13 







City of Washington, was presented to Congress, praying for authority 

 to accept donations for the establishment of a National University, and 

 stating that the President had appropriated a square of ground in the 

 new city, containing near twenty acres, for that object, and had himself 

 offered a donation of fifty shares of stock, then supposed to be valuable, 

 and which had cost him the sum of five thousand pounds sterling, to 

 aid in the attempt. Mr. MADISON, chairman of a committee of three, 

 reported on the 21st December, 1796, as follows: " That it is expe- 

 ' dient, at present, the authority be given, as prayed for by said memo- 

 ' rial, to proper persons to receive and hold in trust pecuniary dona 

 ' tions, in aid of the appropriations already made, towards the establish 

 ' ment of a University in the District of Columbia." 



If it was expedient at so early a period of our Government, when the 

 people were less divided by sectional feelings than now, to establish a 

 National University at Washington, how much stronger the induce- 

 ment and necessity at present, having at hand a large sum of money 

 bequeathed for that very purpose, costing the Government not one 

 cent, to the execution of which trust its honor is pledged, and which 

 comes with such patriotic, wise, and irresistible arguments as those of 

 the " Pater Patiia? !" 



" Common Sense" observes that various causes, the state of our rela- 

 tions with France, and the excited state of the public mind on many 

 subjects of domestic policy, prevented the agitation of the subject during 

 the short administration of JOHN ADAMS. 



But we find President JEFFERSON using the following cogent and 

 impressive language in his message of the 2d December, 1806. He 

 thus speaks to Congress : 



" Education is here placed among the articles of public care ; not 

 ' that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the 

 ' hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the 

 i concerns to which it is equal ; but a public institution can alone sup- 

 i ply those sciences which, though rarely called f or ^ are yet necessary to 

 ' complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improve- 

 1 ment of the country, and some of them to its preservation. The 

 ' subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress, because, if 

 * approved, by the time the State Legislatures shall have deliberated 

 ' on this extension of the Federal trusts, and the laws shall be passed 

 ' and other arrangements made for their execution, the necessary funds 

 v will be on hand arid without employment. I suppose an amend 



