endeavoring to persuade Jean Baptiste Say to come to the neighborhood of Charlottesville. The following year correspondence with Cabell indicates that the latter was the first special agent selected by Jefferson to go to Europe and engage professors for Central College. As we have seen, Cabell had himself studied at European universities, and it was his European culture which first attracted the friendly notice of Jefferson, and made Cabeli the representative of the university idea in the Virginia Legislature. Personal and political interests compelled Cabell to remain in this country, and Francis W. Gilmer,1 "a learned

1 Francis W. Gilmer had early been interested in the subject of higher education, and at one time had seriously thought of becoming a professor in William and Mary College, but was dissuaded by the advice of Mr. Jefferson. The following letter is not without interest as illustrating Gilmer's relations with the founder of the University of Virginia:

66

'MONTICELLO, April 10, 1818. "DEAR SIR: I thank you for the letter of Mr. Ticknor, which I have thought myself justified in communicating to his friends here on account of the pleasure it would give them, and that, I am sure, will give you pleasure. I trust you did not for a moment seriously think of shutting yourself behind the door of William and Mary College. A more complete cul de sac could not be proposed to you. No, dear sir, you are intended to do good to our country, and you must get into the Legislature, for never did it more need the aid of all its talents, nor more peculiarly need them than at the next session. For although the prospect of our University is so far good, yet all is to go again to the Legislature, and who can tell who they will be, and what they will do? The visitors of our college meet next on the 11th of May; Correa and Cooper will then probably be here. Make you the third, and be assured of the pleasure it will give to them and to

"Yours, affectionately,

"FRANCIS W. GILMER, Esq."

"TH. JEFFERSON.

and trustworthy citizen," who had supported the University by his pen, was sent abroad by Jefferson upon the professorial errand.

We can follow Gilmer in Jefferson's correspondence with friends in England, Richard Rush and Maj. John Cartwright. A letter to the first of these scholars is so interesting and instructive as to Jefferson's ideas of university appointments-the crucial test of all academic administration-that the text is given in full:

JEFFERSON'S LETTER TO RICHARD RUSH.

"MONTICELLO, April 26, 1824.

"DEAR SIR: I have heretofore informed you that our Legislature had undertaken the establishment of an University in Virginia; that it was placed in my neighborhood, and under the direction of a board of seven visitors, of whom I am one, Mr. Madison another, and others equally worthy of confidence. We have been four or five years engaged in erect ing our buildings, all of which are now ready to receive their tenants, one excepted, which the present season will put into a state for use. The last session of our Legislature had by new donations liberated the revenue of $15,000 a year, with which they had before endowed the institution, and we propose to open it the beginning of the next year. We require the intervening time for seeking out and engaging professors. As to these, we have determined to receive no one who is not of the first order of science in his line, and as such in every branch can not be ob tained with us, we propose to seek some of them at least in the countries ahead of us in science, and preferably in Great Britain, the land of our own language, habits, and manners. But how to find out those who are of the first grade of science, of sober, correct habits and morals, harmo nizing tempers, talents for communication, is the difficulty. Our first step is to send a special agent to the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, to make the selection for us, and the person appointed for this office is the gentleman who will hand you this letter, Mr. Francis Walker Gilmer, the best-educated subject we have raised since the Revolution, highly qualified in all the important branches of science, professing particularly that of the law, which he has practised some years at our Supreme Court with good success and flattering prospects. His morals, his amiable temper, and discretion will do justice to any confidence you may be willing to place in him, for I commit him to you as his mentor and guide in the business he goes on. We do not certainly expect to obtain such known characters as were the Cullens, the Robertsons, and Porsons, of Great Britain, men of the first eminence, established there in reputa tion and office, and with emoluments not to be bettered anywhere. But we know that there is another race treading on their heels, preparing to take their places, and as well, and sometimes better, qualified to fill them. These, while unsettled, surrounded by a crowd of competitors of equal claims and perhaps superior credit and interest, may prefer a comfortable certainty here for an uncertain hope there, and a lingering

delay even of that. From this description we expect we may draw professors equal to those of the highest name. The difficulty is to distinguish them; for we are told that so overcharged are all branches of business in that country, and such the difficulty of getting the means of living, that it is deemed allowable in ethics for even the most honorable minds to give highly exaggerated recommendations and certificates to enable a friend or protégé to get into a livelihood, and that the moment our agent should be known to be on such a mission he would be overwhelmed by applications from numerous pretenders, all of whom, worthy or unworthy, would be supported by such recommendations and such names as would confound all discrimination. On this head our trust and hope is in you. Your knowledge of the state of things, your means of finding out a character or two at each place truly trustworthy and into whose hands you can commit our agent with entire safety for information, caution, and co-operation, induces me to request your patronage and aid in our endeavors to obtain such men, and such only, as will fulfil our views. An unlucky selection in the outset would forever blast our prospects. From our information of the character of the different universities, we expect we should go to Oxford for our classical professors, to Cambridge for those of mathematics, natural philosophy, and natural history, and to Edinburgh for a professor of anatomy, and the elements or outlines only of medicine. We have still our eye on Mr. Blaetterman for the professorship of modern languages, and Mr. Gilmer is instructed to engage him if no very material objection to him may have arisen unknown to us. We can place in Mr. Gilmer's hands but a moderate sum at present for merely text-books to begin with, and for indispensable articles of apparatus, mathematical, astronomical, physical, chemical, and anatomical. We are in the hope of a sum of $50,000 as soon as we can get a settlement passed through the public offices.1 My experience in dealing with the bookseller Lackington, on your recommendation, has induced me to recommend him to Mr. Gilmer, and if we can engage his fidelity, we may put into his hands the larger supply of books when we are ready to call for it, and particularly what we shall propose to seek in England.

"Although I have troubled you with many particulars, I yet leave abundance for verbal explanation with Mr. Gilmer, who possesses a full knowledge of everything, and our full confidence in everything.

He

1 Jefferson hoped to get this extra sum of $50,000 from Congress in payment of the interest on the debt to the State of Virginia for expenditures during the war of 1812. The principal of the debt had been for the most part paid, but this was a claim for interest paid by the State of Virginia to the local banks which advanced the money. The whole matter is explained in a letter from Cabell to James Monroe, then President of the United States, April 2, 1824. (See Correspondence of Jefferson and Cabell, pp. 488-499.) About that time the Legislature of Virginia "appropriated, for the purpose of procuring the requisite library and apparatus for the University of the State, the sum of $50,000, to be paid out of the first moneys which might be received from the General Government in further discharge of the debt still due to the Commonwealth." (Compare also Jefferson's letter to Cabell, January 11, 1825.)