Thomas
Jefferson’s Theory of Education
By Andrew Calvert (Grade 11)
Jack Kerouac, when speaking on the highest level of
individual freedom he had known in his life wrote:
“Because the only people for me were the mad ones,
the ones who were mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of
everything at the same time, the ones you never hear yawn or say commonplace
things, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous Roman candles, exploding like
spiders across the stars.”[1]
If ever these attributes were embodied in one man, it was
in the person, mind, and soul of Thomas Jefferson. He was the scientist,
lawyer, author, musician, student, and philosopher-king who wrote the United
States of America into existence and who defined what it was to be an American
citizen for generations unborn. He was to be America’s lighthouse of wisdom,
vanguard of thought and science, and navigator of philosophical waters no man
had ever ventured out upon. Jefferson took the mere thought and conjecture of
European Enlightenment thinkers and built an American empire upon it. Though
many ideals Jefferson held in esteem he did not personally accomplish, he
defined what he hoped the future course of America would be. This definition
began with education. Thomas Jefferson’s theory of education formed a deeply
interwoven epistemology centered around his views on religion, politics, and
the essence of human nature. For Jefferson, his educational theory also defined
what it meant to possess natural human rights and the drive to impart those rights
to all Americans became the sole purpose of the last half of Jefferson’s life.
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 2, 1743 in Albermarle
County, Virginia, to Peter Jefferson and Jane Rudolph.[2]
While Jefferson was not born to the wealthiest of families; he was still from a
rather distinguished line of descent. His father, Peter, was a self-educated
intellectual and the first source of knowledge for a man who would remain a
student until his last moments on Earth. After his father’s death in 1757, when
Jefferson was only fourteen, Thomas was sent to receive a classical education
in Greek and Roman literature and grammar under Dr. James Maury.[3]
Maury would give Jefferson the key to unlock prior millennia of thought and
philosophical contributions and further the yearning Jefferson had for
knowledge.[4]
By the time Thomas Jefferson decided to attend the
College of William and Mary at seventeen, he was extraordinarily proficient in
nearly all academic disciplines.[5]
B.L. Rayner remarked on Jefferson’s intellect saying that:
“His course was not marked by any of those
eccentricities which often presage the rise of extraordinary purpose, but … by that
bold spirit of inquiry, and thirst for knowledge, which are the surer
prognostics of future greatness.”[6]
It was during the time that he attended William and Mary
that Thomas Jefferson received the three most profound influences on his life
and thought. These came in the persons of Dr. William Small, Governor Francis Fauquier,
and George Wythe. This intellectual triumvirate often hosted dinners at the
Governor’s house where Jefferson once remarked:
“I have heard more good sense, more rational and
philosophical conversations [at the Governor’s dinners], than in all my life
besides.”[7]
The crux of Jefferson’s philosophy was formed from these
men. Jefferson was endless in his praise of Small, Wythe, and Fauquier. He
attributed his “great good fortune” and “what probably fixed all the destinies
of my life” to William Small.[8]
About Wythe, Jefferson wrote, “No man ever left behind him a character more
venerated than George Wythe”, and Jefferson also proclaimed “[Wythe was] honor
of his own, and model of future times.”[9] It
is apparent then, that to understand the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, which
is the intellectual font of his educational theory, the prior philosophy of his
mentors and their predecessors must be known.
Small and Wythe no doubt reflected the predominant
philosophy of the 18th century, which can be generally described as
the Enlightenment. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, growing religious
skepticism coincided with watershed advances in science and mathematics that
led certain thinkers to question whether man was entirely dependent on God,
where mankind obtained true knowledge, and even the very existence of the
Christian God.
Thomas Jefferson based his philosophy on the belief that
Christianity was not a perfect source of knowledge or even the only source of truth.
Jefferson averred David Hume and Francis Bacon among others in his skepticism
of the dogmatic Christian Church. To Jefferson and other Enlightenment intellectuals,
Christianity, among other religions, had caused such repeated injuries to
mankind that it was not fit to be the basis of civil government.[10] Enlightenment
thinkers, following the teachings of Aristotle and subsequent philosophers,
sought true knowledge from observation, experimentation, and sense experience
since the Church, the only other traditional authority, could not be trusted.[11]
This influence on the physical and empirical world led to the proliferation of
a materialist worldview that placed scientific knowledge and governmental or
political philosophy at the forefront of human understanding.
