ependence, it was again upon the shoulders of the
men who had gained vision and character in the colonial colleges that
the burden fell of organizing the mutually suspicious and antagonistic
colonies into one nation. Space will not permit even of the
enumeration of the great leaders who graduated from all the colonial
colleges, but an idea of the service rendered by those institutions to
the new nation may be obtained by mentioning the names of a few
statesmen who received their instruction in one of the least of them,
William and Mary. In its classrooms were taught Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Randolph, James Monroe, and John Marshall.

2. THE NATIONAL ERA

=French influence=

French influence upon American political and intellectual life had
become quite pronounced as the result of the contact between the
leaders of the two peoples during and after the Revolution. That
influence was reflected in the colleges. Instruction in the French
language was offered in several of the colleges before the close of
the eighteenth century, and a chair of French was established at
Columbia as early as 1779 and at William and Mary in 1793. The
secularizing influence of the French united also with the
democratizing influence of the Revolution in diminishing the influence
of the church upon the colleges and emphasizing the influence of the
State and especially the relations between college and people. Of the
fourteen colleges founded between 1776 and 1800, the majority were
established upon a non-sectarian basis. These included institutions of
a private nature like Washington and Lee, Bowdoin, and Union, as well
as institutions closely related to the state governments like the
Universities of North Carolina and of Vermont. There can hardly be any
doubt that the French system of centralized administration in civil
affairs influenced the establishment of the University of the State of
New York. The University of the State of New York is not a local
institution, but a body of nine regents elected by the legislature to
control the administration of education throughout the State of New
York. Though organized by Alexander Hamilton, it was in all
probability much influenced by John Jay, who returned from France in
1784. But the most potent factor in the spread of French influence in
the early history of our country was Thomas Jefferson. While Jefferson
was American minister to France, he studied the French system of
educa