For the times and the circumstances there was never any lack in colonial times of the higher education in Virginia. The sources of education were, first, private tutors; second, English and Scotch schools and universities; third, the College of William and Mary, and fourth, the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and the schools of Pennsylvania. This arrangement is made to represent the order of time.

     Till the College of William and Mary was established, the more

well-to-do classes in Virginia either employed tutors or sent their sons to the mother country. As the percentage of native Englishmen to the whole population was much greater in the seventeenth century than in the eighteenth century, and as men from the English and Scotch universities were continually arriving, the need of a home institution for the higher education was not as acutely felt during the former century. Moreover, it took much fewer educated men in Virginia during the seventeenth century to preserve the relative state of enlightenment than during the eighteenth century, when education had become far more diffused throughout the world.

     Private tutors have already been treated of in connection with private schools. Some one wealthy planter generally assumed the main expense of employing a tutor, but as the children of the neighboring plantations were also invited, the tutor was generally at the head of a school. Although poor men, who were often taken from the servant class, these tutors were generally men of erudition and experience. They often took the students through a wide range of study, and were preferred by some of the planters to even the universities.¹

     The English universities were patronized throughout the colonial period to an extent never dreamed of in the Northern colonies. The ocean was, in fact, a connecting bridge to the shipping people and merchants who really settled Virginia. England was fondly called “home,” and her institutions were a part of the Virginia institutions. The land grants and the court records show the everyday intercourse that obtained between the two countries. The age was one of commercial enterprise and adventure, and the planters thought little of the hazards of the sea.²

     This habit of sending the youth to England began at a very early day. When the project of the college at Henrico and the free school at Charles City was brought under discussion in the London Company, one argument employed in favor of the acceptability of the work was that the planters “had been compelled,

though to their great cost, to send their children to England to be taught.” Perhaps the hardship upon the planters was somewhat exaggerated in this statement, and at any rate the people grew more wealthy and the practice continued. Some instances taken from the records may be given here in illustration:

     Augustine Warner, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, was in 1658 enrolled a pupil of the Merchant Taylors’ School in London.

     Henry Seawell, a magistrate of Lower Norfolk county, for whom Seawell’s Point was named, died in 1644, and the court ordered his orphan, Henry Seawell, born May 1, 1639, to be sent to Holland for his education. In 1653 he could write and cypher well, and spoke French and Dutch as well as English. He died without issue before 1672, leaving a sister, wife of Lemuel Mason. (Lower Norfolk county records.)

     John Cary, merchant of London, gave bond December 6, 1669, to Lieutenant-Colonel George Jordan and Captain Thomas Flood, engaging “to take care of Walter Flood, his wife’s brother, when he arrived in England,” and to “keep him at school and teach and educate him as my wife’s brother.” (Surry county records.)

     In 1665 Ralph Wormeley, Esq., of York River, in Virginia, matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford. (Foster’s Oxford Matriculates.)

     Henry Perrott, son of Richard Perrott, presiding magistrate of Middlesex county, was at Gray’s Inn in 1674. (Gray’s Inn Register.)

     Captain Philip Chesley, a magistrate of York county, directs in his will proved July 24, 1674, that his nephews, William and Philip Chesley should be sent to school in London, and afterwards returned to Virginia.” (York county records.)

     In the settlement of Major Robert Beverley’s estate, Christopher Wormeley, who married his widow Catherine, was, in 1694, allowed a credit for a payment of £40 made to Micajah Perry & Lane, London, merchants, for the “entertainment and accommodation” of Major Beverley’s sons “Harry, John, and Robert Beverley.” They were probably in England for the purpose of attending school. (Middlesex county records.)

     Captain Arthur Spicer, a lawyer of Richmond county, in his will, proved in 1699, desired his son John to be sent to England for his education, the school of the Charter house I take to be the best.” (Richmond county records.)

     Richard Walker, of Urbanna, Middlesex county, in his will, proved April 4, 1727, desired that “his nephew James Walker should be sent to the care of Mr. Foster Cunliffe, merchant in Liverpool, to learn Latin about three years, and then to be taken from the Latin school, and put to learn arithmetic and merchant accounts, navigation, or any other part of mathematics he inclines to.” (Middlesex county records.)

