by Prof. J. J, Sylvester, who afterward returned to England, but who, in 1876, came out to America again, and founded a flourishing department of mathematics at the Johns Hopkins University. In 1884 he was called home to the chair of mathematics in Oxford. Among the American successors of this distinguished line of English mathematicians was Albert T. Bledsoe, famous after the civil war as the editor of the Southern Review, published in Baltimore. The present able representative of the mathematical department at the University of Virginia is Professor Charles S. Venable, now the chairman of the faculty, to whose courtesy the writer is greatly indebted for prompt and efficient cooperation in acquiring material information for this educational report.

ROBLEY DUNGLISON.

Robley Dunglison was the fourth Englishman originally appointed professor at the University of Virginia. He was the founder of the medical school, and became a distinguished contributor to medical science. His published works are still spoken of with great respect. He was Jefferson's favorite physician, and attended him in his last illness. It is to Dunglison's journal and reminiscences of Jefferson that we owe the most pleasing glimpses into Jefferson's friendly social relations with the professors of the University.

Jefferson was highly gratified with the choice of these European scholars as instructors. In a letter to William B. Giles, December 26, 1825, he said: "Our University has been most fortunate in the five professors procured from England. A finer selection could not have been made. Besides their being of a grade of science which has left little superior behind, the correctness of their moral character, their accommodat ing dispositions, and zeal for the prosperity of the institution leave us nothing more to wish. I verily believe that as high a degree of education can now be obtained here as in the country they left." Cabell also was delighted with the strength and promise of the new faculty. He wrote to Jefferson: "I cannot describe the satisfaction which I feel in reflecting on the present prospects of the University. Our corps of professors is full of youth and talent and energy. What will not such men accomplish with such advantages?"

nown.

*

them in other branches of their studies. Mathematics was rendered by him what he repeatedly said it was, 'a pure system of logic.' Many parts of his course were supplied by himself, and he wrote a text-book for his class, which gained him great reIn society and at home he was often taciturn, and it was only at cer. tain times that he opened his stores of information; but when he did, he never failed to charm and surprise.. I do not know that he ever became a citizen of the United States, though he frequently spoke of his intention to do so. He thought very favorably of our country and her institutions. Mr. Bonnycastle was a close student, and perhaps his devotion to study led to a premature death. He took very little exercise, studied in an unhealthy posture and until a late hour of the night." This glimpse of Bonnycastle, evidently by one of his former students, reveals the mathematical professor.

AMERICAN PROFESSORS.

There were two professorships which, for practical reasons, Jefferson was determined to have filled by native Americans. These chairs were (1) ethics and (2) law and politics. He had the conviction that American youth should be trained to a knowledge of their duties, laws. and system of government by American teachers. The above subjects were as sacred in the mind of Jefferson as is the Protestant or Catholic religion to its respective adherents, who wish their own teachers for their own faith.

GEORGE TUCKER AND. JOHN TAYLOE LOMAX.

For the chair of ethics or moral science, Hon. George Tucker, a member of Congress from Virginia, was chosen, and he served the University ably and well for twenty years, 1825-15. Greater difficulty was experienced in filling the chair of law and politics. The first choice, after Dr. Cooper, was Francis Walker Gilmer, who had selected the English professors with such excellent judgment, but he declined the honor which was thrice urged upon him. The position was then offered in succession to Chancellor Tucker, Mr. Barbour, Judge Carr, and Judge Dade; but, for professional and other reasons, all were unwilling to ac cept the professorial office. It was then tendered to the Attorney-General of the United States, the Hon. William Wirt, together with the presidency of the University, an additional honor specially created in order to induce Mr. Wirt to take the chair of law and politics. Jefferson heartily approved of the choice of Mr. Wirt as professor, but he entered with his own hand upon the records, at the last meeting of the board of visitors which he ever attended, a vigorous protest against the office of a permanent president, as being inconsistent with republican ideas. After Mr. Wirt's declination, the "presidency " was never revived. The executive headship is annually committed to an appointed "chairman of the faculty," a democratic office corresponding to the pro-rectorship of a German university. The professorship of law and politics was finally accepted by Mr. Gilmer, but he died in 1826. John Tayloe Lomax, of Fredericksburg, was appointed in the spring of 1826, and he held the office with distinction for four years. He was not only an able professor, but he contributed substantially to the development of jurisprudence in Virginia. He published a digest of Virginia law and various useful texts. The law school which Lomax founded has had other able representatives, but none more able or more widely known for his learn. ing and power as a teacher than Professor John B. Minor, who has been the head of the school for many years, and whose pupils' are conspicuous wherever they go.

One of the most successful and distinguished of Mr. Minor's pupils is Woodrow Wilson, author of Congressional Government, sometime professor of history and politics in Bryn Mawr College, now of Wesleyan University, and lecturer on Administration at the Johns Hopkins University, where he took his doctor's degree in the year 1886.

JOHN P. EMMET.

In addition to Tucker and Lomax, Dr. John P. Emmet should be counted among the original American professors. Although born in Ireland, he was educated in this country, chiefly at West Point and in New York City. He is the nearest approach to a 66 literary character of the Irish nation," such as Jefferson wished in 1783 to introduce into Albemarle County. But the young Irish-American, a nephew of Robert Emmet, the great orator, was engaged to teach chemistry and nateral history, in which subjects he had been well trained in connection with medical and other scientific studies. Jefferson regarded Dr. Emmet as a representative of the natural sciences.

