CHAPTER acceded to; and, by an act of the Assembly, the shares were assigned to such public objects, as he should direct during his life, or by his last will and testament.

XV. 1785.

Contributes

to the sup

cation.

The purpose, which he first had in view, was the enport of edu- couragement of education, and this purpose was ultimately accomplished. Some time before his death, he made over the shares in the James River Company to an institution in Rockbridge County, then called Liberty Hall Academy. The name has since been changed to Washington College. The fifty shares in the Potomac Company he bequeathed in perpetuity for the endowment of a university in the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the government; and, if such a seminary should not be established by the government, the fund was to increase till it should be adequate, with such other resources as might be obtained, for the accomplishment of the design. The establishing of a national university was always one of his favorite schemes. He recommended it in his messages to Congress, and often in his letters spoke of the advantages, which would be derived from it to the nation.*

Appointed chancellor of William and Mary

College.

It may here be added, that he was a zealous advocate for schools and literary institutions of every kind, and sought to promote them, whenever an opportunity offered, by his public addresses and by private benefactions. In this spirit he accepted the chancellorship of William and Mary College, being earnestly solicited by the trustees. In his answer to them, accepting the appointment, he said; "I rely fully in your strenuous endeavors for placing the system on such a basis, as will render it most beneficial to the State and the republic of letters, as well as to the more extensive interests of humanity and religion." The

* The donation to Washington College has been productive, and the proceeds arising from it have contributed essential aid to that institution. No part of the other fund has been as yet employed for literary purposes. The Potomac Company seems to have been merged in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. The shares appropriated by Washington's will are doubtless held in trust by the latter company for their destined object.

XV.

chancellor's duty consisted chiefly in suggesting and ap- CHAPTER proving measures for the management of the college, and in recommending professors and teachers to fill vacancies in the departments of instruction.

The acts of charity by which he contributed from his private means to foster education were not few nor small. During many years, he gave fifty pounds annually for the instruction of indigent children in Alexandria; and by will he left a legacy of four thousand dollars, the net income of which was to be used for the same benevolent object for ever. Two or three instances are known, in which he offered to pay the expenses of young men through their collegiate course. When General Greene died, he proposed to take under his protection one of the sons of his departed friend, pay the charges of his education, and bring him forward into life. Fortunately the circumstances, in which General Greene left his family, rendered this act of munificence and paternal care unnecessary. Other examples might be cited; and, from his cautious habit of concealing from the world his deeds of charity, it may be presumed many others are unknown, in which his heart and his hand were open to the relief of indigent merit.

1785.

Donation for

the educa

tion of indi

gent chil

dren.

Favors the Huntington

plan of Lady

for civilizing

The Countess of Huntington, celebrated for her religious enthusiasm and liberal charities, formed a scheme for civilizing and Christianizing the North American In- the Indians. dians. Being a daughter of the Earl of Ferrers, who was descended through the female line from a remote branch of the Washington family, she claimed relationship to General Washington, and wrote to him several letters respecting her project of benevolence and piety in America. It was her design to form, at her own charge, in the neighborhood of some of the Indian tribes, a settlement of industrious emigrants, who, by their example and habits, should gradually introduce among them the arts of civilization; and missionaries were to teach them the principles of Christianity. Lady Huntington proposed, that the government of the United States should grant

CHAPTER

XV.

1785.

His farming operations.

a tract of wild lands upon which her emigrants and missionaries should establish themselves. A scheme, prompted by motives so pure, and founded on so rational a basis, gained at once the approbation and countenance of Washington. He wrote to the President of Congress, and to the governors of some of the States, expressing favorable sentiments of Lady Huntington's application. Political and local reasons interfered to defeat the plan. In the first place, it was thought doubtful whether a colony of foreigners settled on the western frontier, near the English on one side and the Spaniards on the other, would in the end prove conducive to the public tranquillity. And, in the next place, the States individually had ceded all their wild lands to the Union, and Congress were not certain that they possessed power to grant any portion of the new territory for such an object. Hence the project was laid aside, although Washington offered to facilitate it as far as he could on a smaller scale, by allowing settlers to occupy his own lands, and be employed according to Lady Huntington's views.

In the spring of 1785, he was engaged for several weeks in planting his grounds at Mount Vernon with trees and shrubs. To this interesting branch of husbandry he had devoted considerable attention before the war, and during that period he had endeavored to carry out his plans of improvement. In some of his letters from camp, he gave minute directions to his manager for removing and planting trees; but want of skill and other causes prevented these directions from being complied with, except in a very imperfect manner. The first year after the war, he applied himself mainly to farming operations, with the view of restoring his neglected fields and commencing a regular system of practical agriculture. He gradually abandoned the cultivation of tobacco, which exhausted his lands, and substituted wheat and grass, as better suited to the soil, and in the aggregate more profitable. He began a new method of rotation of crops, in which he studied the particular qualities of the soil in