University of Virginia Library

II. The Report

In writing to John Adams, several years afterwards,
Jefferson somewhat modestly declared that the Report
consisted simply of "outlines addressed to a legislative

body, and not of details, such as would have been more
suitable had it been addressed to a learned academy."
But however briefly and succinctly couched, it is perhaps
the most pregnant and suggestive document of its kind
that has been issued in the history of American Education.
Few men of his day had given the penetrating and discriminating
thought to the subject which he had done;
here, in a very narrow compass, will be found the kernel
of every conviction that he had reached as to the proper
college architecture, the true aims of both elementary and
advanced instruction, the branches of learning that
should be taught in a university, the inadvisability of sectarianism
in its management, the methods of governing
its students, and the duties which should be incumbent
upon its board.

As this report was drawn with direct reference to the
University of Virginia, and afterwards shaped the general
character of its whole system, a synopsis of its most
salient features will be distinctly pertinent to our subject.
In proposing a plan for the architectural setting
of the institution as required by the Legislature, Jefferson
simply repeats the scheme which he was already carrying
out in the lawn, pavilions, and dormitories of
Central College. To it, however, he adds a large building
"in the middle of the grounds," which was his earliest
public foreshadowing of the present Rotunda. With
respect to the branches of learning to be taught in the
new seat of learning, he first dwells upon the conspicuous
benefits to accrue from elementary and advanced
instruction respectively, and combats the perverse idea of
those persons who consider the sciences as useless acquirements,
or at least, such as the private purse alone
should pay for. On the contrary, he said, a great establishment

in which all the sciences should be embraced
was far beyond the means of the individual, and it must
either derive its being from public patronage or not
exist at all. In such an establishment, the following
courses should, in his judgment, be introduced: (1) the
ancient languages, including Hebrew, as well as Latin
and Greek; (2) the modern languages,—French, Spanish,
Italian, German and Anglo-Saxon; (3) mathematics,
—algebra, fluxions, geometry, and architecture; (4)
physico-mathematics, mechanics, statics, dynamics, pneumatics,
acoustics, optics, astronomy and geography; (5)
physics or natural philosophy, chemistry, and mineralogy;
(6) botany and zoology; (7) anatomy and medicine;
(8) government,—political economy, history, and
the law of nature and nations; (9) municipal law; and
(10) ideology,—general grammar, ethics, rhetoric,
belles-lettres and the fine arts.

Jefferson was regretfully aware that, without more preparatory
schools than existed in Virginia at that time to
train the youths who intended to enter the University,
its standards in the ancient languages,—tuition in which
he so highly valued,—would necessarily be damaged.
No greater obstruction to that particular study, he remarks
in the Report, could be suggested than the presence,
the intrusion, and the noisy turbulence of small
boys; and, said he, if they are to be permitted to go to
the University to acquire the rudiments of these languages,
they may be so numerous that the characteristics
which should belong to it as a seat of higher learning,
will be submerged in those of an ordinary grammar
school. He pressed upon the consideration of the General
Assembly the expediency of erecting a system of intermediate
academies, for, unless they were set up, the

University would be overwhelmed with pupils not at all
fitted by their previous schooling to uphold its scholarship.

The proposal of a course in Anglo-Saxon was a novel
one in those times, when its study was confined to a few
private investigators. "It will form," he said, "the
first link in the chain of an historical review of our
language through all its successive changes to the present
day; and will constitute the foundation of that critical
instruction in it which ought to be found in a seminary
of general learning." He candidly admitted in the Report
that only a single professor for both medicine and
surgery was possible at first, as the population of Charlottesville
and the surrounding region was not as yet
sufficiently large to justify the erection of a hospital,
where students would enjoy the practical advantage of
clinical lectures and surgical operations. Only the theory
of medicine and surgery as a science was to be
taught. Anatomy, however, was to be fully covered.
The Report, in addition, recommended that no chair of
divinity should be established, for to do so, it said,
would be repugnant to that principle of the Constitution
which puts all religious sects on a footing of equality.
It advised that, for the present at least, only ten professors
should be chosen, and that a maximum for their
salaries should be determined. Whilst no formal provision
for gymnastics was suggested, the expediency of
encouraging manual exercise, military manoeuvres, and
tactics in general, was urged; so also was instruction in
the arts which embellish life, such as dancing, music, and
drawing; and finally,—and this was perhaps the most
original feature of the Report,—it proposed that training
in the handicrafts should be given.

From some points of view, the most distinctly Jeffersonian

recommendation was the one that a system of
government should be devised for the students which
should be entirely devoid of every form of coercion. All
sense of fear should be banished. "The human character,"
so the Report asserted, "is susceptible of other incitements
to correct conduct more worthy of employ and
of better effect. Pride of character, laudable ambition,
and moral dispositions are innate correctives of the indiscretions
of that lively age. A system founded on reason
and comity will be more likely to nourish in the minds of
our youth the combined spirit of order and self-respect."

The Report, still following closely Jefferson's previously
expressed opinions, further recommended that all
questions concerning qualifications for entrance, the arrangement
of the hours of lecture, the establishment of
public examinations, the bestowal of prizes and degrees,
should be entrusted to the board of visitors. It also
laid down the additional duties of this board, the most
important of which were represented to be: the general
care of the buildings and grounds, and the other properties
of the University; the appointment of all the necessary
agents; the selection and removal of professors; the
prescribing and grouping of the courses of instruction;
the adoption of regulations for the government and discipline
of the students; the determining of the tuition
fees and dormitory rents; the drawing from the Literary
Fund of the annuity to which the University would be
entitled; and the general superintendence and direction of
all the affairs of the institution. The Report, in closing,
advised that the board should convene twice a year;
that it should nominate a rector; and that it should enjoy
the right to use a common seal, to plead and be impleaded
in all courts of justice, and to receive subscriptions
and donations, real and personal. Appended to

the document were two statements,—one indicating the
amount of property which John Robinson was willing to
devise to Washington College, should it be chosen as the
site of the new university; the other, the amount which
the Central College was ready to deliver at once, on the
same condition as to itself.