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 in one part of the Union against another, an efficacious remedy will be to assemble the youth from every part, under such circumstances as will, by the freedom of intercourse and collision of sentiment, give to their minds the direction of truth, philanthropy, and mutual conciliation." He then expressed his preference of the proposed university at the federal capital, as the object of his appropriation, but left the matter at the disposal of the legislature. That body, in resolutions, approved of his appropriation of the fifty shares in the Potomac company to the proposed university, and requested him to appropriate the hundred shares in the James River company "to a seminary at such place in the upper country, as he may deem most convenient to a majority of the inhabitants thereof."

FOOTNOTES:

Life of Washington, ii, 356

See page 48 of this volume.