organic union of mental activity and the industrial element in both the normal and the popular school. Not only were teachers familiarized with practical subjects and with methods which dealt with realities instead of words, and called for the frequent use of the blackboard and visible illustrations, but they were trained to some handicraft with the special object of communicating the same to the children of peasants, whose habits of industry had been broken up by continuous military service, and the destruction of harvests by moving troops and armies. The value of habits of diligence, perseverance, neatness and thrift was constantly inculcated and demonstrated practically. Pupil teachers were taught at Kaplitz and Prague how to occupy a portion of their own time, and that of their older pupils, in and out of school hours in such in-door industries as knitting, sewing, wool-carding and spinning, and out-door work as kitchen gardening, tree culture, and raising silk-worms. And the reasons assigned by Kindermann for this new curriculum was to protect society against beggary, vice, and crime, and promote the welfare of the peasant class.

That his efforts in this direction were followed by the happiest results, the increased prosperity of the peasant classes in Bohemia, and the speedy adoption, in some form, of the industrial feature of his plan in other states is ample proof.

The further history of his work is absorbed in the general history of educational reform in the Austrian Empire. He lived a quiet though active life, preferring to work unostentatiously in smaller circles than to win fame as a great reformer-and his published works, besides those already named, are 'Report on the School at Kaplitz, Thoughts on the means of disseminating the Religious Instruction of the Improved Common Schools among Adults, with two prize themes: One for an instructive text-book for the people, and one for a condensed Explanation of Religious Customs and Ceremonies.'

The honors bestowed upon him by his sovereign show the estimation in which his services were held, and at the same time prove the spirit with which Maria Theresa undertook the work of reform. Shortly after his removal from Kaplitz to Prague, he was made Dean of the Collegiate Church of All Saints and given the Abbey of Petur, in Hungary, in commendam, and at the same time raised to the Equestrian rank with the title of Von Schulstein. In 1779 he was made Provost of the Church of Maria Schein, near Teplitz, and nominated Bishop of Leitmeritz, which dignity he held at the time of his death in 1801.

GERARD VAN SWEITEN.

In the reforms in the Austrian High School, inaugurated by Maria Theresa, Gerard Van Sweiten took an active part. This eminent physician was born in Leyden in 1700, and after pursuing his preliminary studies at Louvain, he returned to his native city. Here it was his good fortune to attract the attention of Boerhaave, who became his friend and patron. His love of study was unbounded, and his application so great as to threaten his health, until the good counsels of his distinguished teacher restrained his ardor. Besides a profound and systematic study of his own profession, he found time to push his acquirements in other fields, and when he attained his doctor's degree at the age of twenty-five, he was regarded as one of the savans of Europe. He began a course of lectures at the University of Leyden which were attended by unprecedented numbers. His success, however, did not fail to excite jealousy; and after a time his enemies made the fact of his being a Catholic a pretext for his removal. He devoted himself at once to his 'Commentaries on the Aphorisms of Boerhaave,' the chief literary work by which he is known, until the Empress Maria Theresa invited him to Vienna, where, in 1745, he became first physician to the Empress, and a baron of the empire.

He immediately distinguished himself by his activity in his new field. He reformed the study of medicine at the University, and lectured himself until new and more important duties forced him to desist, but not until he had seen his place worthily filled. It was at his instigation that the clinical school was established which was the model of the now famous schools in France and the north of Germany, and it was also owing to him that the Empress rebuilt the University. He was also Imperial Librarian and DirectorGeneral of Medical Affairs in Austria, and in 1760 became a member of the State Board of Studies, in which he was associated with Migazzi, Archbishop of Vienna.

As Imperial Librarian he was instrumental in making the library accessible to every one. A senseless rule had been inforced which forbade any one from making notes of what they read there. He not only abolished this, but offered every facility to those who wished to avail themselves of the great treasures contained in the library by arranging and cataloguing its contents.

As a member of the Board of Studies, he was influential in introducing into the University lectures on experimental physics, and in developing realistic studies, especially those which related to agriculture and commerce in special schools at Prague and Vienna.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MEMOIR.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, who began and closed his public life with efforts to improve the system and institutions of education of his native State, and who wished to be remembered by posterity as the Father of the University of Virginia, was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, in Goochland (after 1744 Albemarle) County, not far from the conical elevation which afterward became his own residence under the name of Monticello (Little Mountain). His ancestors on the father's side were Welsh, emigrating among the first settlers of Virginia from the neighborhood of Snowdon, and on his mother's side, from the Scotch family of the Randolphs. His parents belonged to the middle class of Virginia families-the father being a resolute man, of gigantic stature, but of limited education, who, by force of character, was the foremost man in his district, and whose rule of life was, 'Never ask another to do for you what you can do for yourself.' He died at the age of fifty, having done what his means and the situation of the country enabled him to do to start his children on a higher plane of education than he had traveled; and for his son Thomas his dying directions were, that he should receive a thorough classical training. This son, when five years old, had been placed at the English school at Tuckahoe, where the father resided at the time; and on the return of the family to Shadwell, he went to the school of Mr. Douglas, a Scotch clergyman, who taught him the rudiments of Latin, Greek, and French. On the death of his father, at the age of nine years, he was removed to the family school of the Rev. James Maury, at the base of Peter's Mountain, fourteen miles from Shadwell. In his rambles over the mountain, with his dog and gun, and under the genial, encouraging instruction of an elegant classical scholar and zealous teacher, the young student spent two or three years in the rapid and vigorous development of his mind and body.

