Even after this plan had failed, Jefferson did not give up his ambition to establish somewhere in America and preferably in Virginia, an institution of higher learning. On January 18, 1800, he wrote to Joseph Priestley to ask him to draw up the program of a university "on a plan so broad, so liberal, and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support. The first thing is to obtain a good plan."
Priestley sent him, in answer, some "Hints Concerning Public Education" which have never been published and probably did not arouse any enthusiasm in Jefferson. The English philosopher had simply taken the main features of the English system, placing the emphasis on the ancient languages and excluding the modern: "For the knowledge of them as well as skill in fencing, dancing and riding is proper for gentlemen liberally educated, and instruction in them may be procured on reasonable terms without burdening the funds of the seminary with them." He ended with a very sensible piece of advice:
Three things must be attended to in the education of youth. They must be taught, fed, and governed, and each of these requires different qualifications. In the English universities all these offices are perfectly distinct. The tutors only teach, the proctors superintend the discipline, and the cooks provide the victuals.[542]
At the same time Jefferson had sent a similar request to Du Pont de Nemours. Curiously enough, the Frenchman manifested little enthusiasm for the proposal of his friend. To establish a university was all very well, but first of all one had to provide solid foundations and to place educational facilities within the reach of the great mass of citizens—the university being only the apex of the pyramid. On this occasion Du Pont reminded Jefferson that he had expressed himself to such an intent some fifteen years earlier in his "Notes on Virginia", which developed the excellent view that colleges and universities are not the most important part of the educational system of the State:
All knowledge readily and daily usable, all practical sciences, all laborious activities, all the common sense, all the correct ideas, all the morality, all the virtue, all the courage, all the prosperity, all the happiness of a nation and particularly of a Republic must spring from the primary schools or Petites Ecoles.[543]
By July, 1800, Du Pont de Nemours, who had already proposed a similar scheme to the French Government, had completed his manuscript and sent it to Jefferson at the end of August. This was more speed than Jefferson had expected, and Du Pont's plan was far too elaborate and too comprehensive to be of immediate value. "There is no occasion to incommode yourself by pressing it," wrote Jefferson, "as when received it will be some time before we shall probably find a good occasion of bringing forward the subject."[544]
During his presidency, Jefferson had had to lay aside all his plans and postpone any action for the organization of public education in his native State until after his retirement. In the meantime, he read and studied the project of Du Pont de Nemours and corresponded with Pictet of Geneva; he had in his hands several memoirs of Julien on the French schools, and he looked everywhere for precedents and suggestions. His views were finally formulated in a "Plan for Elementary Schools" sent to Joseph C. Cabell from Polar Forest, on September 9, 1817. The act to be submitted to the Assembly of Virginia was far more comprehensive than the title indicates. It provided for the establishment in each county of a certain number of elementary schools, supported by the county and placed under the supervision of visitors; the counties of the commonwealth were to be distributed into nine collegiate districts, and as many colleges, or rather secondary schools, instituted at the expense of the literary fund, "to be supported from it, and to be placed under the supervision of the Board of Public Instruction."
"In the said colleges," proposed Jefferson, "shall be taught the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German languages, English grammar, geography, ancient and modern, the higher branches in numeral arithmetic, the mensuration of land, the use of the globes, and the ordinary elements of navigation."
A third part of the act provided for
... establishing in a central and healthy part of the State an University wherein all the branches of useful sciences may be taught ... such as history and geography, ancient and modern; natural philosophy, agriculture, chemistry, and the theories of medicine; anatomy, zoölogy, botany, mineralogy and geology; mathematics, pure and mixed, military and naval science; ideology, ethics, the law of nature and of nations; law, municipal, and foreign; the science of civil government and political economy; languages, rhetoric, belles-lettres, and the fine arts generally; which branches of science will be so distributed and under so many professorships, not exceeding ten as the Visitors shall think most proper.