However, the humanistic influence on Jefferson does not
justify classifying Jefferson as agnostic or atheistic. Jefferson does not deny
the existence of God or of some other supernatural Deity.[12] That
being said, Jefferson’s skepticism does echo Enlightenment rationale by
limiting his Gospel reading to that of Jesus’ direct quotations alone. He saw
the followers of Jesus Christ and the subsequent Catholic Church as the source
of corruption within Christianity, not Christ himself, whom Jefferson viewed
simply as a great moral teacher. Jefferson once very bluntly wrote that
Christ’s writings were “as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill”[13]
when compared to the writings of the Apostles. While Jefferson did convey an
impersonal tone in his discussion of God, it is equally apparent that Jefferson
did not go to the extreme of denouncing religion, but denounced the corrupting human
influence upon it. Jefferson then, seems to be acting mostly politically when
he described himself as “rational Christian”[14]
since Jefferson’s personal beliefs do not appear to align with the Protestant
Evangelicalism that was prevalent in the United States’ population at the time,
as it is today.[15]
So, after rejecting Christian doctrine and the Church as
the sole source of human knowledge, Jefferson had to offer another in its
place. The foundation of Jefferson’s educational theory can be seen in one
sentence taken from a letter to a younger pupil of his:
“In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophantis
Memorabilia, Plato’s Socratic dialogues, Cicero’s philosophies, Antonius, and
Seneca.”[16]
On a superficial level, it appears that Thomas Jefferson
is only suggesting sophisticated classics to his student, but his
recommendations have much deeper meaning than what is apparent on the surface.
All of the philosophers, emperors, and thinkers Jefferson listed belong to the
tradition of Stoicism, the belief that a truly educated and intellectual person
would not experience the degrading emotions of human life that so often ensnare
and entangle mankind, keeping man from reaching the true potential of his life.[17]
Among these philosophers are also a number of early materialists and
empiricists, who were the origin of the humanistic philosophy that it appears
Jefferson is upholding. Jefferson also lists Plato’s Socratic dialogues that
teach that Knowledge, above all else, is the prime virtue, that Knowledge
precedes all human action, and that Knowledge is the foundation of all the good
a man can do in his life.
When Jefferson’s suggestion of these philosophers is
viewed in the context of offering them as moral
teachers, his educational theory begins to take its shape.[18]
Jefferson was, at heart, saying that in order to live a good life, a person
must be educated thoroughly so that he may avoid life’s most harmful
experiences, and so that he may have intimate knowledge of “the good”[19]
in order that he may perform it. Proper education, then, must begin with those
men that first articulated those ideas: the Greek and Roman philosophers. Jefferson
also saw this form of enlightened or educated man, as the individual upon which
society must be built.[20]
Dumas Malone, the chief biographer of Thomas Jefferson’s life described
Jefferson’s belief when he stated:
“He was convinced that only an enlightened society
was capable of genuine self-government and that no ignorant people could
maintain their God-given freedom.”[21]
It is at this junction that Thomas Jefferson tied proper
education to the realization and preservation of natural rights. Jefferson
defined these rights as “derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of
the Chief Magistrate [George III]”.[22]
According to Colombia University historian Adrienne Koch, Jefferson’s views on
natural rights could be described as:
“…the living individual creature who issues from the
hand of the Maker with the right to live, to work, to realize and enjoy the
fruits of his work, to govern himself by choosing his own type of government by
law, which is to operate on the soil which he has made his own…”[23]
With Jefferson’s well known usage of phrases like
“inalienable rights”, it is easy to assume Jefferson believes that the natural
rights of man are present from his first breath until his last. However, this
is not a complete analysis of Jefferson’s thought. When Jefferson stated that
government should be built upon the enlightened, he tied his belief in
government as a natural right to his belief in government being the right of
the educated. Therefore, government is a natural, God-given right of the
enlightened, for only the enlightened are capable of exercising their natural
rights justly. This is not an elitist view, but one grounded upon honest logic.[24] An
uneducated populace would be unable to govern themselves, or in Jefferson’s own
words:
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a
state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”[25]
The question of the chronology of natural rights is not,
then, a clear cut one and the argument could be reasonably made that Thomas
Jefferson sees natural rights as only being actualized in the thoroughly
enlightened individual.
In lieu of this, Jefferson offered two core principles of
education, according to former Princeton University president William G. Bowen.
