JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE UPON POLITICAL EDUCATION.

Jefferson early interested himself in devising a proper system of political education for American youth. As far back as 1816 he recommended to the president of William and Mary College Destutt Tracy's Review of Montesquieu as "the best elementary book on the principles of gov ernment and as equally sound and corrective in political economy." He said Chipman's and Priestley's Principles of Government and the Federalist were excellent, but not comparable to the above review for fundamental principles. Tracy's work was actually adopted by Dr. Smith for the students of William and Mary College. A more formal treatise by Tracy upon political economy Jefferson caused to be translated. He revised the copy and proof with his own hands and prepared an anonymous prospectus1 or preface to the work, sketching the history of political economy and ranking Tracy as a worthy successor of Jean Baptiste Say, Adam Smith, Dupont de Nemours, Turgot, LeFrosne, Gournay, and Quesnay who were the founders of the modern science of political economy. This preface is perhaps the first attempt of an American to treat economics from an historical point of view. The translation, published by Joseph Milligan, of Georgetown, D. C., in 1817, is proba bly the first systematic treatise on political economy that ever appeared in this country. The work was translated from the French manuscript, the publication of which had been forbidden in France, as was Tracy's. Review of Montesquieu, which Jefferson brought out as a political textbook on the science of government for American youth.

Thus Jefferson prepared the way for the entrance of political science into American colleges. He deserves the credit of first introducing at Williamsburg, as early as 1779, this modern current; but it was strengthened by correspondence with the French economists, Count Destutt Tracy and Dupont de Nemours, and with the English refugee, Judge Cooper, who was one of the earliest economists in the United States and the first professor appointed for the University of Virginia. Into this institution the modern current was turned by Jefferson, and from thence it hurried on to the College of South Carolina, whither Cooper was 1 See Jefferson's letter to Milligan, the publisher, April 6, 1816. Professor Cooper brought out in the year 1819 an adaptation of Say's Political Economy for the use of American youth. This work continued to be used as a textbook by Francis Lieber, whose annotated copy is now in the possession of the historical department of the Johns Hopkins University. Cooper early dabbled in economics while living at Carlisle, Pa., where he appears to have edited or contributed to a publication called the Emporium. Jefferson wrote him January 16, 1814: "You have given us, in your Emporium, Bollman's medley on Political Economy. It is a work of one who sees a little of everything and the whole of nothing, and were it not for your own notes on it, a sentence of which throws more just light on the subject than all his pages, we should regret the place it occupies of more useful matter." In the same letter Jefferson acknowledges the receipt of Cooper's edition of Justinian, with notes, probably the first work on Roman law ever published in America, and advises the historical study of the common law of England, with valuable suggestions to that end.

called, and where he was succeeded by Francis Lieber, the great German tributary to American political science.

POLITICAL TEXT-BOOKS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

When the University of Virginia was founded, it became a vital question in Jefferson's mind what political philosophy should be taught to students. While he believed in general in leaving the matter of text-books entirely to the professors, yet he maintained in a letter to Cabell, February 3, 1825, "there is one branch in which we are the best judges, in which heresies may be taught of so interesting a character to our own State, and to the United States, as to make it a duty in us to lay down the principles which are to be taught. It is that of government. Mr. Gilmer being withdrawn, we know not who his successor may be. He may be a Richmond lawyer, or one of that school of quondam Federalism, now consolidation. It is our duty to guard against such principles being disseminated among our youth, and the diffusion of that poison, by a previous prescription of the texts to be followed in their discourses." Thereupon Jefferson inclosed a list of authorities which he and Madison had previously agreed upon as sufficiently sound for American pedagogical purposes. While recognizing the impropriety of using the University of Virginia as a school of party politics, the critic can really find no general fault with the political pabulum chosen for Virginia youth at that period. The works recommended were the product of their time, and were congenial to the minds of most Virginians.

The following list of authorities appears to have been agreed upon by Jefferson and Madison, after due consultation:

(1) Sidney's Discourses and Locke's Essay on Civil Government. Madison said these were "admirably calculated to impress on young minds the right of nations to establish their own governments, and to inspire a love of free ones," although, as Madison admits, they "afford no aid in guarding our republican charters against constructive violence." (2) The Declaration of Independence, "as the fundamental act of union of these States."

