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functions; and we should propose to draw from Europe the first characters in science, by considerable temptations, which would not need to be repeated after the first set should have prepared fit successors and given reputation to the institution. From some splendid characters I have received offers most perfectly reasonable and practicable. Will not

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the arrival of Dupont tempt you to make a visit to this quarter?" These extracts indicate the shape which the idea of a university was already taking in Jefferson's mind as early as 1800, and the influence which Old World associations had already exerted upon him, In another letter to Dr. Priestley, dated Philadelphia, January 27. 1800, Jefferson said: "I have a letter from Mr. Dupont, since his arrival at New York, dated the 20th, in which he says he will be in Philadelphia within about a fortnight from that time, but only on a visit. How much would it delight me if a visit from you at the same time were to show us two such illustrious foreigners embracing each other in my country, as the asylum for whatever is great and good!"

DUPONT DE NEMOURS ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.

One of the most interesting of Jefferson's correspondents was the distinguished French economist and philosopher, Dupont de Nemours. He was a friend of Turgot, and belonged to that group of French economists who labored to avert the French Revolution by economic measures. His writings upon social and philosophical subjects were influential in their day, and are mentioned in some detail in the sketch of his life printed in the Biographie Générale. Dupont de Nemours was a member of the Assemblée des Notables, and was one of the best types of educated public men under the old régime. It was his earnest and unwearied endeavor to benefit society by advocating sound political economy and popular education. He made Jefferson's acquaintance in Paris before the outbreak of the Revolution, and came to this country at the close of the eighteenth century. He arrived in New York in January, 1800, and soon after visited Jefferson in Philadelphia, as is indicated in Jefferson's letter to Priestley above quoted. On the occasion of this visit it is probable that Jefferson talked over with Dupont de Nemours the general project of encouraging higher education in America. By this time Washington's scheme for a national university, to be established in the Federal city of Washington, was generally known. He had announced it to Congress and had provided for it by his last will and testament. Men's thoughts of higher education were beginning to take national scope.

Dupont de Nemours undertook to write a treatise on National Education in the United States. This work (Sur Education Nationale dans les Etats Unis) was written in French, and was completed June 15, 1800, at "Good Stay, près New York." The work was published at Paris, and the author took occasion to say that it was written in the year 1800 "à la demande de M. Jefferson, alors vice président, et depuis président des 17036-No. 2--4

États-Unis d'Amérique; il a eu le suffrage de ce grand Magistrat et de son respectable successeur." The work went through at least two French editions. A copy of the second edition, which the present writer has read with great care, bears the imprint, "Paris, 1812," and contains 159 small octavo pages. By a curious chance this copy was sent to the author of this report by a representative of the well-known Dupont family, long resident at Wilmington, Del., with a request for information whether this treatise, written by their ancestor, had any influence upon the plans of Thomas Jefferson for university education in Virginia. The one who sent the treatise had no knowledge of the fact that the writer, at that very time, was investigating the origin of the University of Virginia; hence the acquisition seemed remarkably good luck.

CHARACTER OF THE TREATISE.

Dupont de Nemours' treatise on National Education in the United States relates in general, as the title implies, to a general system of popular education for the whole country, rather than to the organization of a university in Virginia. The author said, indeed, that it was especially concerning the establishment of a university that he had been desired to prepare his monograph. The university idea of Dupont de Nemours included not only the higher, but also secondary and primary education. In fact, his plan embraced the whole educational field, and was described as the University of North America. The author says that he is perfectly well aware of the fact that he has broken away from the historic constitution of universities, with their traditional faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. In his judgment, however, America and even European countries require a national system of education, beginning with common schools and culminating in special, professional, and technical institutions. He proposed that the city of Washington should be made the educational, as well as the political, capital of the United States. There, he said, should be planted four grandes écoles: (1) a school of medicine; (2) a school of mines; (3) a school of social science and legislation; and (4) a school of the higher mathematics. To be a student of the national university in the full sense of that term, one must have passed through all the ascending grades of education, from the lowest primary to the highest special school or professional schools ("Un jeune homme qui aura suivi l'école primaire, le collège et les grandes écoles, sera un élève de notre université").