     The will of Charles Carter, of Cleve, proved in King George county in 1764, directs that his two sons, John and Landon Carter, then in England for their education “should be taught the languages, mathematics, and philosophy till they are well accomplished, and of proper age to be bound to some reputable attorney, who is to have them till twenty years and nine months, they at the same time to be entered at the Middle Temple and to attend commons.”

     To be more brief, the following native born Virginians received their education in whole or in part in English schools: John Span, son of Cuthbert Span, of Virginia, matriculated at Queen’s College, Oxford, March 20, 1704-’5, age eighteen; Mann Page, son of Matthew Page, of Abingdon Parish, Gloucester county, matriculated at St. John’s College, Oxford, July, 1709, age seventeen; Daniel Taylor, of New Kent county, after attending William and Mary College, attended St. John’s and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge; Thomas Clayton, M. B., eldest son of John Clayton, Attorney-General of Virginia, attended Pembroch College, Cambridge; Henry Fitzhugh, son of William Fitzhugh, of Eagle’s Nest, Stafford county, matriculated at Christ’s Church College, Oxford, October 30, 1722, age fifteen; Christopher Robinson, B. A. and M. A., son of John, of Middlesex county, matriculated at Oriel College, July 12, 1721, age eighteen; Christopher Robinson, son of Christopher, of Middlesex, at Oriel College, May 21, 1724, age nineteen, subsequently student of law at the Middle Temple; Peter Robinson, brother to the last, at Oriel College, April 2, 1737, age nineteen; William Robinson, B. A., at Oriel College, April 2, 1737, age 20 (afterwards commissary in Virginia to the bishop of London); Lewis Burwell, president of the council of Virginia (said to have embraced almost “every branch of human knowledge within the circle of his knowledge”), at Cains’ College, Cambridge; Lewis Burwell, his son, at Balliol College, Oxford, March 30, 1765, age eighteen; Bartholomew Yates, father of William Yates, president of William and Mary College, at Brasenose College, Oxford, March 16, 1694-’95, age seventeen; Robert Yates, brother of William Yates, at Oriel College, July 12, 1733, age eighteen; Bartholomew Yates, brother of the same, at Oriel College, February 29, 1731-’32, age eighteen; Chickeley Thacker, B. A., son of Henry Thacker of Middlesex, at Oriel College, May 24, 1724, age twenty; Augustine Washington and his sons Lawrence and Augustine, half brothers of George Washington, at Appleby School, in the North of England; (Col.) Miles Cary, the emigrant and one of the council, states in his will that “Mr. Simon Hurle first have the education and bringing up of his son, Miles Cary” (born 1655, died 1709), one of the trustees of William and Mary College; Wilson Cary, son of the last, first at William and Mary College and then at Trinity College, Cambridge; Gabriel Jones studied in London; Alexander White at Gray’s Inn, January 22, 1763, and at the Inner Temple, January 15, 176-; Thompson Mason, first at

William and Mary and then a student of law at the Temple in London; John Blair, first at William and Mary and then a student of law at the Middle Temple in London; Rev. Thomas Smith, father of John Augustine Smith, president of William and Mary, at Trinity College, Cambridge, April 21, 1759, age eighteen; William Byrd, of Westover, educated in England under the care of Sir Robert Southwell and a student of law at the Inner Temple; Sir John Randolph, first, at William and Mary and then a student of law at the Inner Temple; Gen. Thomas Nelson at Eton 1751-’55 and then at Cambridge; Robert Bolling, of Chellowe, author of the Bolling Memoir, Robert Munford, author of Munford’s Poems, Robert Beverley, of Blandfield, Col. Theoderick Bland, member of the Continental Congress, Richard Henry Lee, the orator, William Fairfax, son of President William Fairfax, all studied at the famous school at Leeds in Yorkshire¹; John and Richard Lee, sons of the emigrant Richard Lee, were at Oxford as early as 1658, John appearing to have gotten his M. D. somewhere in England; Philip Ludwell Lee studied law at the Inner Temple; Arthur Lee took his, degree of M. D. at Edinburgh, after having been at Eton, a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn 1770, and at Middle Temple in 1773; Thomas and Ludwell Lee, sons of R. H. Lee, at St. Bee’s in England at outbreak of the war, and then went to France with their Uncle Arthur; Francis Corbin studied in England at the outbreak of the Revolution; Robert Tucker, son of Col. Robert Tucker, of Norfolk, finished his studies somewhere in England; (Col.) John and (Gen.) Alexander Spottswood, sons of Governor Spottswood at Eton, about 1760; John Ambler and Edward Ambler, his brother, after going to Leeds Academy, attended Cambridge University; David, Richard Kidder, father of Bishop Meade, and Everard Meade, attended the school at Harrow under the care of Dr. Thackery, the principal, and archdeacon of Surry; Cyrus Griffin was educated in England, and studied law at the Temple.

