University of Virginia Library

RESPONSE ON BEHALF OF FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES BY HIS EXCELLENCY JULES
JUSSERAND, FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES

I am most happy that it is my privilege to answer on this auspicious day
and to offer congratulations, on behalf of foreign institutions, among which
are those of France.

The French feeling for the founder of the University of Virginia was of
the warmest. Jefferson had studied our philosophers, spoke our language
and spent five years among us as the diplomatic representative of the newborn
American Republic. The sympathy was reciprocal. "I do love this
people with all my heart," he wrote from Paris to Mrs. John Adams in 1785.
The early prospects of our own Revolution filled him with joy, and he took
pleasure later in recalling those feelings, when the first guest from abroad,
Lafayette, was received by your University, and dined in your hall, with
Jefferson and Madison in 1824. In the letter pressing him to visit what he
calls "our academical village," Jefferson reminded this early friend of
America of the far-off time, when, one evening they, with some "other
patriots, settled in my house in Paris the outlines of the constitution you
wished."

Secretary of State, he saluted the birth of our first Republic in the
warmest terms, assuring us that the citizens of the United States considered
"the union of principles and pursuits between our two countries as a link
which binds still closer their interests and affection." This union of principles
and affections, after half a century of republican institutions in
France, is closer now than ever before, as was evidenced, not by words, but
by momentous deeds in the recent glorious past.

When the longing for independence had been fulfilled in this country,
the longing for the spread of knowledge became preponderant among the
leaders of the nation. I wish, Jefferson said, our people would "possess information
enough to perceive the important truth that knowledge is power,
that knowledge is safety, that knowledge is happiness." An immense country
with untold possibilities was to be developed; and two conditions for
success were indispensable: on the one hand, the pluck, energy, clever understanding
of fearless pioneers; on the other, knowledge. The nation had the
first, not the second; it realized, however, its lack and its chiefs resolved
that the gap should be filled.

Peace was not yet signed, and Independence, just won, had not been
consecrated, when, as early as 1782, "the President and Professors of the
University of William and Mary," that famous institution where both
Washington and Jefferson had studied, the honored mother of the most
famous of the literary societies, the Phi Beta Kappa, sent to Rochambeau,
still in America, an address couched, they said, "not in the prostituted
language of fashionable flattery, but with the voice of truth and republican
sincerity," saying: "Among the many substantial advantages which this
country hath already derived and which must ever continue to flow from its
connection with France, we are persuaded that the improvement of useful
knowledge will not be the least. A number of distinguished characters in
your army afford us the happiest presage that science as well as liberty will

The French Ambassador, Dr. Henry van Dyke, and Other Notables

acquire vigor from the fostering hand of your nation. . . . You have
reaped the noblest laurel that victory can bestow, and it is perhaps not an
inferior triumph to have obtained the sincere affection of a grateful people."
It was a fact that in Rochambeau's army one general was a member of the
French Academy, Chastellux, chief of staff, a great friend of Jefferson, and
that Rochambeau himself was able to use Latin in order to talk with learned
men in America ignorant of French. This Virginian suggestion was the
beginning of an intercourse which has expanded considerably since, to the
advantage of America, of France and of other countries.

For the solution of the problem and the spread of knowledge in the
United States, the two leaders, happened to be the chiefs of the two political
parties, federalists and antifederalists, unanimous however on this question,
both twice presidents of the United States; both sons of Virginia, George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The two had dreamt a dream that
was not to be fulfilled in the way they had imagined. They wanted a National
University, ranking above all others, and giving only instruction of
the highest order. Washington bequeathed to the institution that was, he
thought, to reach one day that rank, the shares of the Potomac and the
James River companies which he had received as a gift from his native State
and which he never intended to apply to his own uses. Jefferson, when
President, proposed to Congress in his sixth annual message the resumption
of the same plan, and as subsidies would be expected from every State he
recommended the vote of an appropriate amendment to the Constitution.

The National University was not to be, but the University of Virginia
was to be and now is, greatly improved, increased and invigorated. With
what love and devotion he fostered it, all know. It was his last great service
to his country, one of the only three he allowed to be mentioned on his tombstone,
where he is described as the "father" of this same University. He
had indeed for her a fatherly love; describing it as "the last of my mortal
cares," paying attention to every matter of importance and also to every
detail; anxious about the selection of professors, the attendance of pupils
and the style of architecture. Abroad, he wrote with pride "they have immensely
larger and more costly masses but nothing handsomer or in chaster
style." Professors were sometimes in those far-off days the cause of
trouble; he complains of some who teach Latin and pronounce it in such a
way that you do not know whether they are not speaking Cherokee or
Iroquois. Students too have their faults, or had in those times, but all told,
the undertaking is a success, and with pride again he could write "A finer
set of youths I never saw assembled for instruction."

We feel confident that if he were to appear suddenly among us to-day,
and have a look at the successors of those he knew, he would use the very
same words.

He conceived, even from the first, that, although for certain branches of
learning, he had to depend on professors from abroad, yet American universities
could even then be of use to European youths. In 1822 he wrote to a
friend of his who was American minister in Lisbon that the young people from
over there might come with profit, and get "familiarized with the habits and
practice of self-government. This lesson is scarcely to be acquired but in this
country, and yet, without it, the political vessel is all sail and no ballast."

This was indeed the lesson that without the need of any university, it is
true, or of any teaching other than those of events and examples, all those
enthusiastic young men who had come from France to fight for American
independence took home with them. At the time of our Revolution they
were foremost in asking for equality and for the abolition of privileges,
Lafayette, first among them and Rochambeau with him, Marquis and
Count though they were.

Now the fight for knowledge is won. While continuing to learn,
America can also teach; she is one of the nations in the vanguard of civilization
as regards learning and discoveries. Her universities, libraries, laboratories,
scientific periodicals are the envy of more than one foreign nation.
She not only receives professors from abroad but sends out some of her own,
who are received with open arms—and open ears. They say things worthy
to be remembered and they increase the respect and sympathy every liberal
nation owes to theirs.

An even more telling proof that the problem is solved and that America
has come to her own in the matter of learning, is the high appreciation in
which are held, in every country, the medals, prizes or other tokens of
appreciation she may choose to bestow. Those tokens sometimes are the
sign not only of her appreciation of merit but of her inborn warm-heartedness
and generosity, as when, the other day, having heard that the discoverer of
radium possessed no radium she presented a gramme of the rare substance
to Madame Curie, the presentation being made at the White House by the
Chief of the State, in a speech that went to the heart not only of the illustrious
lady but of the whole of France.

To all this, foreign institutions render homage: they are glad to think
that their good wishes for you are sure to be fulfilled. What a man like
Jefferson founds is certain to prosper; and it is a good omen for the University
of Virginia that the man who secured her charter was also the one
who wrote the Declaration of Independence.