As it was, he never ceased to regret
his deficiency in this respect, and when Humphreys urged him to
prepare a history or memoirs of the war, he replied: "In a former
letter I informed you, my dear Humphreys, that if I had talent for
it, I have not leisure to turn my thoughts to commentaries. A
consciousness of a defective education and a certainty of a want of
time unfit me for such an undertaking." He was misled by his own
modesty as to his capacity, but his strong feeling as to his lack of
schooling haunted and troubled him always, although it did not make
him either indifferent or bitter. He only admired more that which he
himself had missed. He regarded education, and especially the higher
forms, with an almost pathetic reverence, and its advancement was
never absent from his thoughts. When he was made chancellor of the
college of William and Mary, he was more deeply pleased than by any
honor ever conferred upon him, and he accepted the position with a
diffidence and a seriousness which were touching in such a man. In the
same spirit he gave money to the Alexandria Academy, and every scheme
to promote public education in Virginia had his eager support. His
interest was not confined by state lines, for there was nothing so
near his heart as the foundation of a national university. He urged
its establishment upon Congress over and over again, and, as has been
seen, left money in his will for its endowment.
All his sympathies and tastes were those of a man of refined mind, and
of a lover of scholarship and sound learning.
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