     The following distinguished physicians studied at the University of Edinburgh: 1754, Valentine Peyton; 1758, Richard Gustavus Brown and Thomas Clayton; 1761, Theoderick Bland, George Gilmer, Jefferson’s colleague in the House of Burgesses from Albemarle county, James Blair, son of Hon. John Blair; 1765, Corbin Griffin and James Tapscott; 1769, Walter Jones and Joseph Goodwyn; 1767, George Steptoe and John Minson Galt¹; 1770, Drs. James McClurg, John Ravenscroft, Gustavus Brown, and Archibald Campbell; 1773, William Ball; 1774, John Griffin and Philip Turpin; 1776, Samuel Nicolls; 1777, John Shore; 1778, William Boush.

     Of course, in this latter period many of the graduates of medicine and law at the English and Scotch universities had previously attended the academic course at William and Mary.

     In 1693 the home college of William and Mary began to supplement the older educational agencies. Although only the grammar school was in operation till about 1712, that school was taught by highly accomplished men,² and the student was carried through the higher classics. In 1712 a chair of natural philosophy and mathematics was added, and in 1729 the foundation was complete, and according to the charter a transfer was made of the corporation from the visitors to the faculty, consisting of a president and six professors. There were three courses. The boy first entered the grammar school, where the Latin and Greek languages were taught. He studied the same books as by law and custom were used in England. The master was permitted, however, with the president’s consent, to make proper observations on the grammar

employed. Nothing was to be taught as insinuated anything against religion and good morals.

     On Saturdays and the eves of holidays a sacred lesson was given out of Castalio’s Dialogues, Buchannan’s Paraphrase of the Psalms, or “any other good book,” approved by the president and master. The grammar master was paid £150, and received fifteen shillings from each scholar. The fee of the usher was five shillings. His salary in 1770 was £75 besides fees.¹

     On the scholar passing a satisfactory examination before the president and masters and ministers skilful in the learned languages, he was promoted to the philosophical school, and became a student, assuming the cap and gown. There were two masters in this school: first, the professor of moral philosophy, who taught rhetoric, logic, and ethics; and, secondly, the professor of natural philosophy and mathematics, who taught “physicks, metaphysics, and mathematics.” The salary of each professor was £80 sterling, and twenty shillings sterling a year from each scholar, except the scholarship students who were taught gratis. The law required that besides “disputation” the youth were to be exercised in “declamation and themes on various subjects.” The particular line of instruction was left to the discretion of the president and masters, who were expected to consult the chancellor. It was expressly declared in the laws that the professor of moral philosophy was not to be confined to the “logic and physics of Aristotle, which, had reigned so long alone in the schools.” According to the form and constitution of the famous institutions in England the term of four years was required for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and seven years for Master of Arts.

     The third school was the divinity school, in which there were two professors, whose salary was an annuity of £150 sterling, but who had no fees from the students. One professor taught the Hebrew tongue, and expounded the Old and New Testaments. The other explained “the common places of divinity and the controversies with heretics.” As in the other schools of the college

the student was constantly exercised in debates, the subjects in this department being of a theological character.

