fessors, had the happiness to see his buildings filled with students, and to act as their first rector. But for him the University had never been. He collected money, inspired its supporters in the Virginia Assembly with his own enthusiasm, and made it a great Virginian institution. All this was done after he had passed the allotted span of life an achievement for which it would be hard. to find a parallel. It was part of a general scheme to give his native state a worthy system of education - a scheme long cherished, which goes back to his first effort in 1776. When peace at last came to Europe and America, Jefferson saw his opportunity. In 1815 he wrote to his friend, Joseph C. Cabell, a Member of the Virginia Assembly, who proved to be an able and devoted servant in the cause of education, to tell him that J. B. Say, the celebrated French economist, was thinking of leaving France for America, and settling in the neighbourhood of Monticello. Might they not attract such men and convert the languishing Albemarle Academy, with the help of additional funds, into "the best seminary of the United States"? He mentions various financial resources, and adds: “In addition to this if you could obtain a loan for four or five years only of seven thousand to eight thousand dollars, I think I have it now in my power to obtain three of the ablest characters in the world to fill the higher professorships. . . . three such characters as are not in a single University of Europe."

Some modern benefactors of American Universities seem to suppose that buildings are all important. Jefferson, in spite of his passion for architecture, knew that the fame and use of a University depends on the characters and talents of the teachers, and not upon the quality or quantity of the buildings. His first step

was to sketch out a comprehensive plan of education and to call forth from the legislature of his native state a liberal spirit in the endowment of public instruction which would place it on a level with New England. The scheme which he and his friends adopted took shape in a report recommending that for educational purposes Virginia should be divided into townships and districts. In each township a primary school should be established and in each district an academy; the system to be crowned by a state university with nine professorships. In accordance with these recommendations the House of Delegates passed a Bill; but the Senate insisted on referring it to public opinion, and the two Houses ordered that the Report, the Bill, Jefferson's Bill of 1776, and a letter he had written expounding his views should be printed and distributed through the Commonwealth. Much discussion followed, and Jefferson was asked to prepare further bills for establishing a system of public education. In a letter enclosing one of these bills to Cabell he made an ironical apology for having written it in intelligible English:

"I dislike the verbose and intricate style of the modern English statutes, and in our revised code I endeavoured to restore it to the simple one of the ancient statutes in such original bills as I drew in that work. I suppose the reformation has not been acceptable, as it has been little followed. You however can easily correct this bill to the taste of my brother lawyers, by making every other word a 'said' or 'aforesaid,' and saying everything over two or three times, so as that nobody but we of the craft can untwist the diction and find out what it means."

He was working heart and soul on these legislative projects, far more interested in them than in his own financial troubles. "I have only this single anxiety in this

world," he wrote, of a bill then before the legislature: -“it is a bantling of forty years' growth and nursing, and if I can once see it on its legs I will sing with sincerity and pleasure my nunc dimittis."

In 1818 to the same correspondent he said: "A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the highest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so it will be the latest of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest." In that year there assembled in an unpretending tavern at Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge a gathering of Virginians to confer on questions of public education. There were present, besides many leading public men, President Monroe and his predecessor in office. But it was remarked, says Tucker, by the lookers on that Mr. Jefferson was the principal object of regard, that he seemed to be the chief mover of the body the soul that animated it; "and some who were present, struck by these manifestations of deference, conceived a more exalted idea of him on this simple occasion than they had ever previously entertained." Jefferson was unanimously chosen to preside, and the meeting concurred with him in recommending Charlottesville as the most suitable site for the University. The choice was sanctioned by the Legislature, and $44,000 were subscribed in Albemarle and the neighbouring counties, chiefly by Jefferson's influence and example. Jefferson and nine others subscribed. $1,000 apiece, and this money along with other funds was transferred in 1819 to the Visitors of the University. It was a proud day for Albemarle and Charlottesville when the corner stone of the University was laid. But it had cost Jefferson, as Parton reminds us, much tactful diplomacy to get it laid "just there within sight of his own

abode." Other localities had their champions. If a commissioner objected that a more salubrious site might be found, Jefferson would draw from his pocket a list of persons aged over eighty living in the neighbourhood of Charlottesville. When others suggested a more central location, Jefferson cut a card in the shape of Virginia on which his site was shown by a dot. By balancing the card on the point of a pencil he proved that the dot was nearly at the centre of the State. But the geographical centre might not be the centre of population. To meet this objection. Jefferson presented a wooden map of Virginia on which he had inscribed in his own hand the population of all the counties, to provide ocular demonstration that, if the population of Virginia had to revolve, Charlottesville would be the pivot. So "the corner stone was laid where the Master of Monticello could watch its rising glories from his portico, and ride over every day to the site five miles distant." 1

From the spring of 1819 until 1824, Jefferson spent a great part of his time in superintending the building of his University. It was time well spent. Those who have compared Monticello with other private houses of the same date, and the University of Virginia with contemporary public buildings in Europe and America will not dispute that Jefferson was one of the finest architects of the day. He designed not only the general plan, but all the subordinate parts, and made almost daily visits to see that the bricklayers, plasterers, and stone cutters, mostly from Philadelphia, executed the work to his satisfaction. It was a ten-mile ride to the University and back. When he could not undertake the journey he used to watch the work from the northeast corner of his terrace at Monti

1 See Parton's Life of Jefferson, Chap. 70. It is from the terrace, not from the portico, that one can see the University Buildings.

cello through a telescope, which is still preserved in the Library of the University.

The University was built on three sides of a square "lawn," as the Campus is called. On one side is the Rotunda, on the other two the professors' houses called Pavilions. Between the Pavilions are the students' rooms, one storey high, with colonnades. The ten Pavilions display different styles of classical architecture, with a variety very pleasing to the eye. Most of the capitals and columns were executed in Italy. As the work progressed, Jefferson loved to conduct visitors over the detailed beauties of his rising fabric. Each Pavilion was adorned with its appropriate portico, and Jefferson

as

cicerone would pause before these models to show his admiring countrymen how faithfully they presented the true features of Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian. On these embellishments, says Tucker, probably more money was spent than on those parts which were indispensable. As usual in such cases the estimates were constantly exceeded; and but for Jefferson's persuasive eloquence and influence over the Legislature, which obtained from time to time further grants in aid, the work must have been brought to a standstill. "His knowledge of the springs of human action, and his address in putting them into operation, were never more conspicuous"; but on the same authority we are told that his skilful advocacy would have been unavailing but for the marvellous patience and perseverance of which his correspondence with Cabell, filling a portly volume, and innumerable letters to other correspondents provide ample testimony.

1 Sarah Randolph, in those charming and often pathetic reminiscences of her great-grandfather, speaks of the University "whose classic dome and columns are now [1871] lit up by the rays of the same sun which shines on the ruin and desolation of his own once happy home."