282 Memoi'ial of George Broivn Goode. 



support which you ought to do, you can't imagine what a garden it would make of the 

 United States: I have great projects, and only want the time and means for carrying 

 them into effect.' 



M. Dupont de Nemours was also corresponding with Jefferson upon 

 the same subject, and his work, Sur I'E^ducation Nationale dans les 

 Etats-Unis, pubHshed in Paris in 1800, was written at his request.'' 



Barlow returned to the American States in 1805, and almost his first 

 public act after his arrival, we are told, was to issue a prospectus in which 

 he forcibly and eloquently depicted the necessity and advantages of a 

 national scientific institution. 



This was to consist of a central university at or near the seat of gov- 

 ernment, and, as far as might seem practicable or advisable, other uni- 

 versities, colleges, and schools of education, either in Washington or in 

 other parts of the United States, together with printing presses for the 

 use of the institution, laboratories, libraries, and apparatus for the sci- 

 ences and the arts, and gardens for botany and agricultural experiments. 



The institution was to encourage science by all means in its power, by 

 correspondence, by premiums and by .scholarships, and to publish school- 

 books at cost of printing. 



The Military and Naval Academies, the Mint, and the Patent Office 

 were to be connected with the university, and there was also to be a gen- 

 eral depository of the results of scientific research and of the discoveries 

 by voyages and travels, actually the equivalent of a national museum. 



"In short," wrote Barlow, "no rudiment of knowledge should be 

 below its attention, no height of improvement above its ambition, no 

 corner of an empire beyond its vigilant activit}" for collecting and diffus- 

 ing information. ' ' ^ 



The editor of the National Intelligencer, the organ of the Administra- 

 tion in 1806, commented favorably upon the plan of Barlow. 



This gentleman [he wrote], whose mind has been enlarged by extensive observa- 

 tion, by contemplating man under almost ever}' variety of aspect in which he appears, 

 and whose sentiments have been characterized by an uniformly zealous devotion to 

 liberty, has most justly embraced the opinion that the duration as well as perfection 

 of republicanism in this country will depend upon the prevalence of correct informa- 

 tion, itself dependent upon the education of the great body of the people. Having 

 raised himself, as we understand, to a state of pecuniary independence, he has 

 returned to his native country, with a determination of devoting his whole attention 



' Todd, Life and Letters of Joel Barlow, p. 20S. 



" Adams, Jefferson and the University of Virginia, p. 49 ct scq. 



3 See text of prospectus in Appendix C to this paper, or in National Intelligencer, 

 Washington, 1806, August i and November 24. The original publication, of which 

 there is a copy in the Congressional Library, recently brought to my notice by Mr. 

 Spofford, is a pamphlet, anonymously published, with the date of Washington, 24th 

 January, 1806. 



Prospectus | of a | National Institution, | to be | established | in the | United 



States 1 = I Washington City: | Printed by Samuel H. Smith \ | 1806— 8°, pp. 



1-44. 



