habit" for self-government, the honest pursuit of industry, and social
duty.[1] In his scheme for a modern system of public schools Jefferson
included the training of the slaves in industrial and agricultural
branches to equip them for a higher station in life, else he thought
they should be removed from the country when liberated.[2] Capable of
mental development, as he had found certain men of color to be, the
Sage of Monticello doubted at times that they could be made the
intellectual equals of white men,[3] and did not actually advocate
their incorporation into the body politic.

[Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. vi., p. 456.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. viii., p. 380; and Mayo, _Educational
Movement in the South_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 3: As to what Jefferson thought of the Negro intellect
we are still in doubt. Writing in 1791 to Banneker, the Negro
mathematician and astronomer, he said that nobody wished to see more
than he such proofs as Banneker exhibited that nature has given to our
black brethren talents equal to those of men of other colors, and that
the appearance of a lack of such native ability was owing only to
their degraded condition in Africa and America. Jefferson expressed
himself as being ardently desirous of seeing a good system commenced
for raising the condition both of the body and the mind of the slaves
to what it ought to be as fast as the "imbecility" of their then
existence and other circumstances, which could not be neglected, would
admit. Replying to Gregoire of Paris, who wrote an interesting essay
on the _Literature of Negroes_, showing the power of their intellect,
Jefferson assured him that no person living wished more sincerely
than he to see a complete refutation of the doubts he himself had
entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to
them by nature and to find that in this respect they are on a par
with white men. These doubts, he said, were the result of personal
observations in the limited sphere of his own State where "the
opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable,
and those of exercising it still less so." He said that he had
expressed them with great hesitation; but "whatever be the degree of
their talent, it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac
Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore
lord of the person or property of others." In this respect he believed
they were gain