22 HABITS AND MORALS. [CHAP. I. sprung up between widely dissimilar men, destined to be lasting, and to produce important public and private consequences. The gay and elegant society of the capital, into which he was generally introduced, did not wean the young student from his books. Taste and habit bound him to them, and his application continued unremitting. A pleasant anecdote is preserved of him and his guardian, then, we think, Colonel Walker. When the sum of his first year's college expenses was ascertained, it struck him as large for one who was living for the time, in common with his brother and sisters, on the proceeds of an estate of which they had inherited less, and he therefore wrote Colonel Walker, requesting him to charge the entire amount of his expenses to his separate share of the property. That sensible man, reflecting, perhaps, that Thomas's portion was actually furnishing a proportionate share of the proceeds, made answer: "No-if you have sowed your wild oats thus, the estate can well afford to pay the bill!" These expenses were incurred in a little too showy style of living-particularly in the article of fine horses. His general habits and morals continued as at Mr. Maury's. In reference to this, and to the experiences of this period, he long afterwards wrote a grandson, who also was away from home at school, and no better occasion will occur than this to transfer this beautiful morsel of personal history and advice to these pages: MY DEAR JEfferson, WASHINGTON, November 24, 1808. Your situation, thrown at such a distance from us, and alone, cannot but give us all great anxieties for you. As much has been secured for you, by your particular position and the acquaintance to which you have been recommended, as could be done towards shielding you from the dangers which surround you. But thrown on a wide world, among entire strangers, without a friend or guardian to advise, so young, too, and with so little experience of mankind, your dangers are great, and still your safety must rest on yourself. A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence and good humor, will go far towards securing to you the estimation of the world When I recollect that at fourteen years of age, the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely, without a relation or friend, qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were. I had the good fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become what they were. Under temptations and difficulties, I would ask myself-what would Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation? What course in it will insure me CHAP. I.] MODELS OF CONDUCT. 23 their approbation? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my conduct, tended more to correctness than any reasoning powers I possessed. Knowing the even and dignified line they pursued, I could never doubt for a moment which of two courses would be in character for them. Whereas, seeking the same object through a process of moral reasoning, and with the jaundiced eye of youth, I should often have erred. From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse racers, card players, fox hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, Well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a fox hunter? an orator? or the honest advocate of my country's rights? Be assured, my dear Jefferson, that these little returns into ourselves, this self-catechising habit, is not trifling nor useless, but leads to the prudent selection and steady pursuit of what is right.' Wise forethought this, "under temptations and difficulties,” in "the enthusiastic moment" of the hunt and the horse race, in a young, uncontrolled, wealthy and flattered orphan! Two of the individuals he refers to as the chosen models of his conduct, were indeed to exert a marked influence over his future life. Doctor William Small was Professor of Mathematics, and became, soon after Mr. Jefferson's entrance, Professor per interim of Philosophy in William and Mary. He was a Scotchman (all of Mr. Jefferson's previous instructors had been Scotchmen) of elegant manners, general culture, and of a peculiarly liberal and comprehensive mind. As an instructor, he had the happy, if not rare, art of making the road to knowledge both easy and agreeable. Attracted by the correct and modest deportment of young Jefferson, struck with his singular proficiency and his energy of thought, he not only instructed him with peculiar zest from the professorial chair, but he made him the friend and companion of his leisure hours; and he did much to create, or rather to encourage, in him that thirst for a general culture those enlarged views of "the expansion of science and of the system of things in which we are placed"-for which his pupil, sixty years afterwards, covered with honors and renown, poured out his fervid acknowledgments. Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, with some, we cannot but think, of that exaggeration with which generous minds are prone to regard the services of early For the remainder of this admirable letter, see either the Congressional, or his grandson's edition of Mr. Jefferson's Works, at the date indicated. And we may add, clergymen of the Anglican Church. See Memoir. 