families afford an interesting criterion of the cultivated society of the period immediately following the American Revolution. This clever, diplomatic Frenchman evidently had the social entrée wherever he went on his academic mission. While mentioning, among his friends in New York, Governor Clinton, General Courtland, Mr. Duane (then mayor of the city), the Livingstons, Hoffmans, Halletts, Pintards, Seatons, Whites, and the army officers Niven, Ludlow, Ogden, Vandyke, Wool, and others, it is noteworthy that Quesnay speaks of General Baron von Steuben as "le premier de cet État qui ait adopté le projet" of a French academy in America. It was an educated German in New York who first recog nized the clever Frenchman's brilliant idea.

LETTER TO FRANKLIN.

Quesnay's project was clearly for something higher than an American college. He had in mind the highest special training of American students in the arts and sciences. The following extract from a letter written to Dr. Franklin by his daughter, Mrs. Bache, doubtless at Ques nay's request, shows how the proposed academy was viewed by educated people at the time. The letter is here translated into English from Quesnay's French version, published in his memoir for the sake of influencing public opinion in France, where the name of Franklin was greatly revered:

"PHILADELPHIA, February 27, 1783.

"MY DEAR AND HONORED FATHER: With this letter you will receive a project for a French academy which is to be established here. It is a very extensive plan, which will do honor to the gentleman who has designed it, as well as to America. If it can be executed, it will in no way interfere with the plans of the colleges; it will be solely for the completion of the education of young men after they have graduated from college. Those who are already under M. Quesnay have made great progress.

"He regards you as the father of science in this country, and appreciates the advice and instruction which you have never failed to give those whose talents are worthy of recognition. Money is the one thing needful; but the brother of M. Quesnay, when he delivers this letter, will inform you how you can be most serviceable. I know well how occupied you must be in this important crisis; but as a mother who desires to give her children a useful and polite education, and who will be especially proud to have them trained in her own country and under her own eyes, I pray you to give M. Quesnay every aid and assistance that may lie in your power."

Quesnay decided to establish his academy in Richmond, because his earliest American associations and his best friends were in that capital. There he acquired, he says, a superb site for the building. His topographical description of Richmond, with reference to the situation of the academy, is pleasing and graphic: "La position de cette ville est

charmante à tous égards, son emplacement occupe une vallée et deux collines, sur l'une desquelles est bâtie l'Académie. La rivière de James forme, au pied de son enceinte, une superbe cascade, d'environ trois milles de longueur." The exact site of the academy was long ago recorded by Samuel Mordecai, the Richmond antiquary, who probably saw the building with his own eyes. He says, in his charming medley of Richmond history: "The site chosen by M. Quesnay, and on which he erected his academy, is the square on which the Monumental Church and the Medical College now stand, the grounds extending from those lower points up Broad and Marshall to Twelfth Street. The academy stood nearly on the spot where the Carlton House stands."

1

THE ACADEMY FOUNDED.

The proceedings connected with the laying of the corner-stone are described by Quesnay, in his Memoir, and by the Virginia Gazette for July 1, 1786. The foundation was laid June 24 with masonic ceremonies in the presence of a great concourse of citizens. The mayor of the city, the French consul, and, as Quesnay reported, "deputies of the French nation," were there to honor the occasion. With the corner-stone was laid a silver plate bearing this inscription, preserved in French in Quesnay's Memoir: "Première Pierre d'une Académie dans la ville de Richemond, Alexandre-Marie Quesnay, étant Président, posée à l'Orient de Richemond, par les Maîtres-Gardiens & Compagnons de la L. No. 31, le jour de la Fête de St. Jean Baptiste, l'An de la V. L. 5786, de l'Ère Vulgaire 1786. John Groves, Maître, James Mercer, Grand Maître, Edmund Randolph, D. P. G. Maître." Upon another silver plate was recorded the following Latin inscription, which perhaps suffered in the printer's hands:

Anno Domini 1786, Reipublicae 10, VIII. Kalendas Julii, Res Virginue administrante Patrik Henri, Academiae quam designavit

ALEXANDER-MARIA QUESNAY

atque beneficiis plurium Civium bene meritorum adjutus, tandem perficiet, prima fundamenta posuit

JOHANNES HARVIE, PRAET. URB.