(3) The Federalist, "as the most authentic exposition of the text of the Federal Constitution, as understood by the body which prepared and the authority which accepted it." Madison adds that the Federalist "has been actually admitted into two universities, if not more—those of Harvard and Rhode Island-but probably at the choice of the professors, without any injunction from superior authority."

(4) The Virginia Document of 1799. This was a political commentary on the famous Virginia resolutions of 1798,' which affirmed that the

Upon this point see Madison's Writings, III, 481-482, and IV, 308. The Virginia Document may be found reprinted in Niles's Register, 1833. An interesting discussion of a similar set of resolutions, prepared chiefly by Jefferson, may be found in the Nation for May 5, 1887, entitled "The Kentucky Resolutions in a New Light," by Miss

Constitution was a compact between the States, urged the duty of the States to defend their reserved rights, and declared the unconstitu tionality of the Alien and Sedition Laws, which abridged free speech and the freedom of the press.

(5) The Inaugural Speech and Farewell Address of George Washington. These later documents were suggested by Madison, in addition to Jefferson's list, "as conveying political lessons of peculiar value." Madison, however, concluded that "after all, the most effectual safeguard against heretical intrusions into the school of politics will be an able and orthodox professor,' whose course of instruction will be an example to his successors, and may carry with it a sanction from the visitors."

POLITICAL ORTHODOXY.

2

These careful provisions by the two most experienced statesmen in Virginia for the maintenance of political orthodoxy at their new Univer sity are very interesting, both from an historical and from a psychological point of view. While protesting against sectarianism in education, Sarah Nicholas Randolph, of Baltimore, who is a great-granddaughter of Mr. Jefferson, and who found original material bearing upon the Kentucky resolutions among his manuscripts now preserved in Washington.

1In September, 1833, Madison, at that time rector of the University of Virginia, in the eighty-third year of his age, wrote to Mr. W. A. Duer, who had prepared the outlines of a book on the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States, with the evident hope of introducing the work, when published, as a text-book into the University of Virginia. Madison said: "The choice of text and class books is left to the professors respectively. The only exception is in the school of law, in which the subject of government is included, and on that the board of visitors have prescribed, as text authorities, the Federalist, the Resolutions of Virginia in 1798, with the comment on them in 1799, and Washington's Farewell Address. The use, therefore, that will be made of any analogous publications will depend on the discretion of the professor himself. His personal opinions, I believe, favor very strict rules of expounding the Constitution of the United States." Madison's writings, IV, 308. Madison adds an interesting historical point: "You are, I presume, not ignorant that your father was the author of several papers auxiliary to the numbers in the Federalist. They.appeared, I believe, in the Gazette of Mr. Childs."

2 In a letter to Edward Everett, dated March 19, 1823, Madison said: "A university with sectarian professorships becomes, of course, a sectarian monopoly; with professorships of rival sects, it would be an arena of theological gladiators. Without any such professorships it may incur, for a time at least, the imputation of irreligious tendencies, if not designs. The last difficulty was thought more manageable than either of the others." Writings of Madison, III, 307.

Madison does not mean that the first professors in the University of Virginia were irreligious men or without church connections. As a matter of fact, most of the professors were Episcopalians. Dr. Dunglison, the original head of the school of medicine, once said in a private letter: "I was an Episcopalian, so was Mr. Tucker, Mr. Long, Mr. Key, Mr. Bonnycastle, and Dr. Emmet; Dr. Blaetterman, I think, was a Lutheran, but I do not know so much about his religion as I do about that of the rest. There certainly was not a Unitarian among us." Jefferson regarded himself as a Christian and as a Unitarian, basing his views upon the writings of Dr. Joseph Priestley, who was a Unitarian clergyman. Jefferson was baptized into the Episcopal Church and usually attended its services, joining in the responses and prayers.

man and

they were deliberately substituting for it party control. There could be no possible objection to students discussing any or all of these historical documents; but the idea of imposing them as a permanent educational or party yoke, to the exclusion of other good means of political training, is intolerable. Madison himself saw the difficulty of chaining up a professor to one set of books, and proposed to secure an "orthodox give him free rein. That is precisely the kind of man that every sectarian college has been honestly striving to discover for every department of education. It always has been, and perhaps always will be, a difficult question to determine the standard of "orthodoxy" in a progressive state of society, but there is a steady drift of opinion, in this nineteenth century, toward more tolerant forms. While recognizing with Jefferson and Madison the importance of "orthodox" political education, in the sense of loyalty to State and country, is it not better for every college and State university to teach political science rather than party spirit? And is not a scientific criterion of "orthodoxy" worthy of recognition in every branch of learning?

