CHAPTER V

THOMAS JEFFERSON-FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF

VIRGINIA

The Mercer bill vs. Mr. Jefferson's; Mercer in Congress; Mr. Jefferson's Educational Bill of 1817-1818; first report of Central College proposing its conversion into the University of Virginia; Mr. Jefferson's final draft and trial; dreams realized; difficulty over location; Rockfish Commission-its report to Legislature; final contest, Mr. Baldwin of Augusta; First Board of Visitors; Mr. Jefferson chosen_Rector; University's architecture, plans, construction; Dr. Thomas Cooper's opposition, religious apprehensions; selection of Ticknor and Bowditch; buildings advanced; monetary difficulties; religious doctrines; Father of our Navy, etc.

THE Mercer Bill although similar to that of Mr. Jefferson's had some notable exceptions: 1, The Board of Public Instruction was authorized to accept the Anne Smith Academy, for the education of females, and to provide for the erection of not more than two other similar institutions, thereby introduced female education at the public expense. 2, Four colleges were proposed-Pendleton, Wythe, Henry, Jefferson, and the three already existing, William and Mary, Washington, Hampden-Sidney, might be received into this arrangement at the option of their Trustees. 3, The Primary Schools were to be established first, Academies second, Colleges third, and the University last-then only if sufficient funds remained after completing the preceding. These and several minor differences rendered the bill in Mr. Jefferson's opinion decidedly objectionable-much inferior to his plan of establishing Primary Schools without taking a cent from the Literary Fund, leaving it for founding Academies (Colleges) in every district of eighty miles square, and finally an University centrally 10cated. He further believed that unless something less extravagant be devised, the whole undertaking would fail, as the Primary Schools alone would exhaust the entire funds, consequently he set himself again at work to produce a more acceptable single bill for the next session of the Legislature.

Mercer had now been elected to Congress, where he remained twenty-one years, so he was out of the way, and likewise, as it proved, was his bill. After a slow and painful siege of writing Mr. Jefferson finished the so-called, "Jefferson's Educational Bill of 1817-1818," which was forwarded, October 24, 1817, to Cabell with these concluding words: "I send you the result brought into a single bill, lest by bringing it on by detachments some of the parts might be lost." This bill abstracted largely from the plan enunciated in his comprehensive letter to Peter Carr, September 7, 1814-dividing the State into nine collegiate districts, each to have a college with two professors, paid from the Literary Fund, and teaching Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, English grammar, geography, higher arithmetic, mensuration of land, use of globes, and the ordinary elements of navigation; also an University "in a central and healthy part of the State," whose location should be determined by a board of eight visitors, subject to approval by the Board of Public Instruction, unless the State should decide to accept the present lands, buildings, property, and rights of Central College, whenever its board of visitors should authorize a transfer to the Board of Public Instruction, for the purposes of an University. In this institution should be taught history and geography-ancient and modern-natural philosophy, agriculture, chemistry, theories of medicine, anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology, mathematics-pure and mixed-military and naval science, ideology, ethics, law of nature and nations, law-municipal and foreign-science of civil government and political economy, languages, rhetoric, belles-letters, and the fine arts generally all distributed to not more than ten professors."

In order to pave the way for this bill Mr. Jefferson submitted shortly thereafter, January 6, 1818, to the speaker of the House of Delegates the first report of the Trustees of Central College, in which he recounted in detail its plans, progress and prospects, taking care to emphasize "the want. of a seminary of general science in a healthy part of the State, and nearly central to its population, for whose development the resources at the command of the Legislature would alone be adequate. By the Mercer bill of the last session, passed by one branch and printed by the other, for public consideration, a

disposition appears to go into a system of general education, of which a single University for the use of the whole State is to be a component part. But observing that in the bill presented to public consideration a combination of private and public contributions has been contemplated, and considering such an incorporation as completely fulfilling the view of our institution, we undertake to declare that if the Legislature shall think proper to proceed to the establishment of an University, and to adopt for its location the site of the Central College, we are so certain of the approbation of those for whom we act, that we may give safe assurances of the ready transfer to the State of all the property and rights of the Central College, in possession or in action, towards the establishment of such an University, and under such laws and provisions as the Legislature shall be pleased to establish; and that we ourselves shall be ready to deliver over our charge to such successors, or such other organization, as the Legislature shall be pleased to ordain, and with increased confidence of its success under their care."

