William Small

Rowe and the Master of the grammar school became far too merry and led the college boys in a row with the boys of the town. Consequently, one of these clergymen was summarily dismissed and the other resigned... Almost a year passed before a successor to the deposed professor of moral philosophy was installed, and in the interim Small added all or many of Rowe's subjects to his own.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 4 (Easton Press, 1993)

With the single but important exception of William Small, professor of natural philosophy, the members of the William and Mary faculty were Anglican clergymen.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 51 (Easton Press, 1993)

When Jefferson arrived on the scene, [William Small] was there, teaching physics, metaphysics, and mathematics, and through force of circumstances was soon teaching practically everything else.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 51 (Easton Press, 1993)

For nearly half of Jefferson's course Small appears to have been the only regular teacher that he had. Whatever may be thought about the organization, administration, and discipline of the College, here was one of those rare personal influences which prove unforgettable and elicit immortal tribute. He afterwards said that Small probably fixed the destinies of his life.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 52 (Easton Press, 1993)

It is a highly significant fact, also, that the early teacher who did most to fix the destinies of his life was the only layman in the faculty of the College.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 53 (Easton Press, 1993)

The surviving record of the influential layman is all too brief. He was a Scotchman, designated as "Mr. William Small" when he was appointed in 1758. He remained in Williamsburg six years, returned to England where he is said to have been the friend of James Watt and Erasmus Darwin, and died at Birmingham in 1775, listed as "William Small, M.D." He had assumed the title after he left Virginia.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 53 (Easton Press, 1993)

What he learned from his favorite teacher was not obedience to authority but delight in the exercise of his mind.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 54 (Easton Press, 1993)

John Page, in the last year of his own life, referred to this same teacher as "illustrious," and credited to him the beginnings of his own abiding interest in all branches of mathematics.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 54 (Easton Press, 1993)

[Mathematics] was always his favorite subject, he said. "We have no theories here, no uncertainties remain on the mind; all is demonstration and satisfaction. I have forgotten much, and recover it with more difficulty than when in the vigor of my mind I originally acquired it." But, as he soon wrote to another, "thanks to the good foundation laid at college by my old master and friend Small, I am doing it with a delight and success beyond my expectation."

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 54 (Easton Press, 1993)

John Page called him his "ever to be beloved professor"

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 54 (Easton Press, 1993)

Jefferson said that he gave to his studies enlightened and affectionate guidance and was like a father to him. Actually, this unmarried teacher, whose chief complaint about his position was its loneliness, made a daily companion of young Jefferson, and taught him no less through informal talk than by his memorable lectures.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 54 (Easton Press, 1993)

There is some testimony that Small's influence persisted in the College. It has been said that he, more than any other teacher, was responsible for the liberality of spirit which came to characterize William and Mary. Some people called it "skepticism" and thought it dangerous, but Jefferson and his kindred spirits regarded it as the first step towards true knowledge. Historically, William Small was a minor torchbearer of the Enlightenment, and by any reckoning he was one of those rare men who point the way, who show new paths, who open doors before the mind.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 55 (Easton Press, 1993)

To Jefferson [Small] also opened the door of George Wythe's law office, and he and Wythe ushered this inquiring young man into the Governor's Palace.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 55 (Easton Press, 1993)