24 FAVORITE STUDIES. [CHAP. I. benefactors, declared in his Memoir that it was Doctor Small's instruction and intercourse that "probably fixed the destinies of his life." His second year in college was more diligently employed than the first. Company, the riding-horse, and even the favorite violin, were nearly discarded. He habitually studied, as he often afterwards declared, fifteen hours a day. The only time he took for exercise, was to run sharply a mile out of the city and back at twilight. He left college at the end of the second year, a profound and accomplished scholar for one so young. Few probably have been better educated at the same age; and he had a good and broad foundation laid for that superstructure of learning which he continued to erect on it throughout his life. 1 He united, what is not common among students, a decided taste for both mathematics and the classics. The first was perhaps at this period of life rather the favorite, and intricate must be that process in it which "he could not read off with the facility of common discourse." He maintained his familiarity with this science, kept up with its advances, and made a practical use of it in all the concerns where it is applicable, through life. In later years, we shall find him giving the most attention to the classics. He was a fine and even a critical Latin and Greek scholar. The most difficult authors in those languages were read by him with ease-were habitually read by him as recreations, snatched from official and other labors, and they became the most prized solaces of his old age. Of French, as a written language, he had a thorough knowledge. His acquaintance with Anglo-Saxon, Italian and Spanish, have been assigned to his college period; but this is a mistake, unless so far as mere rudiments are concerned. He studied the AngloSaxon during his law studies, to enable him to dip for himself into the ancient fountains of the English Common Law. The Italian was taken up immediately after. The impressions of his family were, that he did not study Spanish until he went to France in 1784; and confirmatory of this, we find an entry in one of his account books of the purchase of a Spanish dic He wrote Colonel William Duane, October 1, 1812: "When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal power. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor and time and slow investigation." CHAP. I.] ATTAINMENTS. 25 tionary as he was on the point of embarking. He probably found it necessary to improve his knowledge of Spanish at that period; but a remark in John Adams's Diary shows that he was thought to understand it, when he was in Congress in 1775;' and, what is far more decisive, he repeatedly and familiarly quotes Don Ulloa, in the original, in his Notes on Virginia (written in 1781), which assuredly he would not have done, if ignorant of the language.' This includes the list of languages with which he ever became familiar; but he probably picked up some knowledge of German, for among his manuscripts are several interwritten literal translations-apparently student's exercises-like the following: Mr. Jefferson's attainments in belles-lettres appear in all his early writings. His early acquirements in natural, political, and statistical science are indicated in his Notes on Virginia. In a word, there was no grand department, and scarcely a branch of liberal learning then taught, in which he was not comparatively well versed; and he seems to have relished them all with two exceptions-ethics and metaphysics. He greatly approved of reading works calculated to foster the moral sense, and strongly recommended a favorite nephew to read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic Dialogues, Cicero's Philosophies, Antoninus and Seneca. He repeatedly expresses his unbounded admiration of the teachings of Christ, putting them above all other written moral systems. But it must be confessed that, as a science, he derided ethics. His theory on 1 The remark is worth quoting. It occurs under date of October 25th, 1775, when Mr. Jefferson was a subject of curiosity as a new member. Adams writes: "Duane says, that Jefferson is the greatest rubber-off of dust that he has met with; that he has learned French, Italian, Spanish, and wants to learn German."-Life and Works of John Adams, by his grandson, vol. ii. p. 430. * Because it would imply pretension, and because it would involve the absurdity of supposing the mass of his readers better linguists than himself. 24 FAVORITE STUDIES. [CHAP. I. benefactors, declared in his Memoir that it was Doctor Small's instruction and intercourse that "probably fixed the destinies of his life." His second year in college was more diligently employed than the first. Company, the riding-horse, and even the favorite violin, were nearly discarded. He habitually studied, as he often afterwards declared, fifteen hours a day. The only time he took for exercise, was to run sharply a mile out of the city and back at twilight. He left college at the end of the second year, a profound and accomplished scholar for one so young. Few probably have been better educated at the same age; and he had a good and broad foundation laid for that superstructure of learning which he continued to erect on it throughout his life. He united, what is not common among students, a decided taste for both mathematics and the classics. The first was perhaps at this period of life rather the favorite, and intricate must be that process in it which "he could not read off with the facility of common discourse." He maintained his familiarity with this science, kept up with its advances, and made a practical use of it in all the concerns where it is applicable, through life. In later years, we shall find him giving the most attention to the classics. He was a fine and even a critical Latin and Greek scholar. The most difficult authors in those languages were read by him with ease-were habitually read by him as recreations, snatched from official and other labors, and they became the most prized solaces of his old age. Of French, as a written language, he had a thorough knowledge. His acquaintance with Anglo-Saxon, Italian and Spanish, have been assigned to his college period; but this is a mistake, unless so far as mere rudiments are concerned. He studied the AngloSaxon during his law studies, to enable him to dip for himself into the ancient fountains of the English Common Law. The Italian was taken up immediately after. The impressions of his family were, that he did not study Spanish until he went to France in 1784; and confirmatory of this, we find an entry in one of his account books of the purchase of a Spanish dic 1 He wrote Colonel William Duane, October 1, 1812: "When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal power. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse. now cost me labor and time and slow investigation." |