This was the first intimation, at least official proposal, to convert Central College into the University of Virginia, a proposition to thoughtful persons savoring of much reason and advantage, as that institution was well-located, well-endowed and well-underway, while its educational scope was to be of an university character-that which the State so thoroughly needed and desired. It would be far better, surely more economical, to promote and sustain this than to establish another de novo, only to become a strong and deadly rival-a fact that Mr. Jefferson fully realized, and could not believe his people would think otherwise when enlightened upon the conditions— and yet he was conscious of needed diplomacy that his hopes might succeed.

He wrote to Cabell, December 18, 1817: “I think you had better keep back the general plan till this report is made, as I am persuaded it will give a lift to that. Pray drop me a line when any vote is passed which furnishes an indication of the success or failure of the general plan. I have only this single anxiety in the world. It is a bantling of forty years' birth and nursing, and if I can once see it on its legs, I will sing with sincerity and pleasure my nunc dimittas."

Mr. Jefferson was now seventy-five years of age, and though all his efforts in the interest of local "Diffusion of Knowledge," extending over forty years, had been apparently without results, yet he was enthused to a high degree in making one more final trial. He wrote Cabell, December 31st: "I have this morning sent to Mr. Madison a draft of the report I promised you. When returned, I shall have to make out a fair copy and send it the round for signature. You may, therefore, expect it about the last of next week." This report was placed in the hands of the Speaker, January 6, 1818, with the request that it be communicated to the House in such form as he thought best. Mr. Jefferson anxiously awaited a knowledge of the impression it made upon the Legislature—“ because that shows how near we are to the accomplishment of a good college, one that cannot but be thought of some value to the State-and the urgency of their enabling us to complete it."

Cabell wrote Mr. Jefferson, January 5, 1818: "It grieves me to tell you that I think our prospects are by no means flattering in the General Assembly. I shall not relax my small exertions in this noble cause. I hunt assiduously around me for every suggestion towards lessening the difficulties on the branch of the primary schools. The hostile interests to Central College-the Cincinnati Society, mostly Federalists, and the Lexington people both favor Washington College; the Staunton people, who have not only selected the site in their midst for the University, but would have the capital removed there from Richmond-have been constantly at work producing some effect on the House of Delegates, now much altered for the worse, with which I believe nothing can be done. Again, the discordant opinions about the primary schools seem irreconcilable. Efforts have been, and doubtless will be made to convert this subject into a question between the east and west side of the Blue Ridge. Judge Roane, Col. Nicholas and others disapprove of your plan of an assessment on the wards, believing the moneys should come out of the Literary Fund, but that your mode of administration should be kept up."

Mr. Jefferson wrote Cabell, January 14th: "A system of general instruction which shall reach every description of our

citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest. Nor am I tenacious of the form in which it shall be introduced. Be that what it may, our descendants will be as wise as we are, and will know how to amend and amend until it shall suit their circumstances. Give it to us, then, in any shape, and receive for the inestimable boon the thanks of the young, and the blessings of the old, who are past all other services but prayers for the prosperity of their country and blessings to those who promote it." This letter Cabell had published in the Richmond Enquirer, February 10th, and while the "enlightened few " read it with sympathy and fervor, yet it failed to attract many legislators to the support of the bill. The House of Delegates really preferred a small appropriation for educating the poor from the Literary Fund, and the rest of it devoted to paying the State's debts. It rose, however, to the demands of the occasion, by accepting a compromise between the highest and lowest forms of education-Hill's substitute for Mr. Jefferson's bill.

On January 22nd, Cabell wrote Mr. Jefferson: "I have read the bill and am greatly disappointed. Indeed, sir, the prospect before us is dreary." Three weeks later he wrote in a more cheerful strain: "When the school bill came up in the Senate we engrafted upon it a provision for an University, and it has passed, February 21st, in the form of the enclosed with one small exception. The bill gives forty-five thousand dollars per annum to the poor, and fifteen thousand to the University-this latter amount being continued for nearly sixty years as the State's sole annuity. The Governor and Council shall choose one commissioner from each Senatorial District in the State, who, as a body, shall meet at Rockfish Gap, August 1, 1818, and sojourn from place to place and time to time; that they shall report to the next Assembly the best site, plan, etc., and the next Assembly will have the whole subject in their power. We have fifteen districts (out of the possible twenty-four) on this side of the Ridge, and I think we are safe in the hands of the Executive. The appointment of the commissioners is now a subject of infinite importance to us, The Executive, I think, will do us justice. Our policy