we wish to establish in the upper & healthier country, & more centrally for the state an University on a plan so broad & liberal & modern, as to be worth patronising with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other states to come, and drink of the cup of knolege ...
We are about to establish a College near Charlottesville on the lands formerly Colo Monroe’s, a mile above the town. we do not propose to erect a single grand building, but to form a square of perhaps 200 yards, and to arrange around that pavilions of about 24. by 36.f. one for every...
now what we wish is that these pavilions as they will shew themselves above the dormitories, shall be models of taste & good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the Architectural Lectures.
I am very happy in being able, at last, to congratulate you on the success of the Bill for the establishment of an University at the Central college. It was carried, on yesterday, by in the House of Delegates by the overwhelming & unexpected majority of 141 to 28 ... Among the many sources of...
if our legislature does not heartily push our University we must send our children for education to Kentucky or Cambridge. the latter will return them to us fanatics & tories, the former will keep them to add to their population if however we are to go a begging any where for our education, I...
all the states but our own are sensible that knolege is power. the Missouri question is for power. the efforts now generally making thro’ the states to advance their science is for power, while we are sinking into the barbarism of our Indian aborigines, and expect like them to oppose by ignorance...
I will not despair then of the avail of your services in an establishment which I contemplate as the future bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere.
But one of the greatest curiosities I met with was Thomas Jefferson. Whether you will call this a natural or an artificial curiosity, I am puzzled to know. At all events, I went to see him at the exhibition-house at Monticello, up a long hill, which is almost daily trod by many a weary pilgrim’s...
this institution of my native state, the Hobby of my old age, will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of it’s contemplation. our right may be doubted of mortgaging posterity for the expenses of a war in which they will have a...
this institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
I learn with deep affliction that nothing is likely to be done for our University this year. so near as it is to the shore that one shove more would land it there, I had hoped that would be given, and that we should open with the next year an institution on which the fortunes of our country...
You are right in what you have thought and done as to the Metops of our Doric pavilion. those of the baths of Diocletian are all human faces, and so are to be those of our Doric pavilion. but in my middle room at Poplar Forest, I mean to mix the faces and ox-sculls, a fancy which I can indulge in...
I, am laying the foundation of an University in my native state, which I hope will repay the liberalities of it’s legislature by improving the virtue and science of their country, already blest with a soil and climate emulating those of your favorite Lodi. I have been myself the Architect of the...
of all things the most important is the completion of the buildings. the remission of the debt will come of itself. it is already remitted in the mind of every man, even of the enemies of the institution. and there is nothing pressing very immediately for it’s expression. the great object of our...
were it necessary to give up either the Primaries or the University, I would rather abandon the last. because it is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened, than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance. this last is the most dangerous state in which a nation can be...
it has been peculiarly fortunate too that the Professors brought from abroad were as happy a selection as could have been hoped, as well for their qualifications in science as correctness and amiableness of character. I think the example will be followed and that it cannot fail to be one of the...
I am obliged candidly to own that thus far it has fallen far below my expectations—And I fear that the apprehension (which I always felt to a certain degree, that when its master & creative spirit was gone, it would languish dwindle & decay,) has begun already to be realized. Indeed it...
I have frequently heard Mr Jefferson say that this germ of a fondness for building, was developed in him by the accidental circumstance of his purchasing a book on Architecture, when at College from an old drunken Cabinetmaker who still resided near the College gate in my time & whom I...