in it. This being the case, I can only wish it was
otherwise. I can not suffer you, however, to close your public service
without uniting with the satisfaction which must arise in your own mind
from a conscious rectitude, my most perfect persuasion that you have
deserved well of your country. My personal knowledge of your exertions,
whilst it authorizes me to hold this language, justifies the sincere
friendship which I have ever borne for you, and which will accompany you
in every situation in life."

The last session of the third Congress closed on the third of March,
1795. For a little while, Washington's mind was relieved in a degree
from the pressure of political duties, and a matter of different but
interesting nature occupied it at times. It will be remembered that the
legislature of Virginia presented to Washington, as a testimony of their
gratitude for his public services, fifty shares in the Potomac company,
and one hundred shares in the James River company--corporations created
for promoting internal navigation in Virginia--and that he accepted them
with the understanding that he should not use them for his own private
benefit, but apply them to some public purpose.

An opportunity for such application, that commended itself to
Washington's judgment, had not occurred until this time, when a plan for
the establishment of a university at the federal capital, on the
Potomac, was talked of. "It has always been a source of serious
reflection and sincere regret with me," he said in a letter to the
commissioners of the federal city on the twenty-eighth of January, "that
the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for
the purpose of education. Although there are doubtless many, under these
circumstances, who escape the danger of contracting principles
unfavorable to republican government, yet we ought to deprecate the
hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly
and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before
they are capable of appreciating their own.

"For this reason, I have greatly wished to see a plan adopted, by which
the arts, sciences, and belles-lettres, could be taught in their fullest
extent, thereby embracing all the advantages of European tuition, with
the means of acquiring the liberal knowledge which is necessary to
qualify our citizens for the exigencies of public as well as private
life; and (which with me is a consideration of