sacrifices which seem to stand in your way, as the lesser duties, and such as ought to be postponed to this, the greatest of all. Continue with us in these holy labors until, having seen their accomplishment, we may say with old Simeon, nunc dimittas, Domine.'"

This pathetic exhortation of the aged statesman of Monticello to Cabell was not without effect. Gen. Dade,* in the Senate of Virginia in 1828, speaking of Joseph C. Cabell's connection with the University of Virginia, said: "In promoting that monument of wisdom and taste [he] was second only to the immortal Jefferson."

* See "Life of Thomas Jefferson," by Henry S. Randall, LL.D., p. 464.

III.

JEFFERSON'S IDEAL UNIVERSITY.

THE amount of thought and the self-sacrificing labor which Jefferson gave to the great work of breathing a noble spirit into the university which was to add new honors to the name of Virginia, was an eloquent proof of his conviction of the priceless worth of useful knowledge to citizens of a republic.

What studies will be most useful in laying the foundation of the acquirements and habits of mind which will be most valuable to American citizens is a question worthy of far greater consideration by thoughtful parents and statesmen than, it is to be feared, it in many cases receives The question becomes all the more perplexing when one bears in mind how limited is the time that youth can attend educational institutions.

When colleges and universities were first established in Europe they were adapted, as a rule, to a condition of society very different from that of the people of the United States in the nineteenth century. Jefferson lived in an age when great revolutions and changes convulsed the civilized world. He had seen empires and kingdoms rise and fall. He had seen States in the old world dismembered, overrun with armies and revolutionized in some degree, by,various political causes. He had breathed an air which emboldened thoughtful men of learning to fearlessly review the errors and virtues of past gener

ations. He felt that educational establishments in America might be modelled on a broader, a better, a much nobler basis than were some of the so-called seminaries of learning of the old world. He recognized the great truth that on some parts of the globe it may be wise to pursue various branches of learning unneeded in others. A time had been in Europe when if the universities rendered the world invaluable service, they did so in spite of a certain spiritual and temporal despotism to which they were in many instances subjected-a despotism which dreaded the results which impartial historical and scientific investigation would lead to and looked with displeasure and with threats of persecution upon professors such as Galileo and some of his most learned associates, and which even insisted that if the Bible was studied at all it should be interpreted by many and often contradictory and unreliable writers-some of whom were styled the Fathers," rather than that the student should with a fearless and honest spirit seek untrammelled and unvexed with despotic rules, for truth. As a man of independent character Jefferson realized that the mischievous relics of the dark ages should not be allowed a place needed by the proper demands and improvements of a progressive age. He realized that new and vast regions of knowledge were being explored, and that discoveries were being made which were worthy of the regard of statesmen who were interested in the founding of good educational establishments, and that American citizens should be encouraged to attain higher and yet higher degrees of useful culture. He wished the great Republic of the new world to be enriched with every blessing which the noblest gifts of useful learning could bestow upon her. William E. Gladstone-whose name may with all the more freedom be mentioned as he is justly held in singu

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larly high esteem in America as well as in England and Europe has declared that "The proper work of universities, could they perform it, while they guard and cultivate all ancient truth, is to keep themselves in the foremost ranks of modern discovery, to harmonize continually the inherited with the acquired wealth of mankind, and to give a charter to freedom of discussion, while they maintain the reasonable limits of the domain of tradition and of authority."* Jefferson could not but have agreed with much that the learned and eloquent Gladstone has said about great educational establishments. If he was as bold, or bolder, than the great English statesman in introducing improvements and in cherishing noble views respecting the grandeur of the mission of universities, he was yet very cautious and careful in the work of grouping together liberal and judicious courses of instruction in the new university which he was taking a prominent part in securing to his native State.

Among the many questions which the Virginian statesman had to consider was, "How much time should be devoted by students to the study of Greek and Latin?" It is a question upon which to this day distinguished statesmen and men of letters have expressed different opinions. Jefferson planned that students should have much liberty in choosing for themselves the courses of study which they should be led to believe would be most useful to them in after life. He would have a young man have, to at least a certain extent, an aim in life. He wished him to be helped by wisely arranged courses of instruction provided by the university, to form broad and intelligent views respecting useful learning and to a certain extent to anticipate right ambitions of a mature manhood.

*“The Might and Mirth of Literature," by W. E. Gladstone, John De Roy, collector, p. 25.

To certain departments of the temple of knowledge he would allow young men to enter without any knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. While he did not expect young men having many different aims in life to engage in a common course of study he, for a numerous class of young men, considered an acquaintance with Greek and Latin to be of high importance. It is widely known that in modern times some thoughtful men have felt that in many American colleges an unwisely large proportion of time is given to the study of the dead languages. I was once pleasantly surprised to receive through a book-store which had printed a book entitled "Our National System of Education," which I had published in 1877, a kind note from James Abram Garfield and a couple of pamphlets which he had himself published. One of these pamphlets was an able address which he had delivered on "College Education" at Hiram College on June 14th, 1867. In this address, while he spoke in high terms of the value of an acquaintance with the classics and alluded to the pleasure with which he himself, as a professor, had taught them, he yet freely and strongly expressed the conviction, that a larger proportion of time, as a rule, was given to classical studies in American colleges than was consistent with the highest wisdom. He pointed out some of the many branches of knowledge with which it is of very great importance that American youth should be acquainted, and spoke of the impossibility of their receiving due instruction in various very important branches of learning if they were compelled to give an unfair proportion of their time to dead languages. Garfield illustrated his address with very weighty proofs of the truth of the position which he maintained and declared that in American colleges, the dead languages held a place, “ in obedience to the tyranny of custom," which was not defensi