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; 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 scat 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.