From the painting by Mather Brown, owned by Henry Adams, Washington, D. C. Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia, in 1743. He was a student at Williams and Mary College at the beginning of the controversy with the mother country. In his young manhood, he was a member of the House of Burgesses, and later a member of the second Continental Congress. During Confederation days, he was minister to France. After the organization of the government under the Constitution, his life was intimately interwoven with the development of the republic. Jefferson was a man of wonderful intellect and resources. He possessed a marvelous power of leadership; was a profound student and an accomplished scholar; was deeply interested in a scientific investigation, and he could read several languages with ease; our decimal system of currency was his devising, and he was founder of the University of Virginia. He was a fine horseman, an accomplished musician, and a successful farmer.
