Is this a democratic view in the modern sense of the word? At any rate it is not the democratic phraseology of a modern politician. There is no protest at all in the name of immanent justice against the unequality of conditions, there is no desire to give every boy a fair chance in life, no indication that men being born equal, all children should have equal opportunities. We are perfectly free to believe that Jefferson entertained such sentiments at that date. Historically, however, there is no evidence that he did so. All we have here is a hard-headed proposition with the corrective that, under the new system, a child of genius or great talent was to be given an opportunity to develop his native qualities, for it was both the duty and the interest of society to prevent such a waste of intellectual potentialities. Furthermore, Jefferson was manifestly of the opinion that no man could properly participate in the government of society unless he had been rendered worthy to receive and able to guard the _sacred_ deposit of the rights and liberties of his fellow citizens. Neither wealth, birth, nor accidental circumstances should determine who is fit for public office, but education should be the criterion. As he was doing his utmost to abolish the last privileges and prestige of the landed hereditary aristocracy of Virginia, Jefferson was striving to constitute and to get recognition for another aristocracy, an aristocracy of learning and intelligence, a true ruling class, or more exactly a governing and legislative class; for he was persuaded that the business of the legislator cannot be learned in a day, that it requires, besides native qualities of mind, a certain expert knowledge of the subject. The provisions of the bill are most extraordinary for the time. Jefferson provided for the division of the State into a certain number of districts or hundreds; in each hundred a schoolhouse was to be built and so located that all the children within it might daily attend the school. In each of the schools shall be taught reading, writing, and common arithmetick, and the books which shall be used therein for instructing the children to read shall be such as will at the same time make them acquainted with Graecian, Roman, English and American history. At these schools all the free children, male and female, resident within the respective hundred, shall be entitled to receive tuition gratis for the term of three years. In addition, the bill provided that a certain number of grammar schools would be erected, "their situation to be as central as possible for the inhabitants of the said counties, the schools to be furnished with good water, convenient to plentiful supplies of provision and fuel and above all things that it be healthy." In all of these grammar schools, which shall receive boarders