     Such were the three main departments. There was also a common school for Indian boys. The master received forty or fifty pounds sterling, which was to be paid from the rents of the Brafferton estate, in Yorkshire, in which the funds left by the Hon. Robert Boyle “for pious and charitable uses” had been invested by decree of the High Court of Chancery in Great Britain. The attendance on this school was augmented by boys from the town, whom the master was authorized to charge 20s. a year each. “Reading, writing, and vulgar arithmetic” were the subjects embraced.

     The president lectured on some theological subject four times a year, but he had no regular classes. He was expected to have a watchful eye over the professors, students, and revenues; and when the Board of Visitors met, he was present at all their meetings and councils. His salary was £200 sterling a year.

     The president and six masters met, in the ordinary government of the college, whenever he deemed it expedient. At such times, all questions were determined by a major part; and, in case of a tie, the side on which the president voted prevailed. To this meeting belonged the election of the usher of the grammar school, the bursar, library-keeper, janitor, cook, butler, and gardener, and all other subordinate officers.

     The president had a handsome house (erected in 1732), and each of the professors was entitled to apartments in the college building. According to the monastic views of colleges then prevailing, the privileges of a family were accorded to the president alone. But this rule was not adhered to.¹

     The William and Mary system was but a colonial reproduction of the higher education in England. Under the title of “ethics,”

the professor of moral philosophy treated of the rights and duties of the state—the subject-matter of political science.¹

     The study of American History was cultivated in an intelligent and original way by Rev. Hugh Jones, professor of natural philosophy and mathematics, who, in 1722, wrote his Present State of Virginia (the first historical production in America to proceed from the hands of a professor in a college), and by Rev. William Stith, president of the college from 1752 to 1755, who published his History of Virginia in Williamsburg in 1747. (This was the second historical production in America by a college professor.)

     When, in 1760, Dr. William Small, the professor of natural philosophy and mathematics, assumed, by reason of a vacancy, the duties also of the chair of moral philosophy, he made a great departure from the practice, universally prevalent at that day, of memory lessons, by being the first professor at William and Mary, and, it is believed, the first in America, to adopt the modern lecture system.² While we have no exact details as to the methods pursued by him, the enthusiastic language of Jefferson and John Page leaves no room to doubt that his instruction was broad and varied. The first says of him that “he fixed my destinies in life,” and the other calls him “the illustrious professor of mathematics, afterwards well known as the great Dr. Small of Birmingham, the darling friend of Darwin.”³

     It may be said that law and the natural sciences absorbed the attention of the founders of the American Commonwealths. As the controversy with the British crown, being one of strict legal right, produced an unprecedented popular demand for legal knowledge,

so the free spirit engendered by the study of the natural sciences made men restless under the old order of things in church and state. William and Mary clearly took the lead along both lines. Dr. Small was succeeded by James Madison, another devotee of the sciences (cousin of the President of the United States, of that name), who in connection with Thomas Jefferson, the pupil of Small, made the college curriculum in 1779 the most remarkable of any in the United States. They abolished the grammar school and the two divinity schools, and in their places substituted a school of modern languages, a school of constitutional and court law, and a school of medicine. The faculty consisted of James Madison,¹ D. D., president and professor of natural philosophy and mathematics, George Wythe,² LL. D., professor of law and police, James McClurg,³ M. D., professor of anatomy and medicine, Robert Andrews,⁴ A. M., professor

of moral philosophy, the law of nature and nations, and of the fine arts, and Charles Bellini,¹ professor of modern languages. Under this assortment there is reason to believe that the two great distinctive text books of Vattel and Adam Smith were taught at William and Mary earlier than at any other college in America. The use of Adam Smith’s great work, Inquiry into the Nature and Sources of the Wealth of Nations, perhaps dates from the year 1784, when President Madison was relieved of the duty of teaching mathematics and made professor of moral philosophy, international law, etc., in addition to natural philosophy, which he always retained. We are told that President Madison was the first to introduce into the college a regular system of lectures on political economy; and in the library of Mr. W. G. Stanard, of Richmond, is an old edition of Adam Smith, with the autograph of “Robert Stanard, William and Mary College, 1798,” upon the fly-leaf.² There is also in the college library a copy of the laws published, somewhere about 1803, in which Vattel is named as a text-book.

