[Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. vi., p. 456.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. viii., p. 380; and Mayo, _Educational
Movement in the South_, p. 37.]
[Footnote 3: As to what Jefferson thought of the Negro intellect
we are still in doubt. Writing in 1791 to Banneker, the Negro
mathematician and astronomer, he said that nobody wished to see more
than he such proofs as Banneker exhibited that nature has given to our
black brethren talents equal to those of men of other colors, and that
the appearance of a lack of such native ability was owing only to
their degraded condition in Africa and America. Jefferson expressed
himself as being ardently desirous of seeing a good system commenced
for raising the condition both of the body and the mind of the slaves
to what it ought to be as fast as the "imbecility" of their then
existence and other circumstances, which could not be neglected, would
admit. Replying to Gregoire of Paris, who wrote an interesting essay
on the _Literature of Negroes_, showing the power of their intellect,
Jefferson assured him that no person living wished more sincerely
than he to see a complete refutation of the doubts he himself had
entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to
them by nature and to find that in this respect they are on a par
with white men.
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