{"id":299,"date":"2012-07-30T16:56:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/?p=299"},"modified":"2012-07-30T16:56:18","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:56:18","slug":"sigourney-family-collection-correspondence-with-thomas-jefferson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/2012\/07\/30\/sigourney-family-collection-correspondence-with-thomas-jefferson\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigourney Family Collection: Correspondence with Thomas Jefferson"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Posted by Erika Jenns, Indiana University ’13]<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I near the end of my journey through Lydia Sigourney\u2019s life and published works, I\u2019ve begun to examine the Watkinson\u2019s holdings that pertain to her family as a whole.\u00a0 The Sigourney family maintained an interesting and eclectic collection of literary pieces.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come across books inscribed by Lydia\u2019s daughter, Mary, and her son, Andrew, books that Lydia owned or that were given to her by friends, and items that belonged to her husband, Charles.<\/p>\n

One particularly interesting item is a letter (fragment) written by Charles Sigourney to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson\u2019s subsequent reply.\u00a0 Aside from the allure of handling a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, I was awestruck upon first seeing the careful, elegant handwriting–which appears as if it has been typed.\u00a0 Each line is neat and straight; few words are crossed out.\u00a0\u00a0 In their correspondence, the men share their opinions and suggestions regarding the reform of collegiate education in America and what should be done to improve it.\u00a0 NOTE: I have largely kept the spelling, and made a few editorial changes (especially punctuation), but include the scans so that readers may see the originals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Letter fragment from Charles Sigourney to Thomas Jefferson (the first page is not present in the collection):<\/p>\n

\u2026. these objections, which may at least be guarded against input, if not remedied, your plan may be successful, and certainly, for one, I hope you may find it productive of all the good you have ever anticipated from it.<\/p>\n

I have long been sensible, for I have spent some years of my early life in England, that in thoroughness of instruction in classical learning<\/span> the first of our Universities are inferiour to the English, and those of a second & third grade even behind their superiour Academical schools.\u00a0 That deep-read familiarity with, and past introduction of appropriate citation from, the classical writers of Greece and Rome, that readiness of reference to their facts & beauties, that \u201ccuriosa felicitas,\u201d in combining the beauties of modern diction with classic corruption of Cicero & Plato, resulting from an understanding stored with the wisdom of antiquity, which distinguishes many of the parliamentary and forensic crates of Great Britain, is so rarely witnessed with us either in the Senate, or in the Forum, that, except in the case of a very few, among whom W. John Randolph, and the late Fisher Ames may be remembered it is almost unknown among us.\u00a0 The introduction therefore, into our country of some superior scholars from Europe will certainly have a tendency to elevate our literary taste, ambition & character, and will, besides, I trust, lead to the adoption of a system of instruction, in our higher seminaries of learning, more thorough than what now exists.<\/p>\n

I would here take occasion to remark that some of the best of our College \u2013 professors are those who have been taken, with a discriminating hand, from our own youth, sent to Europe to expand their views and perfect the maturity of their talents, and who have returned to us with minds enriched by the views and experience of older nations, and imbued with the opinions, wisdom, and habits of the literary worthies, with whom they have had the privelege of associating.\u00a0 Thus imposing an European polish or superstructure on an American foundation.\u00a0 Professors Silliman & Everett are examples of this remark.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My dear Ser when I look back on what I have written, I feel<\/span> as if an apology were now really necessary for the unusual length of this letter, which has swelled under my hand, almost insensibly, to very much beyond what I at first contemplated.\u00a0 I hope you will forgive my occupying so much of your time.\u00a0 And I beg you to be assured that whatever communication you may honour me with in return will be gratefully received, and in the spirit of perfect friendliness & candour, (and I add, because I know that evil has arisen from the license taken in similar cases) the, unsolicited, pledge on my part that it shall not, or any part of it, be suffered to make it\u2019s appearance in the newspapers.\u00a0 With great respect I have the honour [sic] to be \/ Your very obedient servant \/ Charles Sigourney \/ Hon.ble <\/sup>Thomas Jefferson \/ Charlottesville \/ Virginia<\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson\u2019s Response to Charles Sigourney:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dear Sir \/ Monticello Aug. 15. 24.<\/p>\n

