Such was Jefferson's idea of the external form of the future University of Virginia. In this report, of which he is manifestly the author, the trustees of Central College assure the Legislature of their willingness to transfer all the property and rights of Central College toward the estab lishment of a State university. They say that they have realized nearly $3,200 from the sale of the glebe lands, and altogether, including subscriptions, they "count with safety on forty-six or forty-seven thousand dollars." The actual subscription lists to the Central College which are printed in the Correspondence of Jefferson and Cabell, show a total of over $44,000. These lists of names represent twelve different counties and three cities, Richmond, Lynchburg, and Winchester, and show a remarkably wide-spread interest in Jefferson's project. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Cabell, Cocke, and five other gentlemen subscribed each $1,000. There were over two hundred subscriptions, ranging from $5 to $500. Such liberality and such a considerable number of names are interesting evidence of the favorable attitude of the Virginia planters at this period (1818) toward the higher education.

JEFFERSON TO JOHN ADAMS ON CENTRAL COLLEGE.

The progress and prospects of Central College, just before its transition into the University of Virginia, are well shown in a letter from Jefferson to John Adams, dated Poplar Forest,1 September 8, 1817: "A mouth's absence from Monticello has added to the delay of acknowledging your last letters, and, indeed, for a month before I left it, our projected college gave me constant employment; for, being the only visitor in its immediate neighborhood, all its administrative business falls on me, and that, where building is going on, is not a little. In yours of July 15th, you express a wish to see our plan, but the present visitors have sanctioned no plan as yet. Our predecessors, the first trustees, had desired me to propose one to them, and it was on that occasion I asked and received the benefit of your ideas on the subject. Digesting these with such other schemes as I had been able to collect, I made out a prospectus, the looser and less satisfactory from the uncertain amount of the funds to which it was to be adapted. This I addressed, in the form of a letter, to their president, Peter Carr, which, going before the Legislature when a change in the constitution of the college was asked, got into the public papers, and, among others, I think you will find it in Niles' Register, in the early part of 1815. This, however, is to be considered but as a première ébauche, for the consideration and amendment of the present visitors, and to be accommodated 1 Mr. Jefferson's farm in Bedford County.

The exact reference is Niles' Register, March 16, 1816, where Jefferson's letter to Peter Carr may be found. A letter from Jefferson on elementary education occurs in Niles, May 2, 1818. This Baltimore journal followed with great interest the progress of Jefferson's educational work. Niles, June 26, 1824, announces the courses of instruction that were soon to be opened at the University of Virginia.

to one of two conditions of things. If the institution is to depend on private donations alone, we shall be forced to accumulate on the shoulders of four professors a mass of sciences which, if the Legislature adopts it, should be distributed among ten. We shall be ready for a professor of languages in April next, for two others the following year, and a fourth the year after. How happy should we be if we could have a Ticknor1 for our first. A critical classic is scarcely to be found in the United States. To this professor a fixed salary of $500, with liberal tuition fees from the pupils, will probably give $2,000 a year. We are now on the lookout for a professor, meaning to accept of none but of the very first order."

1 An attempt was actually made, in 1820, to secure as professors for the University of Virginia, Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, and Mr. Bowditch, of Salem. Apartments were promised, with a salary of $2,000 and with fees guaranteed to the additional amount of $500. Dr. Thomas Cooper, an Englishman, resident in Pennsylvania, was appointed the year before. All of these original negotiations excited considerable sectarian opposition in Virginia, because all three of the above-named gentlemen were reputed to be Unitarians. Upon this interesting point, see the Jefferson and Cabell correspondence, p. 233 et seq. The opposition to the Unitarian movement was not confined to the South. Cabell told Jefferson that it was through the correspondence of Bible Societies that "the discovery of the religious opinions of Ticknor and Bowditch was made."

CHAPTER V.

TRANSITION FROM THE COLLEGE TO THE UNIVERSITY.

TWO LINES OF POLICY.

Jefferson's plans for the development of university education in Virginia proceeded along two lines of policy. The first was local, originating in Albemarle Academy, and advancing by local subscriptions to the actual foundation of Central College. The second line of policy was legislative, and led from an economic base called the literary fund, to the idea of a State university. It is clearly apparent that Jefferson meant that these two lines should converge and unite. His purpose then was to have Central College adopted by the State as the University of Virginia. Cabell was in the Legislature watching his opportunity and informing Jefferson of the progress of events.

On the 24th of February, 1816, the president and directors of the literary fund were requested to prepare and report a system of public education, comprehending a university to be called "The University of Virginia," and such additional colleges, academies, and schools as should diffuse the benefits of education throughout the Commonwealth. The responsible member of this commission was the president of the board of directors, W. C. Nicholas, Governor of the State. There was nothing easier for him to do than to seek the counsel of Jefferson.

JEFFERSON'S LETTER TO GOVERNOR NICHOLAS.

