architectural designs, from fiddling to philosophy, from potatoes to
politics, from rice to religion. In all these things, and in many more
besides, he took the keenest interest; but in nothing, perhaps, did he
display throughout his life a more unfaltering zeal than in the cause of
education.

"A system of general instruction," said he in 1818, "which shall reach
every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as
it was the earliest, so it will be the latest of all the public concerns
in which I shall permit myself to take an interest."

From first to last Jefferson's aim was to establish, in organic union
and harmonious co-operation, a system of educational institutions
consisting of (1) primary schools, to be supported by local taxation;
(2) grammar schools, classical academies or local colleges; and (3) a
State University, as roof and spire of the whole edifice.

He did not succeed in realizing the whole of his scheme, but he did
finally succeed in inducing the Legislature to pass an act in the
year 1819 by which the State accepted the gift of Central College
(a corporation based upon private subscriptions due to Jefferson's
efforts), and converted it into the University of Virginia.

This action was taken on the report of a commission previously
appointed, which had met at Rockfish Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains--a
commission composed probably of more eminent men than had ever before
presided over the birth of a university. Three of these men, who met
together in that unpretentious inn, were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison
and James Monroe (then President of the United States).