nue"; everybody gambled; cockfights and dogfights were regarded as
manly diversions; there was much carousing at taverns; and often at
private houses there were all-night dances where the rising sun found
everybody but the servants plain drunk.

At the college, both teachers and scholars were obliged to subscribe to
the Thirty-nine Articles and to recite the Catechism. The atmosphere was
charged with theology.

Young Jefferson had never before seen a village of even a dozen houses,
and he looked upon this as a type of all cities. He thought about it,
talked about it, wrote about it, and we now know that at this time his
ideas concerning city versus country crystallized.

Fifty years after, when he had come to know London and Paris, and had seen
the chief cities of Christendom, he repeated the words he had written in
youth, "The hope of a nation lies in its tillers of the soil!"

On his mother's side he was related to the "first families," but
aristocracy and caste had no fascination for him, and he then began
forming those ideas of utility, simplicity and equality that time only
strengthened.

His tutors and professors served chiefly as "horrible examples," with the
shining exception of Doctor Small. The friendship that ripened between
this man and young Jefferson is an ideal example of what can be done
through the personal touch. Men are great only as they excel in sympathy;
and the difference between sympathy and imagination has not yet been shown
us.

Doctor Small encouraged the young farmer from the hills to think and to
express himself. He did not endeavor to set him straight or explain
everything for him, or correct all his vagaries, or demand that he should
memorize rules. He gave his affectionate sympathy to the boy who, with a
sort of feminine tenderness, clung to the only person who understood him.

To Doctor Small, pedigree and history unknown, let us give the credit of
being first in the list of friends that gave bent to the mind of
Jefferson. John Burke, in his "History of Virginia," refers to Professor
Small thus: "He was not any too orthodox in his opinions." And here we
catch a glimpse of a formative influence in the life of Jefferson that
caused him to turn from the letter of the law and cleave to the spirit
that maketh alive. After school-hours the tutor and the student walked and
talked, and on Saturdays and Sundays went on excursions through the woods;
and to the youth there was given an impul