Your favor of July 30 has been duly recieved, and with pleasure, there being nothing of which I am more desirous than to see a spirit of cordial fraternity cultivated among the various seminaries of our country.\u00a0 Their only legitimate object is the extension of instruction among our fellow-citizens, towards which it matters nothing whether it flows from one place or another.\u00a0 Our\u2019s has not yet proceeded far enough to enable me to answer all you enquiries.\u00a0 I inclose you however the original report, made by Commissioners under the order of our legislature.\u00a0 They were required to propose a site for the University, a plan of the necessary buildings, and a general view of the sciences and professorships requisite.\u00a0 This was done in the report and confirmed by the legislature.\u00a0 The plan of buildings therein sketched in general terms was then prepared, and I send you a copy of it.\u00a0 The buildings are all compleated except one, & that nearly so.\u00a0 These have occupied us between 5. and 6. Years, and will have cost about 300. M. D. ground, buildings and every thing included.\u00a0 In April last we were enabled to send an agent to Great Britain to procure some professors, those of the first order not being to be had in this country, for had it been in our power to seduce from their present situations some of the eminent characters established in our American seminaries, it was forbidden by every honorable principle; and a resort to secondary and unemployed characters would not have fulfilled the object of our institution.\u00a0 We considered too that a country which is willing that it\u2019s science should be stationary, there it is, may employ it\u2019s own eleves <\/em>[pupils (French)]; but if it wishes to advance, it must seek instruction from countries already in advance of them.\u00a0 I know that our pride & prejudices bristle up at the employment of foreigners, but it is science we want, and to this we must sacrifice our pride and prejudices.\u00a0 Some difficulties will arise in accommodating to our habits the ideas, methods and manners of those we employ.\u00a0 This too is a part of the price we are to pay for their aid.\u00a0 We must meet the difficulty, compromise with it, and make up our minds, with the honey, to swallow the few dregs we cannot separate from it.\u00a0 No good in life can be obtained pure and unmixed.\u00a0 We must take it as it is offered, alloyed always with some evil.\u00a0 And at what other price have we obtained all our arts and sciences?\u00a0 Our constitution I think is good.\u00a0 We are, as we ought to be, made regularly and highly responsible to the legislature for our administration.\u00a0 Moral and pecuniary regulations for the government and discipline of our university, I am not able to give you, because we have not yet acted on them.\u00a0 We defer that until autumn when we hope to derive some aid from the experience of our professors.\u00a0 A paragraph cut from a newspaper, and now inclosed, will give you, as far as is yet ascertained, a view of our general schools, the time fixed for their opening, the probable expences, and some other particularities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The university is but one part of a general plan which I proposed to our legislature five and forty years ago.\u00a0 I need not detail to you the historical circumstances which, till lately, have prevented our entering on it.\u00a0 That proposed the establishment of primary schools in words to be laid off about 5. or 6. miles square, intermediate colleges in large districts, distributed over the state, for the languages, and other instruction, preparatory for the university, and for the elements of some other sciences useful in ordinary life to those who do not aim at an university education; and lastly the University.\u00a0 Selections too were proposed to be made from the poor, but promising subjects of the primary schools, to be sent at the public expence to the intermediate colleges, and re-selections from among these again who should have their education compleated, in like manner gratis<\/em>, at the University.\u00a0 This last institution is the only one which can be said to be in a promising train.\u00a0 The middle grade of instruction is, as yet, left to private enterprise; and the plan adopted for primary schools, very different from what I had proposed, is found so absolutely inefficient that after having wasted on it 45 M. D. a year for five years, it must be abandoned, and some better one substituted.\u00a0\u00a0 in our plan of the University, we have blended agriculture among the duties of one of the professors of the natural sciences.\u00a0 But our agricultural societies are proposing to give up their funds for the establishment of a distinct professorship for that important science; and with that will probably be incorporated something of the plan of Fellenberg in Switzerland*<\/sup>, engaging youths of the poorer class, who will perform the labours of the farm in the intervals of recieving other instruction in the schools analogues to their vocation.\u00a0 The jealous of our religious sects has forbidden the public authorities to take under their direction the religious instruction of our youth.\u00a0 We have therefore invited them to fix their schools of divinity on the confines of the University, within reach of the other sciences, so necessary to place the clerical order on an equal line of respect with the other learned professions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We are disappointed in recieving the last donation of our legislature of 50. M. D. for the purchase of a library and apparatus; the contingency failing on which it depended.\u00a0 We hope they will make it good at their next section; but in the mean time we set out under the disadvantage of great defect in these two important articles. Letters from our academical envoy in England, when he had had time only to augur the prospects\u00a0 before him, are as encouraging as could be anticipated.<\/p>\n

I have thus given you, Sir, as full a view of our incipient institutions for the education of our citizens as can yet be given.\u00a0 Much is still to be filled up of the remaining chapters of their history, of which a few verses only will be included to the eye and age of 81.<\/p>\n

I thank you for the report on the deaf and dumb, nothing can interest more the feelings of benevolence.\u00a0 Age, as well as accident has rendered writing, to me, so laborious and painful, that I decline it as much as possible.\u00a0 But the subject of your letter lies so very near my heart that I must offer it as an apology for so lengthy an answer.\u00a0 With every wish therefore for the prosperity of your undertaking, be please to accept the assurance of my great esteem and respectful consideration.<\/p>\n

Th. Jefferson<\/p>\n

[Docketed] Th. Jefferson. Monticello aug.t<\/sup> 15. 824. rec\u2019d 21.st<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n

*Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg was a Swiss philanthropist and educational reformer.\u00a0 Fellenberg founded a school to educate poor children in both agriculture and academics, and he worked to raise the living conditions of the poor to a status closer to that of the upper class.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Posted by Erika Jenns, Indiana University ’13] As I near the end of my journey through Lydia Sigourney\u2019s life and published works, I\u2019ve begun to examine the Watkinson\u2019s holdings that pertain to her family as a whole.\u00a0 The Sigourney family maintained an interesting and eclectic collection of literary pieces.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come across books inscribed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}