William Small and the Making of Thomas Jefferson's Mind

\~ #',~tJ'.. \' .. -~ The Assay Office, Birmingham, England William Small and the Making of Thomas Jefferson's Mind By Cynthia L. Miller It was my great good fortune, and death, Jefferson was a seventy-seven ment and to a better acquaintance whatprobably fixed the destinies ofmy year old ruminating on the day in with the thinking of Francis Bacon, life that Dr. Wm. Small ofScotland was 1760, when he was yet sixteen, that he Isaac Newton, and John Locke--Jef then professor ofMathematics, a man enrolled in the College ofWilliam and ferson's heroes the rest of his life. The profound in most ofthe useful branches Mary in Virginia and found in Small a professor was nine years Jefferson's se of science, with a happy talent ofcom teacher, mentor, and friend. nior and just five years himself reo munication, correct and gentlemanly Small taught math, physics, and moved from university. manners, & an enlarged and liberal metaphysic&-the domains of natural mind. He, most happily for me, became philosophy-in what is now called the MALL WAS BORN to the soon af;t(u;hed to me, & made me his Wren Building at the west end of Reverend James Small and daily companion when not engaged in Williamsburg's Duke of Gloucester his wife, Lilias, on October 13, the school; and from his conversation I Street. Jefferson came to him with an S1734, in Carmyllie, Forfar· got my first views of the expansion of education begun at five in a plantation shire, in eastern Scotland. He grew up science, & of the system of things in school. At nine, he had entered a in the company of three older sib· which we are placed. boarding school to study Latin, Greek, ling&-two brothers and a sister-in a - Thomas Jefferson, 1821 and French. The boy had spent the family that, though not affluent, had past two years in a log-house class money enough to provide him a higher OLD MAN taking the mea room, and Jefferson's father, Peter, education. Entering Marischal College sure of his life, Thomas Jef dead three years, had long since in Aberdeen, in northeastern Scotland, ferson thus confided to the opened Shadwell's library to his son. in 1750, Small followed his interests in Pi. opening pages ofhis Autobi lt was Small's assignment to im science and mathematics. ography his gratefulness for the guid prove upon these preparations, a job At the time, Scottish academics ance of Scotsman William Small. A he accomplished by bringing his raw had begun to make their mark on the dozen years removed from his presi boned, red-haired pupil to a closer Enlightenment, and Small was privy dency, and less than that before his knowledge of the Scottish Enlighten to much intellectual change. The COUll· 30 Colonial Williamsburg, Autumn 2000 1 ---l try's universities-Marischal, St. An man on the faculty. He was also Jeffer philosophy, and natural history. Jeffer drews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and son's only teacher, except for the Rev son, an avid student, thrived and at King's College in Aberdeen-based erend Jacob Rowe who instructed the tended to his books fifteen hours a day. their curricula on the practical appli future president for a semester and No doubt Small emphasized the cation of Enlightenment philosophy. was cashiered in the autumn of 1760 philosophers and ideas important to The names Newton, Bacon, and Locke, for combining with another teacher to the Scottish Enlightenment: Hutche as well as such Scotsmen as Francis lead the college boys against the boys son's theories of moral sense and Hutcheson, David Hume, Lord Kames, ofthe town. beauty, freedom of opinion, and resis Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, William Small introduced to William and tance to tyranny; Reid's theory of com Robertson, and Small's professors, Mary a lecture system in widespread mon sense; Smith's theories of ethics William Duncan and Alexander Ger use abroad but new to the colonies. In and morals; and Kames's ideas on ard, rang loudly in student ears. Soci American colleges, a system of mem everything from law to literature to ety began to value the scientist, ory and recitation prevailed: questions history to agriculture to religion. He mathematician, and physician more and answers were read from text would also have acquainted Jefferson than the clergyman, and, within this books, or professors dictated lessons. with Hume's and Robertson's histo context, Small prepared for a career in Small's teaching was rational and sci ries; Hume's analyses of human be medicine. His studies included natural entific. He preferred the Socratic havior; Gerard's essays on taste and philosophy, mathematics, classical lan method of reciprocal inquiry and con beauty; and Duncan's method of logi guages, anatomy, chemistry, pharma ducted his classes in English rather cal argument, which professes