Mensuration is "the measuring of geometric magnitudes, lengths, areas, and volumes". The little aside in the parenthesis not only adds a lighthearted tone to the text but may also provide insight into Jefferson's possible bias toward architecture. As well known, Jefferson was an architect and mensuration surely has been especially crucial to his work. To make structures stable and functional, measures of lengths, areas, and volumes must be made. With this, Jefferson highly valued the importance of quantitative data.

Thomas Jefferson heavily emphasized secular academics and here, does not include a professor of Divinity at the University of Virginia. He reasons there should be a freedom of religion and an equality spread across all religions. By excluding a professor of Divinity, no one no religion faces subordination to the another. Jefferson's course of action here for the University of Virginia, concerning religious equality, directly extends the fundamentals of the US Constitution.

This quote really highlights the warmthness the arts bring in accordance with the kinds of truths the mathematical and physical sciences bring. Our world thrives off of the marriage between the two. A simple example would be a garden sheer. We need the sheer to trim hedges and plants. The handles would have to be long enough to create enough torque to cut foliage. However, a focus on art and design further advances the tool by including finger grooves in the handles for better grip. Art and design also determine how pointy the sheers are. Sloped triangular tips cut more aerodynamically than just two crude rectangles. With this, we see how intertwined the mathematical and physical sciences are with the arts, working in unison to create ease and comfort in life. Fully realized, the garden sheer makes cutting easy for us.

Through teaching its students to become autonomous members of society, the University of Virginia establishes itself as a leading university. Good leaders are known not to command people but to guide people to find success not only in a team, but also as an individual. With this, the University of Virginia guides its students to find success in the context of society as well as in individual needs and aspirations, or "his own business". Everyone is born with control strictly over one's self. Therefore, providing education as a university to only produce uniformed fact heads proves useless to society. Rather, the University of Virginia aims to produce autonomous people in control of their own individual uniqueness, adding shades to a colorful society.