1 92 Nations lately become 'Literary. [Ch. XXVI. 



their education at European seminaries. Those 

 who could not afford to adopt this plan wer6 

 obliged to content themselves either with such 

 private tuition as they could command, or with 

 the miserable system of instruction pursued in 

 the few small and ill conducted schools which 

 had been formed. 



Such was the low state of literature in Virginia 

 when the rev. James Blair, who went to that co- 

 lony as a missionary about the year 1685, ob- 

 serving the great want of seminaries for the reli- 

 gious and moral, as well as literary instruction 

 of youth j and perceiving among other evils the 

 obstacles which this presented to the success of 

 his missionary labours, formed the design of erect- 

 ing and endowing a college at Williamsburgh. 

 For this purpose he not only solicited benefactions 

 from the colonists, but also made a voyage to 

 England in 1693, to obtain the patronage of the 

 government, and a charter for the proposed insti- 

 tution *. King William and queen Mary being 

 then on the throne, the application of Mr. Blair 

 was favourabl}'^ received; a patent was imme- 

 diately made out for erecting and endowing a se- 

 minary, under the name of " William and Mary 

 college," agreeably to his request-}-, and the plan 



* The laudable exertions of Mr. Blair are mentioned with 

 great respect by bishop Buniet, in hlsHisioiy of his Oivn Times. 

 See vol. iv, p. 174. 



t The object declared in the charter was, " to found and esta- 

 blish a certain place of universal study^ or perpetual college, 

 for divinity, philosophy, languages, and other good arts and 

 sciences." But neitJier theology nor the Hebrew language ap- 

 pear to have been so much studiod here as at Cambridge in Mas* 

 sachusetts, 