     On the importance of a liberal cultivation the sentiments of President Madison are well expressed in a letter addressed by him in 1811 to Hon. C. S. Todd, formerly a student at William and Wary, and then studying law at the famous law school at Litchfield, Conn. (afterwards minister to Russia in 1841):

     “I hope you do not confine yourself to law, but take a wide range in belles lettres, history, and the best writers in natural law. There are some

excellent natural philosophers, most probably, in your vicinity. Chemistry and natural history should form a principal portion of the study of young men of capacity.”¹

     Of President Madison Bishop Meade is quoted as saying:

“He was indefatigable in his lectures, and when in good health is known to have been engaged in his lecture-room from four to six hours a day. He first introduced a course of systematic lectures in political economy in the college. In the department of natural philosophy he excelled, his enthusiasm throwing a peculiar charm over his lectures.”²

     Of the college in 1785, Mr. Jefferson wrote:³

     “What are the objects of an useful American Education? Classical knowledge, modern languages, chiefly French, Spanish, and Italian; mathematics, natural philosophy, natural history, civil history, and ethics. In natural philosophy I mean to include chemistry and agriculture, and in natural history to include botany, as well as the other branches of those departments. It is true that the habit of speaking the modern languages cannot be so well acquired in America; but every other article can be as well acquired at William and Mary as at any place in Europe.”

     Although the college revenues were very much reduced by the Revolution, it still continued to retain this small, but able, body of professors, and, with its library of over three thousand volumes of selected works and its fine apparatus,² the best on this continent, it did a work for years, in despite of a limited attendance, equal to that of its best years in. the past. Three years later Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Izard:⁴

“I cannot but approve your idea of sending your eldest son, destined for the law, to Williamsburg. The professor of mathematics and natural philosophy there, Mr. Madison, cousin of him whom you know, is a man of great abilities, and their apparatus is a very fine one. Mr. Bellini, professor of modern languages, is also an excellent one. But the pride of the institution is Mr. Wythe, one of the Chancellors of the State, and professor of law in the College. He is one of the greatest men of the age, having held, without competition, the first place at the bar of our general court for thirty-five years, and always distinguished by the most spotless virtue. He gives lectures regularly, and holds moot courts and parliaments, wherein he presides, and the young men debate regularly in law and legislation, learn the rules of parliamentary proceeding, and acquire the habit of public speaking. Williamsburg is a remarkably healthy situation, reasonably cheap, and affords very genteel society. I know no place in the world, while the present professors remain, where I would so soon place a son.”¹

     Judge St. George Tucker,² who succeeded George Wythe as professor of law, gives this account of the college in 1795:

     “There are six professorships, one of moral philosophy, natural philosophy, and the belles lettres; one of mathematics; one of Law; one of modern languages, and two of humanity. To the college belongs an extensive library and an apparatus, probably not exceeded by any upon this continent. The course of natural philosophy is made more comprehensive than is usual in most colleges. In moral philosophy the students are examined on the ablest writers in logic, the belles lettres, ethics, natural law, the law of nations, and politics. In mathematics, a regular course, both elementary and practical, is pursued. In law, a course of lectures is annually delivered on the principles of civil government and on the constitutions and laws of the Federal Government of the United States, and the State of Virginia. In the modern languages, French, Italian, Spanish, and German may be acquired. Most of the students acquire the two former. In the Grammar school the Latin and Greek languages are taught as in other places.”³

     The number in attendance at that time was put by Judge Tucker at eighty or ninety, including the children in the grammar school.¹ Hugh L. Girardin, the friend of Jefferson and the historian of Virginia, was the professor of history and modern languages in 1803, and it is to be assumed that the history taught was very different from the old time religious history embraced in the curriculum of Harvard in 1646 and of the college of New Jersey in 1756. We are told that as late as 1814 George Ticknor could find neither a good teacher of German nor a dictionary nor a German book in the shops, or public libraries, or at the college in Cambridge. And yet as early as 1779 William and Mary had an accomplished German scholar in Bellini.

