The college of William and Mary in Jefferson’s day is described by Mr. Parton as “a medley of college, Indian mission, and grammar school, ill-governed, and distracted by dissensions among its ruling powers.” But Jefferson had a thirst for knowledge and a capacity for acquiring it, which made him almost independent of institutions of learning. Moreover, there was one professor who had a large share in the formation of his mind. “It was my great good fortune,” he wrote in his brief autobiography, “and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small, of Scotland, was then professor of mathematics; a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication and an enlarged liberal mind. He, most happily for me, soon became attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed.” Jefferson, like all well-bred Virginians, was brought up as an Episcopalian; but as a young man, perhaps owing in part to the influence of Dr. Small, he ceased to believe in Christianity as a religion, though he always at home attended the Episcopal church, and though his daughters were brought up in that faith. If any theological term is to be applied to him, he should be called a Deist. Upon the subject of his religious faith, Jefferson was always extremely reticent. To one or two friends only did he disclose his creed, and that was in letters which were published after his death. When asked, even by one of his own family, for his opinion upon any religious matter, he invariably refused to express it, saying that every person was bound to look into the subject for himself, and to decide upon it conscientiously, unbiased by the opinions of others. Dr. Small introduced Jefferson to other valuable acquaintances; and, boy though he was, he soon became the fourth in a group of friends which embraced the three most notable men in the little metropolis. These were, beside Dr. Small, Francis Fauquier, the acting governor of the province, appointed by the crown, and George Wythe. Fauquier was a courtly, honorable, highly cultivated man of the world, a disciple of Voltaire, and a confirmed gambler, who had in this respect an unfortunate influence upon the Virginia gentry,—not, however, upon Jefferson, who, though a lover of horses, and a frequenter of races, never in his life gambled or even played cards. Wythe was then just beginning a long and honorable career as lawyer, statesman, professor, and judge. He remained always a firm and intimate friend of Jefferson, who spoke of him, after his death, as “my second father.” It is an interesting fact that Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay were all, in succession, law students in the office of George Wythe.