he had a
seat in, the Council, and his integrity and force soon made him a
leader in the colony. A college in Virginia became Blair's dream. He
was supported by Virginia planters with sons to educate--daughters'
education being purely a domestic affair. Before long Blair had raised
in promised subscriptions what was for the time a large sum. With this
for a nucleus he sailed to England and there collected more. Tillotson,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, helped
him much. The King and Queen inclined a favorable ear, and, though he
met with opposition in certain quarters, Blair at last obtained his
charter. There was to be built in Virginia and to be sustained by
taxation a great school, "a seminary of ministers of the gospel where
youths may be piously educated in good letters and manners; a certain
place of universal study, or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy,
languages and other good arts and sciences." Blair sailed back to
Virginia with the charter of the college, some money, a plan for the
main building drawn by Christopher Wren, and for himself the office of
President.

The Assembly, for the benefit of the college, taxed raw and tanned
hides, dressed buckskin, skins of doe and elk, muskrat and raccoon. The
construction of the new seat of learning was begun at Williamsburg. When
it was completed and opened to students, it was named William and Mary.
Its name and record shine fair in old Virginia. Colonial worthies
in goodly number were educated at William and Mary, as were later
revolutionary soldiers and statesmen, and men of name and fame in
the United States. Three American Presidents--Jefferson, Monroe, and
Tyler--were trained there, as well as Marshall, the Chief Justice, four
signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many another man of
mark.

The seventeenth century is about to pass. France and England are at war.
The colonial air vibrates with the struggle. There is to be a brief lull
after 1697, but the conflict will soon be resumed. The more northerly
colonies, the nearer to New France, feel the stronger pulsation, but
Virginia, too, is shaken. England and France alike play for the support
of the red man. All the western side of America lies open to incursion
from that pressed-back Indian sea of unknown extent and volume. Up and
down, the people, who have had no part in making that European war,
are sensitive to the menace of its dangers. In Virginia they b