Those are that “...educational theory was inseparable from political theory”[26]
and that “freedom in all of its forms—political freedom, religious freedom, and
intellectual freedom—was essential to both a sound educational system and a
well-functioning ‘Republican polity.’”[27]
To pull the different strands of Jefferson’s thoughts
together before proceeding any further, Jefferson’s view was that education,
which is paramount in securing man’s natural rights, is inseparable from
political education because the role of government is the preservation of those
natural rights secured by the enlightened, but also that education must be
separate and free from hegemony by one religion, since that system can be
schismatic and destructive to society.[28]
It was with these ideals in mind that Jefferson expounded
his educational theory from his own mind into the world around him, and it was
this venture that brought Jefferson from the prime of his life through his last
half century. Jefferson’s quest began on June 18, 1779 with the drafting of
Jefferson’s Bill for the More General
Diffusion of Knowledge.[29]
The Bill was a preventative measure
on Jefferson’s part to ensure that the freedoms the fledgling nation was
fighting for would not be quickly lost or forgotten. Even though it did not
pass, Jefferson’s Bill was an early
outline of the system of education he would advocate throughout the remainder
of his life.[30]
The first level, or grade[31],
of schooling would consist of Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and the reading of
ancient Greco-Roman works to serve as historical education.[32]
This curriculum was replaced in a second grade by Languages, Mathematics, and Philosophy,
with Philosophy being defined as Ideology (which Jefferson associated with the
French definition more closely associated with Science than with Metaphysics[33]),
Ethics, the Law of Nature and Nations (Political Philosophy), Government, and
Political Economy.[34] The
third, or professional grade, consisted of Theology, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy,
Surgery, Architecture, Military and Naval Projectiles, Technical Philosophy
(more closely associated with Metaphysics), Rural Economy, and the Fine Arts.[35]
In his Bill,
Jefferson also outlined a hierarchical structure to education, with all
students, male or female, being admitted without charge for three years to the
public schools within their ward[36],
and the highest achieving echelon of those students being transferred to the
university or college level with others being discontinued from the school
system, in hopes that, at the end of what we would refer to as secondary
school, only the most elite intellectuals of the state would be admitted to the
College of William and Mary.[37]
During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, his ideology took
another step towards fruition. This began with the founding of West Point in 1802,
but Jefferson sought much more than a mere military academy. He strove to establish
a state university that offered education to the highest intellectuals of the
American populace, in order that they might serve the remaining population
through sound government and advancement of knowledge.[38] The
Albermarle Academy, which Jefferson saw as the next tangible opportunity to
further his educational theory was a beginning step, but was not broad enough
in its reach to accomplish Jefferson’s vision.[39]
Not accepting defeat, Jefferson petitioned for legislation that would create
lower tier public schools in Albermarle County which would then feed into the
newly christened Central College (a rejuvenated Albermarle Academy).[40] This
legislation, which would have placed the financial burden on taxpaying citizens
currently over-encumbered by a severe drought, was not passed. The proposition
would be revisited again and finally passed on January 25, 1819.[41]
This was the first major step towards what would become known as the University
of Virginia.
In 1819, Thomas Jefferson’s life’s work was accomplished.
The University of Virginia obtained a charter from the state legislature that
affixed it atop the state’s hierarchy of public schools and proclaimed Thomas
Jefferson as its father.[42]
The immediate ramifications were important, but the philosophical implications were
truly profound. Thomas Jefferson had, in his seventy sixth year of life,
achieved the realization of the sum of nearly two and a half millennia of
thought. He had obtained for the United States of America a universally accessible
system of thorough public education. It is critically important to remember
what forces drove Jefferson to an almost lifelong pursuit that culminated in
the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.[43]
Thomas Jefferson had, in his view, obtained the salvation
of his country. Jefferson had given the gift of thorough, right-minded,
free-thinking education to Virginians that would allow them to claim their
God-given natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jefferson had redeemed his constituents and countless generations of Americans
by raising them to the ability to truly own their rights, something that only
the aristocratic classes of the Old World had previously obtained. Jefferson
now offered true human citizenship and identity to the citizens of the United
States.
