great magnitude) by
assembling the youths from the different parts of this republic,
contributing, from their intercourse and interchange of information, to
the removal of prejudices, which might, perhaps, sometimes arise from
local circumstances."

Washington then suggested the federal city as the most eligible place
for such an institution; at the same time offering, in the event of the
university being established upon a scale as extensive as he described,
and the execution of it being commenced under favorable auspices in a
reasonable time, to "grant in perpetuity fifty shares in the navigation
of the Potomac river towards the endowment of it."

About four weeks after this, Washington received a letter from Mr.
Jefferson, on the subject that had a bearing upon the disposition of his
shares, the former having on some occasion asked the advice of the
latter concerning the appropriation of them. Mr. Jefferson now informed
Washington that the college at Geneva, in Switzerland, had been
destroyed, and that Mr. D'Ivernois, a Genevan scholar who had written a
history of his country, had proposed the transplanting of that college
to America. It was proposed to have the professors of the college come
over in a body, it being asserted that most of them spoke the English
language well.

Jefferson was favorable to the establishment of the proposed new college
within the state of Virginia; but Washington, with practical sagacity,
concluded that it would not be wise to have two similar institutions. He
preferred having one excellent institution, and that at the federal
capital, and gave his reasons at length for his opinion, at the same
time adding--after stating to Mr. Jefferson the fact that he had offered
the fifty shares of the Potomac company to the commissioners--"My
judgment and my wishes point equally strong to the application of the
James River shares [one hundred] to the same object at the same place;
but, considering the source from whence they were derived, I have, in a
letter I am writing to the executive of Virginia on this subject, left
the application of them to a seminary within the state, to be located by
the legislature."

In his letter to Governor Brooke, above referred to, Washington said:
"The time is come when a plan of universal education ought to be adopted
in the United States. Not only do the exigencies of public life demand
it, but, if it should be apprehended that prejudice would be entertained
i