Mayo and Bartow were again soliciting TJ’s endorsement for their proposed library system of education. They had previously asked for his support around 20 Jan. 1823 by sending him an undated printed circular reading “A Card, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, Judge Marshall, T. M. Randolph, Sen. Esq., His Excellency James Pleasants, Jr., The Rev. Bishop Moore, The Rev. John H. Rice, The Rev. W. H. Hart, President Cushing of Hampden Sidney, and President Smith of William and Mary, are respectfully solicited to favour us with their views on this subject, and their authorization to publish the same in connexion with this Circular, which is retained at press in hopes of favourable returns from them: the more ample their details, doubtless the more useful they will be to our object.”

This earlier appeal is on a slip tipped into and later bound with TJ’s copy of An Address in behalf of the Juvenile Library Company of the City of Richmond (Richmond, 1823; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends 6 [no. 226]) in DLC: Rare Book and Special Collections, which included an excerpt of meeting minutes dated 17 Dec. [1822] designating Mayo and Bartow as a committee to solicit donations of money and books; article 1 of the organization’s constitution, opening membership to “All persons of either sex, not under the age of twelve years” (p. 3), and article 5, establishing the financial plan and setting the admission fee and annual dues both at $2; and an unsigned address dated 8 Jan. 1823 imploring support for the establishment of libraries for juveniles throughout Virginia, complaining that the educational system at all levels of instruction was conducted “almost without books” (p. 7), and proposing a system of public libraries with trustees in each “county, village, borough, city, or ward of a city, throughout the state” (p. 8) to lead the effort and establish local literary funds that would each use a portion to set up “a Juvenile and popular library, to consist of the elementary books in every branch of liberal education, digested and arranged in that order in which they should be studied; together with a judicious and full selection of other valuable books in general science, belles lettres, and polite literature, also methodically arranged. Let another portion of that fund be appropriated to provide rooms suitable for an Academy to receive the Library and the youth of the county, &c. who may find it convenient to attend the Institution for instruction—free of tuition fees or charges for the use of books” (p. 9). A subsequent edition of the Address probably published later in the year contained commendatory statements from James Pleasants, John Marshall, Thomas Ritchie, William H. Hart, John Blair Hoge, John H. Rice, and Richard Channing Moore.