James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2014 | Page 4

WE THE PEOPLE
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A LIFETIME DEDICATED TO

KNOW
O

n Presidents’ Day, February 17, 2014, The Montpelier Foundation celebrated the opening of James Madison’s
refurnished library, another fascinating chapter in Montpelier’s “Presidential Detective Story” and the ongoing
restoration of Madison’s home.
With more than 4,000 volumes by the time of his death, Madison’s library was widely recognized as one of the most
significant in America. This collection represented and encompassed his education, values, and vocation as a publicspirited revolutionary and nation-builder.
Fluent in seven languages, there was no book available in the western world that was off-limits to James Madison. His
collection included diverse volumes on law, religion, science, architecture, language, and politics. These books reflected
the world’s greatest intellectual accomplishments, from the writings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, Plato,
Aristotle, and Cicero, to the great moderns of his time, Locke, Newton, and Montesquieu.
The library began as his father’s, a collection of approximately 120 volumes, and served as critical educational resource
during Madison’s formative years at home. At age 11, Madison was sent off to boarding school to study with the Reverend
Donald Robertson, one of several well-educated Scots who migrated to the colonies to preach, teach, and spread the
flourishing lessons of the Scottish Enlightenment.
The ideas of the Enlightenment continued to resonate with the rising student as he continued his education at the
College of New Jersey at Princeton. Along with work in “science, geography, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics,” Madison
studied moral philosophy, Greek and Latin classics, as well as the Hebrew Bible. College president John Witherspoon,
also a Scot, helped deepen Ma