I should sooner have answered the paragraph in your letter, of September the 19th, respecting the best seminary for the education of youth, in Europe, but that it was necessary for me to make inquiries on the subject.  The result of these has been, to consider the competition as resting between Geneva and Rome.  They are equally cheap, and probably are equal in the course of education pursued.  The advantage of Geneva is, that students acquire there the habit of speaking French.  The advantages of Rome are, the acquiring a local knowledge of a spot so classical and so celebrated; the acquiring the true pronunciation of the Latin language; a just taste in the fine arts, more particularly those of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music; a familiarity with those objects and processes of agriculture, which experience has shown best adapted to a climate like ours; and lastly, the advantage of a fine climate for health.  It is probable, too, that by being boarded in a French family, the habit of speaking that language may be obtained.  I do not count on any advantage to be derived in Geneva from a familiar acquaintance with the principles of that government.  The late revolution has rendered it a tyrannical aristocracy, more likely to give ill, than good ideas to an American.  I think the balance in favor of Rome.  Pisa is sometimes spoken of, as a place of education.  But it does not offer the first and third of the advantages of Rome.  But why send an American youth to Europe for education?  What are the objects of an useful American education?  Classical knowledge, modern languages, chiefly French, Spanish, and Italian; Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Natural History, Civil History, and Ethics.  In Natural Philosophy, I mean to include Chemistry and Agriculture, and in Natural History, to include Botany, as well as the other branches of those departments.  It is true, that the habit of speaking the modern languages cannot be so well acquired in America; but every other article can be as well acquired at William and Mary College, as at any place in Europe.  When college education is done with, and a young man is to prepare himself for public life, he must cast his eyes (for America) either on Law or Physic.  For the former, where can he apply so advantageously as to Mr. Wythe?  For the latter, he must come to Europe:  the medical class of students, therefore, is the only one which need come to Europe.  Let us view the disadvantages of sending a youth to Europe.  To enumerate them all, would require a volume.  I will select a few.  If he goes to England, he learns drinking, horse-racing, and boxing.  These are the peculiarities of English education.  The following circumstances are common to education in that, and the other countries of Europe.  He acquires a fondness for European luxury,and dissipation, and a contempt for the simplicity of his own country; he is fascinated with the privileges of the European aristocrats, and sees, with abhorrence, the lovely