THE UNIVERSITY OPENED TO STUDENTS.

The University of Virginia was opened to students on the 7th of March, 1825. Jefferson, in his seventh annual report to the president and directors of the literary fund, dated October 7, 1825, said there were forty students present at the beginning; "others continued to arrive from day to day at first, and from week to week since; and the whole number matriculated on the last day of September was 116. Few more can be expected during the present term, which closes on the 15th of December next; and the state of the schools on the same day was as follows:

Jefferson said the dormitories would accommodate about 218 students, and the neighboring town of Charlottesville perhaps 50 more. Seven of the schools were organized and in successful operation in the course of the year 1825. There was some delay in securing a professor of law, as we have already seen. The original number of professors recommended in Jefferson's report to the Legislature in 1818 was ten; but motives of economy compelled a reduction to eight.

Jefferson showed the most active interest in shaping and expanding the course of study. There are two interesting letters to Professor Emmet in Jefferson's Correspondence, dated, respectively, April 27 and May 2, 1826, concerning the importance of introducing botany into university instruction, and indicating Jefferson's views1 with regard to the develop

1 Jefferson's scientific merits have been sketched in "A Discourse on the Character and Services of Thomas Jefferson, more especially as a Promoter of Natural and Physical Science. Pronounced by request before the New York Lyceum of Natural History on the 11th of October, 1826." Published by G. & C. Carville, New York, 1826.

ment and co-ordination of the various branches of scientific study. Jef ferson proposed the establishment of a botanical garden and a seminary for forestry upon the university premises. He communicated to Emmet a detailed plan, prepared by the Abbé Correa, a distinguished European botanist, one of Jefferson's old friends, who had served Portugal as foreign minister at Washington. "Our institution being then on hand," writes Jefferson," in which that was of course to be one of the subjects of instruction, I availed myself of his presence and friendship to obtain from him a general idea of the extent of ground we should employ, and the number and character of the plants we should introduce into it. He accordingly sketched for me a mere outline of the scale he would recommend, restrained altogether to objects of use, and indulging not at all in things of mere curiosity, and especially not yet thinking of a hot-house, or even of a green-house."

JEFFERSON'S CONNECTION WITH THE JARDIN DES PLANTES.

Jefferson was extremely practical in some of his scientific projects, and especially in the pursuit of botany. He wished to introduce plants and trees that would be useful to his countrymen. "For three-andtwenty years of the last twenty-five, my good old friend Thonin, superintendent of the Garden of Plants at Paris, has regularly sent me a box of seeds, of such exotics, as to us, as would suit our climate, and containing nothing indigenous to our country. These I regularly sent to the public and private gardens of the other States, having as yet no employment for them here."

This letter was written only about two months before Jefferson's death. Maintaining for nearly a quarter of a century his connections with Paris, the original source of Jefferson's enlarged ideas of university education, he had been scattering seeds from the Jardin des Plantes over the public and private gardens of America. Could there be a more pleasing historic picture of that dissemination of educa tional ideas which has now gone on for more than two generations from the University of Virginia, that seminary of higher learning, founded by the Sage of Monticello? Broadcast over the entire South have been scattered the seeds of culture and the germs of science. Some have fallen by the wayside; some where there was not much earth; but some have fallen upon good ground. Little is known at the North concerning the University of Virginia, but it is barely possible that some seeds of Jeffersonian influence have been wafted by the winds of destiny into the very gardens of New England culture.

CHAPTER IX.

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AND HARVARD COLLEGE.

GEORGE TICKNOR VISITS JEFFERSON, 1815.

It is not beyond the range of possibility that the advanced ideas of Thomas Jefferson had some quickening influence upon educational reform at Harvard College. When only twenty-three years old George Ticknor, of Boston, on a Southern tour, visited Jefferson at Monticello. One of the most charming glimpses of social life in that hospitable man. sion, in its best estate, may be found in Ticknor's letter home. In his interesting Life, Letters, and Journals, it is said that Mr. Jefferson "formed quite an affection for the young Federalist from New England." A pleasant correspondence sprang up between the old Virginian and the young Bostonian, who went abroad1 after conscientiously travelling through historic portions of his own country.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH TICKNOR.

As early as 1817 Jefferson communicated to Ticknor, while the latter was yet abroad, the entire plan for the advancement of education in Virginia. In 1818 Jefferson wrote to Ticknor: "You will come home fraught with great means of promoting the science, and consequently

In a letter to M. Dupont de Nemours, dated February 15, 1800, Jefferson thus recommends young Ticknor: "This letter will be delivered to you by Mr. Ticknor, a young gentleman from Massachusetts, of much erudition and great merit. He has completed his course of law reading, and before entering on the practice, proposes to pass two or three years in seeing Europe, and adding to his store of knowledge what he can acquire there. Should he enter the career of politics in his own country, he will go far in obtaining its honors and powers. He is worthy of any friendly offices you may be so good as to render him, and to his acknowledgments of them will be added my own. By him I send you a copy of the Review of Montesquieu, from my own shelf, the impression being, I believe, exhausted by the late president of the College of Williamsburg having adopted it as the elementary book there. I am persuading the author to permit the original to be printed in Paris. Although your presses, I observe, are put under the leading strings of your Government, yet this is such a work as would have been licensed at any period, early or late, of the reign of Louis XVI. Surely the present Government will not expect to repress the progress of the public mind further back than that. TH. JEFFERSON."-Maupin MS. Collection.