260 History of Universities
regarded sending a boy to Harvard as putting him on the
high-road to perdition. Yet “Mother Yale” was little if
anything behind “Fair Harvard” in preparing graduates
to play a leading part in their communities as laymen or
divines.
The charter of William and Mary College (1693) was
explicit as to the religious motives of that foundation:
“. . . to the end that the Church of Virginia may be fur-
nished with a seminary of ministers of the gospel, and that
the youth may be piously educated in good letters and man-
ners” (a translation of the Ciceronian phrase bonae Htterae
et mores') ; “and that the Christian faith may be propagated
among the Western Indians.” Supplied with the finest (now
the oldest) college building north of Mexico, and located
at Williamsburg, capital of the proud and wealthy Old Do-
minion, life at William and Mary was characterized by an
Oxonian sparkle and gaiety that the other colonial colleges
lacked. It was necessary for the President and Masters, in
1752, to forbid scholars to frequent gaming tables, own race
horses, or keep “fighting Cocks.” Many Virginia parents,
in fact, felt that the Williamsburg social life, and the drink-
ing bouts at the Governor’s Palace were demoralizing to
their sons, and sent them instead to Presbyterian Princeton.
From about 1750 to the American Revolution, William
and Mary gave the larger part of their education, from the
age of seven, up, to a number of future statesmen. Very few
of her alumni became ministers; but the College did much
to shape the peculiar genius of Virginia for political lead-
ership. Moreover, in giving the mind of Thomas Jefferson
its early bent toward educational experiment, William and
Marybecame, like Harvard, a mother of universities.
It requires explanation that the Southern English colonies
from Maryland to Georgia, and the English West Indies,