From James Madison to Henry B. Bascom, 21 July 1827
To Henry B. Bascom
Montpellier July 21. 1827
Dear Sir
Your favour of June 26. inclosing a copy of the Charter of the College, having arrived during an absence from which I am just returned, I could not sooner acknowledge it. It gives me pleasure to find that the Trustees are about to attach to the Institution, an Agricultural Department, an improvement well meriting a place among the practical ones, which the lights of the age, and the genius of our Country are adding to the ordinary course of public Instruction.
I wish I could give value to my commendation by pointing out the best mode of adapting the experiment to its useful object. The task, I doubt not, will be well performed by the Intelligent Councils charged with the Institution, aided as they will be by the better models of rural Economy in your State than are presented in this.
The views of this subject which occurred to the Agricultural Society in the neighbourhood of our University, will be seen in a printed circular of which I inclose a copy,1 and with it an Address to the Society,2 which will shew that our Agricultural practice is as much behind that of your State, as the latter can be short of the attainable standard. Perhaps the celebrated Establishment of Fellenberg in Switzerland,3 may give useful hints in combining agricultural with academic instruction, and both with the advantages of an experimental & pattern farm. Repeating my wishes for the prosperity & usefulness of the nascent Seminary I tender you my respectful and friendly salutations
James Madison
RC (NjP: Jasper E. Crane Collection of James and Dolley Madison); draft (DLC).
1. For the circular letter of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, which recommended that a professor of agriculture position be established at the University of Virginia, see JM to Peter Minor, 21 Oct. 1822, , 2:589–91.
2. For JM’s Address Delivered before the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, see ibid., 1:260–83, 283 n.
3. For Emmanuel de Fellenberg, see Anthony Morris to JM, 9 May 1827, and n. 1.