Thomas Jefferson’s theory of education, then, is one that
was layered with strata after strata of philosophical thought and reasoning
that, when viewed through Jefferson’s epistemological lenses, made the founding
of UVA absolutely imperative. In offering the mission of UVA and his
educational system as a whole, Jefferson was quoted as saying:
“This institution [the University of Virginia] will
be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not
afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor [afraid to] tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.”[44]
Jefferson’s theory of education, at its very core, was
not merely the reading the Greco-Roman classics, or being well-rounded in
thought. Jefferson’s theory of education was the process by which men could come
to “…hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[45]
Near the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson, in his own Autobiography, asked himself, “Is my
Country the Better for my Having Lived at All?”[46]
The conclusion that must be drawn is that Thomas Jefferson not only lived, but
he burned through his life like a supernova echoing throughout the cavernous
voids of the heavens, never ceasing, but resonating throughout the Universe in a
myriad of forms. Jefferson’s thought is similarly
omnipresent in modern America, ranging in influence from a drizzle of nostalgic
remembrance, to an intellectual deluge; the kind of gully-washing thunderstorm
all too common in the dog days of a Virginia summer.
Works
Cited
Addis,
Cameron. Jefferson's Vision for Education, 1760-1845. New York, NY:
Peter Lang Publishing, 2003.
Gish,
Dustin, and Daniel Klinghard. Resistance To Tyrants, Obedience To God.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.
Kerouac, Jack. On The
Road. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1959.
Koch, Adrienne. The
Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: Columbia University Press,
1943.
Malone, Dumas. The
Sage of Monticello. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1892.
National
Intelligencer. 8 August 1776.
Okeshott,
Michael. "Two Treatises on Government." Two Treatises on
Government: By John Locke 5 (1962): 100. Accessed November 11, 2014.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3020511?uid=2134&uid=3739656&uid=2129&uid=2484590587&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=2484590577&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21105174660713.
Rayner,
B.L. Sketches of the Life, Writings, and
Opinions of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: A. Francis and W. Boardman,
1832.
Wagoner,
Jennings. Jefferson and Education. Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press, 2004.
"The
Declaration of Independence." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall
Association, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.
[1] Kerouac, Jack. On The Road. New
York, NY: Penguin Books, 1959.
[2] Rayner, B.L. Sketches of the Life, Writings, and Opinions
of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: A. Francis and W. Boardman, 1832. Page
19.
[3] Rayner, Page 21,
[4] Rayner, Page 21-22.
[5] Rayner, Page 22.
[6] Rayner, Page 22.
[7] Wagoner, Jennings. Jefferson
and Education. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Page 22.
[8] Rayner, Page 23.
[9] Rayner, Page 24.
[10] Gish, Dustin, and Daniel
Klinghard. Resistance To Tyrants, Obedience To God. Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books, 2013. Page 23.
[11] Gish, Klinghard, Page 23.
[12] Koch, Page 39.
[13] Koch, Adrienne. The
Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: Columbia University Press,
1943. Page 23.
[14] Koch, Page 25.
[15] Koch, Page 35.
[16] Koch, Page 7.
[17] Koch, Page 7.
[18] Koch, Page 7.
[19] Jefferson most likely viewed
“the good” very differently than Plato, whom this phrase is referencing, did.
[20] Malone, Dumas. The Sage
of Monticello. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1892. Page 15.
[21] Malone, Page 15.
[22] Koch, Page 135.
[23] Koch, Page 136.
[24] Okeshott, Michael. "Two
Treatises on Government." Two Treatises on Government: By John Locke
5 (1962): 100. Accessed November 11, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3020511?uid=2134&uid=3739656&uid=2129&uid=2484590587&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=2484590577&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21105174660713.
[25] Wagoner, Page 19.
[26] Wagoner, Page 9.
[27] Wagoner, Page 9.
[28] "The Declaration of
Independence." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association,
n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.
[29] Wagoner, Page 34.
[30] Wagoner, Page 35.
[31] These grades did not directly
correspond to age as in modern schools (i.e. 6th grade for 12 year
olds, 7th grade for 13 year olds) but grades are only graduated from
after content mastery had been achieved.
[32] Wagoner, Page 35.
[33] Koch, Page 68.
[34] Koch, Page 58.
[35] Malone, Page 243.
[36] A term used by Jefferson
referring to a system of urban organization that was never implemented (square
townships of approximately 100 square miles each).
[37] Wagoner, Page 38.
[38] Addis, Cameron. Jefferson's
Vision for Education, 1760-1845. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003.
Page 25.
[39] Malone, Page 242.
[40] Malone, Page 247.
[41] Malone, Page 21.
[42] Malone, Page 21.
[43] read hereafter as UVA.
[44] Wagoner, Page 9.
[45] The National Intelligencer. 8 August 1776.
