[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON]


William and Mary College was founded in Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two by the
persons whose names it bears. The founders bestowed on it an endowment
that would have been generous had there not been attached to it sundry
strings in way of conditions.

The intent was to make Indians Episcopalians, and white students
clergymen; and the assumption being that between the whites and the
aborigines there was little difference, the curriculum was an ecclesiastic
medley.

All the teachers were appointed by the Bishop of London, and the places
were usually given to clergymen who were not needed in England.

To this college, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty, came Thomas Jefferson, a
tall, red-haired youth, aged seventeen. He had a sharp nose and a sharp
chin; and a youth having these has a sharp intellect--mark it well.

This boy had not been "sent" to college. He came of his own accord from
his home at Shadwell, five days' horseback journey through the woods. His
father was dead, and his mother, a rare gentle soul, was an invalid.

Death is not a calamity "per se," nor is physical weakness necessarily a
curse, for out of these seeming unkind conditions Nature often distils her
finest products. The dying injunction of a father may impress itself upon
a son as no example of right living ever can, and the physical disability
of a mother may be the means that work for excellence and strength. The