that cology, surgery, and midwifery. He than Latin. Small challenged his stu certainty and conviction are attainable graduated in 1755 with an A.M. degree dents to think for themselves and en through mathematics. and became professor of natural phi couraged their imaginations. His style The most significant contribution losophy at William and Mary on Octo enlivened logic and rhetoric; ethics and Small made to Jefferson's intellectual ber 18, 1758. belles lettres; mathematics, natural development was introducing him to For reasons of religion, economics the teachings of Bacon, Locke, and or hope of opportunity, many Scottish Newton, the triumvirate of philoso pedants migrated to the Chesapeake phers who most ardently called for an and put their stamp on colonial Vir independent spiritofmind. Drawingon d ginia education. Two ofJefferson's boy his university background, Small im hood teachers had been Scots, and the parted his passion for these men to Jef Reverend James Blair, founder and ferson, who revered them as "the three fIrst president of William and Mary, greatest men that have ever lived." was a Marischal graduate. Jefferson arranged his library ana ice From the outset, Small's presence lytically and chronologically according )n, was like a flash of light in the dark of to Bacon's scheme in The New Ad ef a room. He was the only non-clergy vancement of Learning and adopted he Colonial Williamsburg >e ~e- n.e ld 3, r lp b- a d Swem Library, The Colkge ofWilliam and Mary At left above, the only known likeness ofSmall. Above, the Wren Building much as it appeared when Small taught at William and Mary, and his signature on the fly leafofa 1731 book on orrerys in the college's library. Colonial Williamsburg, Autumn 2000 31 exp IUl'l re~ ma SCO] spe ane one ingi hea cun 177 National Portrait Gallery, London National Portrait Gallery, London National Portrait Gallery, London los~ Small introduced Jefferson to the thinking ofFrancis Bacon, left; Isaac Newton, middle; and John Locke, right. The young scholar prized their philosophies for the rest ofhis life. ma ane Bacon's tenet "knowledgie is power." We can but imagine what they dis Small was never well. He seemed me Newton was the inspiration for Jeffer cussed as they emerged from the Wren to experience bouts of depression and thu son's monographs on weights and mea Building and walked about town. had contracted malaria in the Virginia wa: sures as well as his experiments with Often they ambled down the Duke of swamps. The added stress of academic me optics, astronomy, architecture, agricul Gloucester Street to the Palace Green infighting may have aggravated his ali ture, and other mathematical in to enter the gates of the Governor's maladies. In 1764 an opportunity-Qr em quiries. Locke's ideas are evident in the Palace. There they often dined with excuse--arose for him to leave. "stl Declaration of Independence, which Governor Francis Fauquier and Two years earlier, Virginia's gov also reflects the thinking of Duncan amused themselves in musical inter ernment appropriated £450 for the col and Hutcheson. Some scholars suggest ludes with his excellency and jurist lege to purchase scientific tools and s Duncan's methods are discernible George Wythe. Small introduced Jef measuring instruments. It was an in - within the document's structure. ferson to these gentlemen, and they vestment worth as much as fifteen Hutcheson, Reid, Smith, and fonned what Jefferson called "a partie times the average annual wage of a Kames surfaced in Jefferson's com quarree." To the ''habitual conversa skilled craftsman. The college's board mentaries on political and economic tions" of this group, Jefferson said he of visitors dispatched Small to Eng I ':{"~~'1 philosophy, morality, education, and owed much instruction. In an 1815 let land to procure the apparatus. He sent the arts, though he later rejected ter to the college's L. H. Girardin, Jef back what was probably the best col Hume and Robertson on ideological ferson wrote, "at these dinners I have lection of barometers, telescopes, grounds. The Enlightenment revisited heard more good sense, more rational lenses, electrical machines, and prisms the ideals of the Romans and Greeks; and philosophical conversation, than to reach the American colonies. ~ Jefferson and his contemporaries in all my life besides. They were truly But he never returned. Small be- I adopted the ideas of the classical ora Attic societies." came occupied in London. He lectured tors, historians, and philosophers. at Royal Society meetings. His alma HOUGH HE WAS popular mater conferred an M.D. degree on I. EFFERSON LEARNED much with students, Small got him by mail in 1765, but he had no de- I from Small in the classroom, weak support from the fac sire to become a practicing physician.

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