There was to be no necessary connection between the various grandes écoles in Washington, save perhaps in the fact of a common establishment in one grand building devoted to a national library, a national museum, with offices for the ministry of public instruction, rooms for a philosophical society, and a botanical garden attached. The brilliant imagination of the French philosopher pictured this palace of education as one of the chief adornments of the Federal city. He would have

recommended for Washington a national university in splendor second only to the Capitol itself. He would have had the American people, instead of building royal palaces, like the Louvre, or the Tuileries, or the palace at Versailles, build a People's Palace for their own higher education in art, science, and self-government.

It is obvious that the scheme for national education proposed by Dupont de Nemours was altogether too grand for realization in a federal republic, where the higher education was but feebly developed, even within the individual States. And yet, although conceived upon far too magnificent a scale, this broad scheme, based upon common schools and developing into a university system, has some general resemblance to that conceived by Jefferson for the State of Virginia as early as 1779. It is possible, and not altogether improbable, that Dupont de Nemours' treatise gave both sanction and emphasis to Jefferson's project for a State university, composed of distinct schools for the most advanced instruction. The idea was not peculiar to Dupont de Nemours. It was originated in the schools of Paris, which formed the oldest university in Europe, centuries before the time of Jefferson and his advisers. The influence exerted by Dupont de Nemours must be regarded as one that strengthened and confirmed ideas already in Jefferson's mind. The thought of State education was in the air. Alexander Hamilton grasped it in his scheme for the University of the State of New York, regulating to this day educational interests high and low. Early in the present century the statesmen of Prussia grasped the same idea, and reformed a down-trodden, humiliated people by a system of public education which began with the lowest and led to the highest.

PROFESSOR MINOR ON DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

Professor John B. Minor, in a graphic and instructive account of the origin of the University of Virginia, is generously inclined to credit Dupont de Nemours with considerable influence upon Jefferson's plan for university organization. Professor Minor says: "The scheme adopted bears a close resemblance to that of the German universities, but it is probable that Mr. Jefferson derived it not from that source, but immediately from Mons. Dupont de Nemours, a Frenchman of prominence, with whom he occasionally corresponded, and who during a sojourn in the United States was a frequent guest at Monticello. The writer has seen a manuscript translation (executed by Francis W. Gilmer) of an essay written by M. Dupont de Nemours, apparently by special request, setting forth his opinions as to the best mode of organizing seminaries of learning in the United States, the ideas of which so closely coincide in some particulars with the scheme of the University as to exclude the supposition of a resemblance merely casual."1 Pro1 Historical Sketches of Virginia: Literary Institutions of the State; University of Virginia, Part I. Published in the Old Dominion Magazine, Vol. IV, March 15, 1870 (Richmond, Va.). This invaluable series of articles on the University of Virginia

fessor Minor clearly has in mind the prominence given by both Jefferson and his French adviser to the university system of independent schools, severing allegiance from the time-honored dogma that a university must have its foundation in arts," or consist of four facultiestheology, law, medicine, and philosophy. In this respect the Frenchman and the Virginian certainly stood upon common ground.

PROFESSOR PICTET, OF GENEVA.

