By University of Virginia - UVA Today

On Aug. 30, the United States Mint is releasing the latest in its series of gold coins honoring the spouses of American presidents. Because Thomas Jefferson had been a widower for 19 years prior to beginning his presidency, there was no First Lady to honor. Instead, his coin depicts Lady Liberty on the obverse, and on the reverse, an image of his monument, overlaid with his famed epitaph: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

In observation of the coin’s release and celebration of Jefferson’s beloved “Academical Village,” below is a sampling of Thomas Jefferson quotes relating to the great labor of his later years, the establishment of the University of Virginia. They are drawn from
“The Jefferson Cyclopedia: A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson,” available through the U.Va. Library at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/foley/.

I contemplate the University of Virginia as the future bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere. (Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1820)

This institution (University of Virginia) will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it May lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. (Jefferson to Mr. Roscoe, 1820)

I hope the University of Virginia will prove a blessing to my own State, and not unuseful perhaps to some others. (Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825)

Our University is the last of my mortal cares, and the last service I can render my country. (Jefferson to J. Correa, 1820)

It is the last act of usefulness I can render, and could I see it open I would not ask an hour more of life. (Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821)

I am closing the last scenes of my life by fashioning and fostering an establishment for the instruction of those who are to come after us. I hope its influence on their virtue, freedom, fame, and happiness will be salutary and permanent. (Jefferson to A.B. Woodward, 1825)

(On his legacy) You say my “handwriting and my letters have great effect at Richmond.” I am sensible of the kindness with which this encouragement is held up to me. But my views of their effect are very different. When I retired from the administration of public affairs, I thought I saw some evidence that I retired with a good degree of public favor, and that my conduct in office had been considered by one party at least with approbation and with acquiescence by the other. But the attempt [University of Virginia], in which I have embarked so earnestly to procure an improvement in the moral condition of my native State, although, perhaps, in other States in may have strengthened good dispositions, it has assuredly weakened them within our own. The attempt ran foul of so many local interests, of so many personal views, and so much ignorance, and I have been considered as so particularly its promoter, that I see evidently a great change of sentiment towards myself. I cannot doubt its having dissatisfied with myself a respectable minority, if not a majority of the House of Delegates. I feel it deeply and very discouragingly. Yet I shall not give way. I have ever found in my progress through life that, acting for the public, if we do always what is right, the approbation denied in the beginning will surely follow us in the end. It is from posterity we are to expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are making for their service, of time, quiet and good will. And I fear not the appeal. The multitude of fine young men whom we shall redeem from ignorance, who will feel that they own to us the elevation of mind, of character and station they will be able to attain from the result of our efforts, will insure their remembering us with gratitude. (Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1825)

(Urging a friend to continue his advocacy for establishing the University) I know well your devotion to your country, and your foresight of the awful scenes coming on her, sooner or later. With this foresight, what service can we ever render her equal to this? What object of our lives can we propose so important? What interest of our own which ought not to be postponed to this? Health, time, labor, on what in the single life which nature has given us, can these be better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The exertions and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal. If any member of our college of visitors could justifiably withdraw from this sacred duty, it would be myself, but I will die in the last ditch, and so, I hope, you will, my friend, as well as our firm-breasted brothers and colleagues, Mr. Johnson and General Breckenridge. Nature will not give you a second life wherein to atone for the omissions of this. Pray then, dear and very dear Sir, do not think of deserting us, but view the sacrifices which seem to stand in your way, as the lesser duties, and such as ought to be postponed to this, the greatest of all. Continue with us in these holy labors, until having seen their accomplishment, we may say with old Simeon, “nunc dimittas, Domine.” (Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1821)

(On curriculum) I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is, the holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elementary qualification only, and sufficient age. Our institution will proceed on the principle of doing all the good it can without consulting its own pride or ambition; of letting every one come and listen to whatever he thinks may improve the condition of his mind. (Jefferson to George Ticknor, 1823)

I fear not to say that within twelve or fifteen years from this time, a majority of the rulers of our State will have been educated here. They shall carry hence the correct principles of our day, and you May count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our days, or those of our forefathers. (Jefferson to W.B. Giles, 1825)

(On faculty) Our intention is that its professors shall be of the first order in their respective lines which can be procured on either side of the Atlantic. (Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1822)

(On students) They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes. (Jefferson to J. Evelyn Denison, 1825)

By University of Virginia - UVA Today