On January 18, 1800, Thomas Jefferson, then Vice President of the United States, alluded to plans for a new college in a letter written to British scientist Joseph Priestley: "We wish to establish in the upper country of Virginia, and more centrally for the State, a University on a plan so broad and liberal and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other States to come and drink of the cup of knowledge and fraternize with us." In 1802, then serving as President of the United States, Jefferson wrote to artist Charles Willson Peale that his concept of the new university would be "on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for and our faculties meet." Virginia was already home to one university, the College of William & Mary, but Jefferson lost confidence in his alma mater, partly because of its religious biases and lack of education in the sciences. Although Jefferson flourished under the tutelage of W&M professors William Small and George Wythe, his concerns with the College became great enough by 1800 that he wrote: "We have in that State, a college just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it." Thus, he began planning a university more aligned with his educational ideals.
The University of Virginia stands on land once owned by President James Monroe, who sold the land when he moved into the White House.
The University of Virginia stands on land purchased in 1788 by an American Revolutionary War veteran (and eventual fifth President of the United States), James Monroe. The farmland just outside Charlottesville was purchased from Monroe by the Board of Visitors of what was then Central College in 1817; Monroe was beginning the first of his own two terms in the White House. Guided by Jefferson, the school laid its first building's cornerstone later in 1817 and the Commonwealth of Virginia would charter the new university on January 25, 1819.
In the presence of James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette toasted Jefferson as "father" of the University of Virginia at the school's inaugural banquet in 1824. The University's first classes met in March 1825. Other universities of the day allowed only three choices of specialization: Medicine, Law, and Religion, but under Jefferson's guidance, the University of Virginia became the first in the United States to allow specializations in such diverse fields as Astronomy, Architecture, Botany, Philosophy, and Political Science. Jefferson explained, "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
