could not have been made.  Besides their being of a grade of science which has left little superior behind, the correctness of their moral character, their accommodating dispositions, and zeal for the prosperity of the institution, leave us nothing more to wish.  I verily believe that as high a degree of, education can now be obtained here, as in the country they left.  And a finer set of youths I never saw assembled for instruction.  They committed some irregularities at first, until they learned the lawful length of their tether; since which it has never been transgressed in the smallest degree.  A great proportion of them are severely devoted to study, and I fear not to say, that within twelve or fifteen years from this time, a majority of the rulers of our State will have been educated here.  They shall carry hence the correct principles of our day, and you may count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our days, or those of our forefathers.  I cannot live to see it.  My joy must only be that of anticipation.  But that you may see it in full fruition, is the probable consequence of the twenty years I am ahead of you in time, and is the sincere prayer of your affectionate and constant friend,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXIX.—­TO CLAIBORNE W. GOOCH, January 9, 1826

TO CLAIBORNE W. GOOCH.

Monticello, January 9, 1826.

Dear Sir,

I have duly received your favor of December the 31st, and fear, with you, all the evils which the present lowering aspect of our political horizon so ominously portends.  That at some future day, which I hoped to be very distant, the free principles of our government might change, with the change of circumstances, was to be expected.  But I certainly did not expect that they would not over-live the generation which established them.  And what I still less expected was, that my favorite western country was to be made the instrument of change.  I had ever and fondly cherished the interests of that country, relying on it as a barrier against the degeneracy of public opinion from our original and free principles.  But the bait of local interests, artfully prepared for their palate, has decoyed them from their kindred attachments, to alliances alien to them.  Yet, although I have little hope that the torrent of consolidation can be withstood, I should not be for giving up the ship without efforts to save her.  She lived well through the first squall, and may weather the present one.  But, Dear Sir, I am not the champion called for by our present dangers; Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis, tempus eget.’  A waning body, a waning mind, and waning memory, with habitual ill health, warn me to withdraw and relinquish the arena to younger and abler athletes.  I am sensible myself, if others are not, that this is my duty.  If my distant friends know it not, those around me can inform them that they should not, in friendship, wish to call me into conflicts, exposing only the decays which nature has inscribed among her unalterable laws, and injuring the common cause by a senile and puny defence.