In 1760, in his seventeenth year, Jefferson entered the junior

• We shall follow, in this brief sketch, the early chapters of Randall's exhaustive Life in 3 vols. † See Barnard's Educational Biography. Vol. I. James Maury. Edition, 1876.

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class (third year) at William and Mary College. Here it was his good fortune to come into intimate relations with Dr. Small, the Professor of Mathematics, and for the time discharging the duties of the Professor of Philosophy. He was a Scotchman of elegant manners, general culture, and of a peculiarly liberal and comprehensive mind. As an instructor, he had the happy, if not rare, art of making the road to knowledge both easy and profitable. Attracted by the correct and modest deportment of young Jefferson, struck with his singular proficiency and his energy of thought, he not only instructed him with peculiar zest from the professorial chair, but he made him the friend and companion of his leisure hours; and he did much to create, or rather to encourage in him, that thirst for a general culture-those enlarged views of 'the expansion of science and of the system of things in which we are placed for which his pupil, sixty years afterward, covered with honor and renown, poured out his fervid acknowledgments. Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, with some, we can not but think, of that exaggeration with which generous minds are prone to regard the services of early benefactors, declared in his Memoir that it was Doctor Small's instruction and intercourse that 'probably fixed the destinies of his life.' Under the influence of Doctor Small's teachings and conversation, the young student was withdrawn from the temptations of fast horses and faster young men, to which he was at first exposed, and to which he alludes in a letter to his grandson at college, written when occupying the Presidential Mansion at Washington, Nov. 24, 1808:

Your situation, thrown on a wide world, among entire strangers, without a friend or guardian to advise, so young, too, and with so little experience of mankind, your dangers are great, and still your safety must rest on yourself. A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world. When I recollect that at fourteen years of age, the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely, without a relation or friend, qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were. I had the good fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become what they were. Under temptations and difficulties, I would ask myself-what would Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation? What course in it will insure me their approbation? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my conduct, tended more to correctness than any reasoning powers I possessed. Knowing the even and dignified line they pursued, I could never doubt for a moment which of two courses would be in character for them. Whereas, seeking the same object through a process of moral reasoning, and with the jaundiced eye of youth, I should often have erred. From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse racers, card players, fox hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the

nation, Well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a fox hunter? an orator ?, or the honest advocate of my country's rights? Be assured, my dear Jefferson, that these little returns into ourselves, this self-catechizing habit, is not trifling nor useless, but leads to the prudent selection and steady pursuit of what is right.

His second year in college was more diligently employed than the first. Company, the riding-horse, and even the favorite violin, were nearly discarded. He habitually studied, as he often afterward declared, fifteen hours a day. The only time he took for exercise, was to run sharply a mile out of the city and back at twilight. He left college at the end of his second year, a profound and accomplished scholar for one so young. Few probably have been better educated at the same age; and he had a good and broad foundation laid for that superstructure of learning which he continued to erect on it throughout his life. He united, what is not common among students, a decided taste for both mathematics and the classics. The first was perhaps at this period of life rather the favorite, and intricate must be that process in it which he could not read off with the facility of common discourse.** He maintained his familiarity with this science, kept up with its advances, and made a practical use of it in all the concerns where it is applicable, through life. In later years, we shall find him giving the most attention to the classics. He was a fine and even a critical Latin and Greek scholar. The most difficult authors in those languages were read by him with ease-were habitually read by him as recreations, snatched from official and other labors, and they became the most prized solaces of his old age. Of French, as a written language, he had a thorough knowledge. His acquaintance with Anglo Saxon, Italian, and Spanish, have been assigned to his college period; but this is a mistake, unless so far as mere rudiments are concerned. He studied the Anglo Saxon during his law studies, to enable him to dip for himself into the ancient fountains of the English Common Law. The Italian was taken up immediately after. The impressions of his family were, that he did not study Spanish until he went to France in 1784; and confirmatory of this, we find an entry in one of his account books of the purchase of a Spanish dictionary as he was on the point of embarking. He probably found it necessary to improve his knowledge of Spanish at that period.

There was no grand department, and scarcely a branch of liberal

• He wrote Colonel William Duane, October 1, 1812: 'When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal power. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor and time and slow investigation.'