Part 23

8. He entered William and Mary College in the spring of 1760, when he was seventeen years old.

9. After two years of college life he began the study of law in 1763.

10. When he came of age in April, 1764, he signalized the event by planting a beautiful avenue of trees near his house.

11. While studying law he carried on the business of a farmer, and showed by his example, that the genuine culture of the mind is the best preparation for the common, as well as the higher, duties of life.

12. When he was elected to the Virginia Assembly, and thus entered upon the public service, he avowed afterwards to Madison, that "the esteem of the world was, perhaps, of higher value in his eyes than everything in it."

13. His marriage was a very happy one. His wife was a beautiful woman, her countenance being brilliant with color and expression.

14. Six children blessed their marriage, five girls and a boy. Only two of them, Martha and Mary, lived to mature life.

15. Monticello, the home of Jefferson, was blessed at every period of his long life with a swarm of merry children whom, although not his own, he greatly loved.

16. Mrs. Jefferson once said of her husband, who had done a generous deed for which he had received an ungrateful return, "He is so good himself that he cannot understand how bad other people may be."

17. In his draft of instructions for Virginia's delegates to the Congress which was to meet in Philadelphia in September, 1774, he used some plain language to George III.

18. The stupid, self-willed and conceited monarch did not follow his advice, and so lost the American Colonies, the brightest jewels in England's crown.

19. Sixty gentlemen, in silk stockings and pigtails, sitting in a room of no great size in a plain brick building up a narrow alley in Philadelphia, composed the Continental Congress.

20. Thomas Jefferson was one of the members most welcome in that body. He brought with him "a reputation," as John Adams records, "for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition."

21. As late as Nov. 29,1775, Jefferson clung to the idea of connection with great Britain.

22. He wrote his kinsman, John Randolph, that there was not a man in the British Empire who more cordially loved a union with Great Britain than he did.

23. He said: "It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have such a king at such a time. We are told, and everything proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have."

24. When the draft of the Declaration was submitted to the Congress it made eighteen suppressions, six additions and ten alterations; and nearly every one was an improvement.

25. It should be a comfort to students who have to witness the corrections of their compositions to know, that this great work of Jefferson, which has given him immortal fame had to be pruned of its crudities, redundancies and imprudences.

26. They should be as ready as he was to submit to criticisms and to profit by them as he did, in their future efforts.

27. Daniel Webster shall tell in his own language the remainder of this story of Jefferson's life.

28. "In 1781 he published his notes on Virginia, a work which attracted attention in Europe as well as America, dispelled many misconceptions respecting this continent, and gave its author a place among men distinguished for science.

29. "With Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, in 1784, he proceeded to France, in execution of his mission as Minister plenipotentiary, to act in the negotiation of commercial treaties.

30. "In 1785 he was appointed Minister to France.

31. "Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by great ability, diligence and patriotism.

32. "While he resided in Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his love of knowledge, and of the society of learned men, distinguished him in the highest circles of the French capital.

33. "Immediately on his return to his native country he was placed by Washington at the head of the department of State.

34. "In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability.

35. "His correspondence with the ministers of other powers residing here, and his instructions to our own diplomatic agents abroad are among our ablest State papers.