Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/185

THOMAS JEFFERSON 147 frequently remarked, they were three men and one system. On retiring to Monticello in 1809, Jefferson was sixty-six years of age, and had seventeen years to live. His daughter Martha and her husband resided with him, they and their numerous brood of children, six daughters and five sons, to whom was now added Francis Eppes, the son of his daughter Maria, who had died in 1804. Surrounded thus by children and grandchildren, he spent the leisure of his declining years in endeavor ing to establish in Virginia a system of education to embrace all the children of his native state. In this he was most zealously and ably assisted by his friend, Joseph C. Cabell, a member of the Vir ginia senate. What he planned in the study, Cabell supported in the legislature ; and then in turn Jef ferson would advocate Cabell s bill by one of his ingenious and exhaustive letters, which would go the rounds of the Virginia press. The correspond ence of these two patriots on the subject of edu cation in Virginia was afterward published in an octavo of 528 pages, a noble monument to the character of both. Jefferson appealed to every motive, including self-interest, urging his scheme upon the voter as a "provision for his family to the remotest posterity." He did not live long enough to see his system of common schools established in Virginia, but the university, which was to crown that system, a dar-