nd desertions. When his term expired on March 3, 1809, he was thrilled to be leaving politics and returning to Monticello (Mclaughlin 376).Jefferson's daughter Martha said that in retirement her father never abandon a friend or principle. He and John Adams, their earlier political differences reconciled, wrote many letters. Jefferson frequently complained about the time consumed in maintaining his ever increasing correspondence but he could not resist an intellectual challenge or turn down an appeal for his opinion, advice, or help, and continued to discuss with frankness and a brilliant clarity such diverse subjects as anthropology and political theory, religion and zoology (Koch and Peden 40).Jefferson's major concern during his last years was education and educational philosophy. He considered knowledge not only a means to an end, but an end in itself. He felt education was the key to virtue as it was to happiness. He reopened his campaign for a system of general education in Virginia. Through his efforts, the University of Virginia, the first American University to be free of official church connection, was established and was Jefferson's daily concern during his last seven years (Koch and Peden 39). He sent abroad an agent to select the faculty, he chose the books for the library, drew up the curriculum, designed the buildings, and supervised their construction. The University finally opened in 1825, the winter before his death. Despite his preoccupation with the University, he continued to pursue a multitude of other tasks. In his eightieth year, for example, he wrote on politics, sending President Monroe long expositions later known to the world in Monroe's version as the Monroe Doctrine (Daugherty 326).Among all his interests, there was one intrusion on his time and thought which caused Jefferson endless embarrassment. His finances, always shaky, finally collapsed. Jefferson had frequently advanced money to friends who fancied t...
