Edwin Engraving of Jefferson

Reproduced from the Original Engraving by David Edwin.

A rare engraving evidently copied from the Rembrandt Peale full length portrait of Jefferson, which was a favorite model for Edwin's exquisite workmanship.

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JEFFERSON'S QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE

To comprehend Jefferson in any literal sense seems well-nigh impossible. It would seem to require more than Jeffersonian grasp and span to confine within one mental concept the whole of this universal man. Approach him from any side and ever new manifestations of powers unfathomed, perhaps even unsuspected, reveal themselves. To-day no political platform or declaration of principles excludes him; none can entirely include him, for he looms larger than all of them. The history of education is incomplete without the story of his achievements; no theory of instruction can ignore his principles; no schedule of educational progress omit his unfulfilled plans and purposes. So accustomed have we become, in short, to reckoning with him whether in politics, religious liberty, education, or statesmanship, that we must further train ourselves to deal with him not as a whole but in smaller part. Such broken views, of necessity, are the brief introductions to these attractive volumes in which is collected in part the cumulative evidence of his varied greatness.

All this evidence points unerringly to one general conclusion, commonplace in its bare statement, that Jefferson's abiding interest was in the advance of