Although in retirement at Monticello, Jefferson was in constant correspondence with the public men of his time, both in and out of Virginia. Early in the spring of 1816 we find Governor Nicholas asking Jefferson's advice with reference to the subject of education. The Governor was president of the board of directors of the literary fund and was naturally desirous of making a good official report. Jefferson was an acknowledged authority upon educational matters, and to him the Governor turned for counsel. Jefferson gave it liberally in a long letter, dated at Monticello, April 2, 1816. After reminding the Governor of the close resemblance between the present recommendation of the Virginia Legislature and bills for the more general diffusion of knowledge, reported in 1779, and proposing three grades of instruction,-a university, district colleges or grammar schools, and county or ward schools, Jefferson said: "The report will have to present the plan of an univer

sity, analyzing the sciences, selecting those which are useful, grouping them into professorships, commensurate each with the time and faculties of one man, and prescribing the regimen and all other necessary details. On this subject I can offer nothing new. A letter of mine to Peter Carr, which was published during the last session of Assembly, is a digest of all the information I possess on the subject, from which the board will judge whether they can extract anything useful.

"As the buildings to be erected will also enter into their report, I would strongly recommend to their consideration, instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, to admit of extension, connected by a piazza, so that they may go dry from one school to another. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace, and quiet. Such a plan had been approved in the case of the Albemarle College, which was the subject of the letter above mentioned; and should the idea be approved by the board, more may be said hereafter on the opportunity these small buildings will afford of exhibiting models in architecture of the purest forms of antiquity, furnishing to the student examples of the precepts he will be taught in that art." Here is the connecting architectural link between the Albemarle Academy and the Univer sity of Virginia, as conceived by Jefferson.

In his letter to the Governor the Sage of Monticello did not fail to revert to his early and favorite project of elementary education by means of ward schools. He reminded the Governor that ideas upon that subject had been long ago embodied in a bill for the general diffusion of knowledge in Virginia, and that time and reflection had only served to strengthen in his mind the general principle of subdividing the counties into wards, with a school in each ward. "My partiality," he said, "for that division is not founded in views of education solely, but infinitely more as the means of a better administration of our goverment, and the eternal preservation of republican principles. The example of this most admirable of all human contrivances in government is to be seen in our Eastern States; and its powerful effect in the order and economy of their internal affairs, and the momentum it gives them as a nation is the single circumstance which distinguishes them so remarkably from every other national association. In a letter to Mr. Adams a few years ago, I had occasion to explain to him the structure of our scheme of education as proposed in the bill for the diffusion of knowledge, and the views of this particular section of it, and

The use by Jefferson of the word "nation" for New England is very remarkable. It is, however, paralleled by the frequent employment, in American local usage, of the term "country" for section, State, or county. And yet such usage is in perfect accord with the gradual development of our ideas of country and nation from local experience. The Germanic village community of united families was the prototype of united Germany and of the United States.

2 October 28, 1813.

in another lately to Mr. Cabell,1 on the occasion of the bill for the Albemarle College, I also took a view of the political effects of the proposed division into wards, which, being more easily copied than thrown into new form here, I take the liberty of inclosing extracts from them. Should the board of directors approve of the plan and make ward divisions the substratum of their elementary schools, their report may furnish a happy occasion of introducing them, leaving all their other uses to be adopted from time to time hereafter, as occasion shall occur."

CIRCULAR LETTER FROM GOVERNOR NICHOLAS.

On the 30th of May, 1816, Governor Nicholas issued a circular letter to various distinguished gentlemen, asking advice respecting a system of public education for the State of Virginia. As president of the board of directors of the literary fund the duty to collect information devolved upon him, but it is highly probable that Jefferson, or his friend Cabell, who was in the Legislature, made valuable suggestions to the Governor with reference to this letter and the proper persons to address. Among the latter was Jefferson's friend, Thomas Cooper, professor of chemistry in Carlisle College, Pennsylvania. The following passage from the circular letter is worthy of Jefferson himself: "The great cause of literature and science is not local in its nature, but is an object of interest to the whole human species. The commonwealth of letters embraces every region, however remote. It can not fail to excite pleasing emotions in every enlightened American to perceive that Virginia has taken this subject under its patronage, and devoted a fund to its accomplishment, which is annually increasing. To you, sir, I think it proper to address myself, knowing your attachment to literature, and feeling great confidence that you will not consider your valuable time misspent in communicating any ideas which may promote so useful an object. I can assure you that they will be received with that high sense of obligation which their importance must inspire."

DR. COOPER ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

The following extracts from the reply of Dr. Cooper are worthy of preservation, for they are characteristic of one of the most remarkable educators in the United States at this period, and of the man in whom Jefferson had perhaps more confidence than in any other in American academic circles. In the lack of illustrations of his correspondence with Jefferson, this letter of advice to the Governor of Virginia, upon the subject dearest to Jefferson's heart, is especially valuable. Cooper represents English ideas of university education. After considering

1 Letters of Jefferson and Cabell, 37.

2 Other traces of English influence besides the counsel of Dr. Cooper may be found in Jefferson's study of English universities, as described in print. Jefferson owned Russell's Tract on the Universities of Great Britain, and lent it to Cabell, who showed it to such influential politicians as General Breckenridge and Mr. Johnson. Cabell also borrowed Jefferson's Oxford and Cambridge Guide.