The six counsellors,2 chosen by the subscribers to act with President Quesnay, are mentioned in the latter's Memoir of the academy. They were John Harvie, mayor of the city of Richmond, and "allié à la famille de son Excellence M. Jefferson;" Col. Thomas Randolph; Dr.

Quesnay appears to have had several French supporters in his academic undertaking. He says: “M. Claude-Paul Raguet a rendu des services importans à l'Auteur; MM. Audrin, la Case, Omphéry, MM. les Docteurs Noel et le Maire; MM. Dorssière et Bartholomy, et MM. Cureau et Charles-François Duval, en Virginie (tous Français) ont appuyé son entreprise."

"The Virginia Gazette, May 1, 1786.

James McClurg; Col. Robert Goode; Dr. William Foushée; and Robert Boyd. Benjamin Lewis was appointed treasurer.

Having founded and organized his Academy under the most distinguished auspices, Quesnay returned to Paris, and began an active social and scientific propaganda in the interest of his grand project for uniting intellectually America and France. He cailed upon the savants of Paris. He visited the studios of artists. He consulted everybody whose opinion, good-will, or active co-operation was worth having. Quesnay was certainly successful in awakening the interest of the most influential people in the idea of establishing a French academy in Rich. mond. As grandson of a distinguished scholar, and as a returned soldier of France, he was able to obtain access to the highest circles. His project was presented to the King and Queen and to the royal family in a memoir published with the sanction of the royal censor. The most cultivated men of the time appear to have favored Quesnay's undertaking. A commission of the Royal Academy of Science, signed by De la Lande, Thouin, Tenan, and Lavoisier, and certified by its secretary, the Marquis de Condorcet, reported favorably upon the memoir, as did also a similar commission of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, signed by Vernet and other eminent artists. The published list of foreign associates (Associés Étrangers) of the Richmond Academy embraces the most distinguished French names in art, science, literature, and politics, together with representative men of England and the United States. French influence naturally predominated.

DISTINGUISHED ASSOCIATES.

Among the celebrities whom Quesnay managed to associate with his Richmond Academy were Beaumarchais, secretary of the King; Condorcet and Dacier, secretaries respectively of the Royal Academies of Science and of Art; the Abbé de Bevi, historiographer of France; Marquis de la Fayette, then a marshal of the armies of the King; Houdon, the sculptor; Malesherbes, minister of state; Lavoisier; the Comte de la Luzerne, minister and secretary of state; Marquis de la Luzerne, royal ambassador to Great Britain; Marquis de Montalembert; the Duc de la Rochefoucauld; Vernet, and many others.

Conspicuous as representatives of England and of America were Dr. Bancroft, of the Royal Society of London; Dr. George Buchanan, of Baltimore, Md., "Président de la Société Physique d'Edinbourg"; Thomas Paine, member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; Dr. Richard Price, of London; Thomas Shippen, of Philadelphia; Jonathan Trumbull, who is described as "John Trombul, à New Haven état de Connecticut"; Dr. Robert Walker, of Petersburg, Va.; Samuel Rutledge, of Charleston, S. C.; Benjamin West, of London, et al. Of all the names given, the most significant to a student of American educational history is that of Thomas Jefferson, "Ministre Plénipotentiaire des États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale, à Paris."