The Dupont treatise on national education by Dupont de Nemours was doubtless shown to Jefferson in 1800. Three years later we find the latter corresponding with Professor Pictet, of the Swiss College at Geneva, probably the same man who had been associated with Jefferson in Quesnay's scheme for a French academy at Richmond. In a letter dated Washington, February 5, 1803, Jefferson said, respecting Pictet's proposed removal to Virginia: "I knew it was not safe for you to take such a step until it would be done on sure ground. I hoped at that time that some canal shares which were at the disposal of General Washington might have been applied toward the establishment of a good seminary of learning; but he had already proceeded too far on another plan to change their direction. I have still had constantly in view to propose to the Legislature of Virginia the establishment of one on as large a scale as our present circumstances would require or bear. But as yet no favorable moment has occurred. In the meanwhile I am endeavoring to procure materials for a good plan. With this view I am to ask the favor of you to give me a sketch of the branches of science taught in your college, how they are distributed among the professors; that is to say, how many professors there are and what branches of science are allotted to each professor, and the days and hours assigned to each branch. Your successful experience in the distribution of business will be a valuable guide to us who are without experience. I am sensible I am imposing on your goodness a troublesome task; but I believe every son of science feels a strong and disinterested desire of promoting it in every came to the writer's attention after his own work was substantially finished, and confirms, by actual knowledge and independent testimony, many of the judgments formed by the present writer upon documentary evidence studied at a distance from the University premises. The above-mentioned historical sketches relate solely to the University of Virginia, and were continued in monthly parts from April, 1870, until June, 1871. The Old Dominion Magazine was early discontinued. Professor Minor said to the writer in a private letter: "I suspect my copy, now somewhat dilapidated, is the only one extant, and it is as precious to me as an ancient MS., because I contemplate some day reprinting it in book form." The writer made a pilgrimage to the University of Virginia to get a glimpse of this work, of which no trace could be found in the libraries of Richmond. The University of Virginia and the "Theatre of Marcellus " proved such interesting object-lessons, that a student could really find no time to read books upon those premises. By the necessities of the situation he was constrained to borrow the precious history and to take it to Baltimore for careful examination. He improves this occasion to thank Mr. Minor anew for his great kindness, and to thank also those who dwell in the "Theatre of Marcellus" for their co-operating influences.

part of the earth, and it is the consciousness as well as confidence in this which emboldens me to make the present request." This is a good illus tration of Jefferson's method of acquiring information upon educational matters, and of his continued interest in the university idea, even when burdened with responsibility as President of the Federal Republic.

JOSEPH CARRINGTON CABELL'S EUROPEAN TRAINING.

In the year 1806 a young Virginian, returning from three years' travel and study in Europe, arrived in Washington with letters of introduction to Mr. Jefferson, President of the United States. This young man, then twenty-eight years old, was Joseph Carrington Cabell (17781856). He was a graduate of William and Mary College in the year 1798, and afterward studied law in Williamsburg with Judge Tucker. Like Thomas Jefferson, Cabell was one of the finest types of liberal and professional culture ever graduated from that royal old college, which trained up many statesmen for Virginia. Like Jefferson, too, Cabell had experienced the liberalizing and broadening influence of European culture. He went to Europe in 1803 for his health, which remained delicate throughout his entire life. Like Jefferson, again, Cabell made Paris the centre of his European study. He heard the lectures of Cuvier and other professors at the Collège de France. He studied natural science at Montpellier, and sojourned at various Italian universities, notably at Padua, Rome, and Naples. Educational methods appear to have been Cabell's as well as Jefferson's principal object of inquiry. Both men conceived the same ideal of benefiting their native State by means of progressive ideas from Europe. Like Jefferson, Cabell interested himself in Swiss education. He went to Verdun and studied the novel system of Pestalozzi, which he afterwards endeavored to introduce into Virginia. He visited also the Universities of Leyden, Cambridge, and Oxford, and thus completed a grand tour of educational observation. Such was the preliminary training of the man whose influence was to become second only to that of Jefferson in founding the University of Virginia. This man's work is almost unknown outside his native State, and it is the privilege of a student of educational history to point out the important connection established between Cabell and Jefferson.

JEFFERSON AND CABELL.

The young Virginian attracted the veteran statesman so strongly, that the latter offered Cabell various positions in the civil and in the diplo matic service; but Cabell had lived long enough away from home. He was anxious to return to Virginia and to identify himself with the interests of his own people. In the year 1807 he became interested in the project of De la Coste, a French scientist, to establish a museum of natural history at William and Mary College. Application was made to Mr. Jefferson for aid, but the project was discouraged by him. Jefferson

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