Excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's Views on Public Education On one of the dark days of 1778, when the people of the United States were engaged in a portentous struggle with the British Crown, Thomas Jefferson arose in the Assembly of Virginia, and presented to his colleagues a carefully framed bill, designed to establish in Virginia public schools, and academies or colleges, and a university. He was a man of fair complexion. His hair was of a brownish cast. He stood about six feet two and a half inches in height. He might have been taken for a highly cultured Scotchman. Indeed not less than three of his instructors had been Scotchmen. In the year 1776 he had draughted the Declaration of American Independence, and had pledged his life, his fortune, and his honor to the maintenance of the principles which it contained. But as he stood before the Assembly, he realized that, however great might be the sacrifices made by the people of a republic to secure to their posterity the blessing of civil liberty, they must ultimately fail in doing so, unless they made suitable provision for the public education of their youth. The importance of a good public-school system to a republic he laid before his colleagues with an earnestness that spoke eloquently of his devotion to the interests of civil liberty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... II. A STATE SHOULD HAVE A UNIVERSITY. It was a cherished conviction of Thomas Jefferson's that in a Commonwealth provision should be made for universities wisely suited to modern times, no less truly' tfrarrfor primary schools. As President of the United States lie signed bills making large appropriations of land for the exclusive benefit of academies, seminaries and colleges. To Washington, who had in view the devoting of a quite large amount of money to the founding, or to the support of, institutions of learning, Jefferson wrote a letter on Feb. 23rd, 1795, in which he laid before him a plan for the transferring of a great European college to the national Capital. All the professors of the celebrated College of Geneva--an institution which after exerting a wide influence in Europe was temporarily suppressed during the French Revolution--wished to transplant the college to America. In this letter* Jefferson characterized the College of Geneva as one of the eyes of Europe, the University of Edinburgh being the other. In the year 1783, Jefferson, although bowed with grief owing to the recent death of his wife, had with others endeavored to established a grammar school in Albemarle county, Virginia. A charter was obtained for this academy, in the--year 1803, but it can hardly be said to have been fairly founded until the year 1814., In that year * "Washington's Works," vol. xi., p. 473. friends of education held a meeting and Jefferson, who was present, was elected one of the trustees of "Albemarle academy." At another meeting Jefferson was appointed a member of a committee to draught a petition to the Assembly of Virginia requesting that Virginia appropriate certain public lands in Albemarle county for the support of the institution....

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian comes a brilliant, absorbing study of Thomas Jefferson’s campaign to save Virginia through education. By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully written history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. It offers an incisive portrait of Thomas Jefferson set against a social fabric of planters in decline, enslaved black families torn apart by sales, and a hair-trigger code of male honor. A man of “deft evasions” who was both courtly and withdrawn, Jefferson sought control of his family and state from his lofty perch at Monticello. Never quite the egalitarian we wish him to be, he advocated emancipation but shrank from implementing it, entrusting that reform to the next generation. Devoted to the education of his granddaughters, he nevertheless accepted their subordination in a masculine culture. During the revolution, he proposed to educate all white children in Virginia, but later in life he narrowed his goal to building an elite university. In 1819 Jefferson’s intensive drive for state support of a new university succeeded. His intention was a university to educate the sons of Virginia’s wealthy planters, lawyers, and merchants, who might then democratize the state and in time rid it of slavery. But the university’s students, having absorbed the traditional vices of the Virginia gentry, preferred to practice and defend them. Opening in 1825, the university nearly collapsed as unruly students abused one another, the enslaved servants, and the faculty. Jefferson’s hopes of developing an enlightened leadership for the state were disappointed, and Virginia hardened its commitment to slavery in the coming years. The university was born with the flaws of a slave society. Instead, it was Jefferson’s beloved granddaughters who carried forward his faith in education by becoming dedicated teachers of a new generation of women.