The best method of doing this, would be
to fix yourself in some family where there are women and children, in
Passy, Auteuil, or some other of the little towns in reach of Paris. The
principal hours of the day you will attend to your studies, and in those
of relaxation associate with the family. You will learn to speak better
from women and children in three months, than from men in a year. Such a
situation, too, will render more easy a due attention to economy of time
and money. Having pursued your main studies here about two years, and
acquired a facility in speaking French, take a tour of four or five
months through this country and Italy, return then to Virginia, and pass
a year in Williamsburg, under the care of Mr. Wythe; and you will be
ready to enter on the public stage, with superior advantages. I have
proposed to you to carry on the study of the law, with that of politics
and history. Every political measure will, for ever, have an intimate
connection with the laws of the land; and he who knows nothing of these,
will always be perplexed, and often foiled by adversaries having
the advantage of that knowledge over him.
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