     A remarkable feature of William and Mary was its adoption of the elective system. The volatile minds of the Virginians were not easily subject to restraints, as had been often observed. In the faculty book, accordingly, there is proof that long before the Revolution there had been a revolt against the preliminary training in the Latin and Greek of the grammar school. When the reorganization took plane in 1779, a choice was permitted among the departments taught, and although there was a regular course prescribed for A. B., the student might be an “irregular” if he preferred to be so. Hence, Jefferson wrote to Francis Epes four years before the opening of the University of Virginia: “At William and Mary students are allowed to attend the schools of their choice, and those branches of science only which will be useful to them in the line of life they propose.”²

     And the same independent spirit of the Virginians produced an early abandonment of the system which still holds in the Northern States even to-day—the hateful espionage system which declines to trust in the honor of the student in the examination-room or in his general behavior. So William and Mary was the first to lead in this direction also.³

     The influence of William and Mary in one other respect may be noticed. Both George Wythe¹ and St. George Tucker,² who stood at the head of the law department from 1779 to 1826, were warm advocates of emancipation, and their teachings, no doubt, had much to do with producing that spirit of philanthropy so prevalent in Virginia, till the brutal onslaught of the abolitionists, about 1829. Then the reaction took place,³ and, with almost equal ability, the

benefits of slavery, “socially, politically and economically,” were maintained by Thomas R. Dew, professor of history and political economy from 1826 to 1846, and by Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (son. of St. George Tucker), professor of law from 1834 to 1851.

     The influence of the Northern schools and colleges did not begin to be felt in Virginia till after 1747. Then the influence was confined to Princeton and the schools of Pennsylvania. Under the leadership of Samuel Davies, afterwards president of Princeton, the Presbyterians began their work along the frontier. There were Presbyterian settlements in Hanover, Charlotte, and Prince Edward; and back of them in the Valley of Virginia settled the Scotch-Irish from Ulster. Mingled with these were the Episcopalians from the East, who followed up the valley of the James, all together forming a background to the colony never surpassed for sturdy strength and intelligent manhood. In this half-cleared environment were formed some very good private schools, whose masters were sometimes graduates of Princeton. Thus between 1750 and 1760 there was a good classical school in Louisa, under the mastership of Rev. John Todd, of the class of 1747, who had the assistance of the Rev. James Waddell, the celebrated Presbyterian “blind preacher.” Then in Fauquier, about 1766, was a school taught by Hezekiah Balch, of the class of 1766, and there was Daniel McCulla of the same class, who established an academy in Hanover. In 1749 Rev. Robert Alexander, a graduate of Edinburgh, founded a school in Augusta county. For twenty years it was taught by Rev. John Brown, a graduate of Princeton of the class of 1749. In 1774, William Graham, of the class of 1773, took charge. In 1776 the school’s name was changed from Augusta Academy to Liberty Hall Academy. When Washington gave it his one hundred shares in the James River Co., it acquired the name of Washington Academy, and is now known as Washington and Lee University. In 1776, the Prince Edward Academy (chartered as Hampden-Sidney in 1782) was opened with a rector Samuel Stanhope Smith, of the class of 1769—and a staff of assistants, all Princeton men.

     The schools of Pennsylvania vied with Princeton in developing this part of Virginia. Some of the settlers in the Valley were native Pennsylvanians. Samuel Davies himself, the virtual founder of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, was educated at the famous

classical school of Samuel Blair at Fogg’s Manor, in Pennsylvania. He promoted classical schools, though his multiplied labors prevented his being the head of one in Virginia. While Princeton gave to the list of Virginia statesmen two men of first order James Madison and Henry Lee the College of Philadelphia (subsequently the University of Pennsylvania) gave William Grayson,¹ and to this it may be added that it gave to William and Mary, Robert Andrews, a professor of undoubted ability and influence.

     But, however strong the support rendered by the backwoodsmen of Virginia to the cause of mankind at this period of the Revolution, their arrival was too recent and their wild environment created so many conditions of its own, that the management of state affairs remained in the hands of the men of the Eastern counties, among whom the influence of the College of William and Mary was overwhelming.

     In the next number I propose to make a comparative estimate of this influence, concluding with a comparison of educational values among all classes of the population resident in Virginia, England, and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.