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Living in Paris at this very time, and mentioned by Quesnay among the supporters of the proposed Academy, Jefferson must have been familiar with this early project for introducing the higher education of France into his native State. He looked upon the project with favor, otherwise he would not have allowed his name to be so prominently used in connection with Quesnay's scheme, which was, moreover, sup. ported by some of the best men in Virginia. Indeed, Quesnay's idea was similar to that afterwards cherished by Jefferson himself when, in 1795, he began to correspond with George Washington about the feasibility of removing bodily to Virginia the entire faculty of the Swiss College of Geneva, which was thoroughly French in its form of culture. In this connection it is interesting to find among the associates of the Richmond Academy M. Pictet, "citoyen de Genève," probably the very man with whom Jefferson afterwards corresponded with reference to removal to Virginia. Jefferson himself says that he met some of these Swiss professors in Paris. Undoubtedly it was in that polished circle of learned men, within which Quesnay and Jefferson moved, that the latter's ideas of university education began to take cosmopolitan form. His original idea of a university for Virginia was to develop the curric ulum of his alma mater, William and Mary College; but we hear nothing more of that idea after Jefferson's return from Paris. The idea of distinct schools of art and science, which is so prominent a characteristic of the University of Virginia to-day, is the enduring product of Jefferson's observation of the schools of Paris and of his association and correspondence with their representative men.

FRENCH CULTURE IN AMERICA.

If circumstances had favored Quesnay's project, it is probable that the University of Virginia would never have been founded. There would have been no need of it. The Academy of the United States of America, established at Richmond, would have become the centre of higher education not only for Virginia, but for the whole South, and possibly for a large part of the North, if the Academy had been extended, as proposed, to the cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Supported by French capital, to which in large measure we owe the success of our Revolutionary War, strengthened by French prestige, by literary, scientific, and artistic associations with Paris, then the intellectual capital of the world, the academy at Richmond might have become an educational stronghold, comparable in some degree to the Jes uit influence in Canada, which has proved more lasting than French dominion, more impregnable than the fortress of Quebec.

Nothing is so enduring, when once established, as forms of culture. If French ideas had really penetrated Virginian society, they would have become as dominant in the South as German ideas are now be

coming in the State universities and school systems of the Northwest. French ideas survived in Virginia and in the Carolinas long after the Revolution, and long after the French Government had ceased to interfere in our politics. It was one of the most difficult tasks in Southern educational history to dislodge French philosophy from its academic strongholds in North and South Carolina. It was done by a strong current of Scotch Presbyterianism proceeding from Princeton College southwards. In social forms French culture lingers yet in South Carolina, notably in Charleston.

FAILURE OF QUESNAY'S SCHEME.

Quesnay's scheme was not altogether chimerical; but in the year 1788 France was in no position, financial or social, to push her educational system into Virginia. The year Quesnay's suggestive little tract was published was the year before the French Revolution, in which political maelstrom everything in France went down. If it had not been for one copy of Quesnay's Memoir, picked up years afterward among the drift-wood of the Revolutionary period by President Andrew D. White, it is doubtful whether the project for a French academy in Richmond would have found its present place in the educational history of Virginia.

Provisional arrangements had been made by Quesnay in 1788, after a year or more of social propaganda, for instituting the following "schools" of advanced instruction in Virginia: foreign languages; mathematics; design; architecture, civil and military; painting; sculpture; engraving; experimental physics; astronomy; geography; chemistry; mineralogy; botany; anatomy, human and veterinary; and natural history. The selection of suitable professors, masters, and artists was intrusted to a committee of correspondence estab lished at Paris, and consisting of Quesnay, founder and president of the Academy, or of his representative; of a permanent and assistant secretary, a treasurer-general, and nine commissioners elected from prominent members of the Academy. The prospect of appointing a numerous faculty seems to have become darker with the approach of the Revolution in France.

The committee of correspondence was organized, but when it met it appointed only one professor. His name was Dr. Jean Rouelle. He is described as a profound scholar and an experienced traveller, having a wide acquaintance with the natural sciences. He was elected (significantly enough from a French economic view) mineralogist-in-chief of the Richmond Academy. He was also to be professor of natural history, chemistry, and botany, thus combining the leading natural sciences in one comprehensive chair. He was engaged for a term of ten years, and was instructed to form cabinets and collections for distribution in America and Europe. It was arranged that he should sail for America early in October, 1788; but it is doubtful whether he really went.