Governor's "palace"; and when the city of Washington was laid out,
Williamsburg served as a model. On Saturdays, there were horse-races on
the "Avenue"; everybody gambled; cockfights and dogfights were regarded as
manly diversions; there was much carousing at taverns; and often at
private houses there were all-night dances where the rising sun found
everybody but the servants plain drunk.

At the college, both teachers and scholars were obliged to subscribe to
the Thirty-nine Articles and to recite the Catechism. The atmosphere was
charged with theology.

Young Jefferson had never before seen a village of even a dozen houses,
and he looked upon this as a type of all cities. He thought about it,
talked about it, wrote about it, and we now know that at this time his
ideas concerning city versus country crystallized.

Fifty years after, when he had come to know London and Paris, and had seen
the chief cities of Christendom, he repeated the words he had written in
youth, "The hope of a nation lies in its tillers of the soil!"

On his mother's side he was related to the "first families," but
aristocracy and caste had no fascination for him, and he then began
forming those ideas of utility, simplicity and equality that time only
strengthened.

His tutors and professors served chiefly as "horrible examples," with the
shining exception of Doctor Small. The friendship that ripened between
this man and young Jefferson is an ideal example of what can be done
through the personal touch. Men are great only as they excel in sympathy;
and the difference between sympathy and imagination has not yet been shown