Sending XHR requests is bad because it could fail if that particular server is down. Instead, use googles API library to load their cached version(s) of jQuery.
You can use googles API to perform a callback after loading jQuery, and this will check if jQuery was loaded successfully. Something like the code below should work:
<script type="text/javascript">
google.load("jquery");
// Call this function when the page has been loaded
function test_connection() {
if($){
//jQuery WAS loaded.
} else {
//jQuery failed to load. Grab the local copy.
}
}
google.setOnLoadCallback(test_connection);
</script>
The google API documentation can be found here.