15

admissible without tending to sectarianism.

It is worthy of observation how skillfully, in the
plan of this University, he has wrought into one institution, the system
of institution, which in his earlier speculations, he had proposed
to assign to seminaries of different grades. It is also to be observ-
ed that he has anticipated, by more than half a Century, the ex-
isting demand for schools of applied science, and has created in
the University, a nucleus susceptible of indefinite expansion
and development in this direction, It is further worthy of remark,
as illustrative of his Statesmanlike fertility of resource, that when
as a School of Theology, however guarded, could not have failed to
excite lively jealousies, he proposed to evade the difficulty by
inviting the several Christian denominations to found schools
of Theology in the vicinity of the University, with permission to
their students to enjoy the benefits of the University, as if matricu-
lated in it.

In 1796 an Act was passed, (with a preamble
setting out with much rhetorical embellishment the public & in-
dividual advantages of Education), which provided for the first
branch of Mr Jefferson's scheme, namely a system of free prima-
ry schools, but concluded its enacting clauses, with the [felo de se?]
proviso that it should not go into effect in any county, until
approved by the acting justices thereof. (2 Stats. at [Large?] (new se-
ries/, 3.) This approval was not [recorded?] in a [single?] county & the
act [fell?] still-born.

After that the subject of general education
lost interest in the Commonwealth for many years. Schools & colle-
ges declined in the standard of their instruction, and consequently
in the number of {students} pupils, and the Youth of Virginia who
desired ven a decent modicum of collegiate attainment, were
constrained to resort to institutions outside of the Commonwealth,
whither they annually carried more than a quarter of a
million of dollars. More than half of the students at Princeton
were Virginians, ('Jefferson & Cabell' Correspond. 201.) and many found