In a letter to James Madison, dated February 17, 1826, Jefferson called attention to the importance of appointing a law professor who was sound in the political faith: "In the selection of our law professor, we must be rigorously attentive to his political principles. You will recollect that before the Revolution, Coke [on] Littleton was the universal element. ary book of law students, and a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British Constitution, or in what were called English liberties. You remember also that our lawyers were then all whigs. But when his black-letter text and uncouth but cunning learning got out of fashion, and the honied Mansfieldism of Blackstone became the students' horn-book, from that moment that profession (the nursery of our Congress) began to slide into toryism, and nearly all the young brood of lawyers now are of that hue. They suppose themselves, indeed, to be whigs, because they no longer know what whiggism or republicanism means. It is in our seminary that that vestal flame is to be kept alive; it is thence it is to spread anew over our own and the sister States. If we are true and vigilant in our trust, within a dozen or twenty years a majority of our own Legislature will be from one school, and many disciples will have carried its doctrines home with them to their several States, and will have leavened thus the whole mass." Jefferson carried his patriotism rather too far when he attempted to make provision for the exclusion from the University of federalism, which he regarded as political heresy. By dictating a republican course of instruction he was guilty of narrowing political science to a party platform. But in the essential idea, however illogical from a cosmopolitan point of view, Jefferson was in a measWhatever his private convictions, he could truthfully say he "never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed." See Randall's Life of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. III, Chap. XIV, on "Jefferson's Religious Views."

ure right. To a certain extent, American youth require American training in the duties of citizenship. There are lines in politics, as in religion, which must be drawn. In the former they mark what men call patriotism, national independence, loyalty to kindred, country, or

race.

JEFFERSON ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY.

It was provided in Jefferson's educational plan that ancient history and ancient geography should be studied in connection with the ancient languages, and modern history and modern geography in connection with modern languages. The representatives of these great historical fields were George Long on the one side, and George Blaetterman on the other. From the excellence of the historical and geographical' work represented by Long's History of Rome and Long's Classical Atlas, we may rest assured that his teaching in these branches was of a high order. Of Blaetterman's work we have only the presumptive evidence of German training, which has favored history most decidedly since the time of the Napoleonic wars, when the restoration of Germany began in schools and universities. Jefferson's own views upon the study of history are precisely stated in a letter addressed to one of the newly-appointed professors, and dated October 25, 1825:

"I know not whether the professors to whom ancient and modern history are assigned in the University have yet decided on the course of historical reading which they will recommend to their schools. If they have, I wish this letter to be considered as not written, as their course, the result of mature consideration, will be preferable to any thing I could recommend. Under this uncertainty, and the rather as you are of neither of these schools, I may hazard some general ideas, to be corrected by what they may recommend hereafter.

"In all cases I prefer original authors to compilers. For a course of ancient history, therefore, of Greece and Rome especially, I should advise the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Diodorus, Livy, Cæsar, Suet onius, Tacitus, and Dion, in their originals if understood, and in translations if not. For its continuation to the final destruction of the Empire we must then be content with Gibbons [sic], a compiler, and with Ségur for a judicious recapitulation of the whole. After this general course, there are a number of particular histories filling up the chasms, which may be read at leisure in the progress of life. Such is Arrian, Q. Curtius, Polybius, Sallust, Plutarch, Dionysius [of] Halicarnassus, Micasi, etc. The ancient universal history should be on our shelves as a book of general reference, the most learned and most faithful, perhaps, that ever was written. Its style is very plain but perspicuous.

1

1 Long wrote a very valuable work on historical geography, and a treatise on the Geography of America and the West Indies. He was also one of the editors of a special work on the Geography of Great Britain (Part I, England and Wales. London, no date).