The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
EDUCATION / STATE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
In my last letter of the 18th, I omitted to say any thing of the
languages as part of our proposed University. It was not that I think,
as some do, that they are useless. I am of a very different opinion. I
do not think them very essential to the obtaining eminent degrees of
science; but I think them very useful towards it. I suppose there is a
portion of life during which our faculties are ripe enough for this,
and for nothing more useful. I think the Greeks and Romans have left
us the present models which exist of fine composition, whether we
examine them as works of reason, or of style and fancy; and to them we
probably owe these characteristics of modern composition. I know of no
composition of any other ancient people, which merits the least regard
as a model for its matter or style. To all this I add, that to read
the Latin and Greek authors in their original, is a sublime luxury;
and I deem luxury in science to be at least as justifiable as in
architecture, painting, gardening, or the other arts. I enjoy Homer in
his own language in-finitely beyond Pope's translation of him, and
both beyond the dull narrative of the same events by Dares Phrygius;
and it is an innocent enjoyment. I thank on my knees, Him who directed
my early education, for having put into my possession this rich source
of delight; and I would not exchange it for anything which I could
then have acquired, and have not since acquired. With this regard for
those languages, you will acquit. me of meaning to omit them.
About twenty years ago, I drew a bill for our legislature, which
proposed to lay off every country into hundreds or townships of five
or six miles square, in the centre of each of them was to be a free
English school; the whole State was further laid off into ten
districts, in each of which was to be a college for teaching the
languages, geography, surveying, and other useful things of that
grade; and then a single University for the sciences. It was received
with enthusiasm; but as I had proposed that William and Mary, under an
improved form, should be the University, and that was at that time
pretty highly Episcopal, the dissenters after awhile began to
apprehend some secret design of a preference to that sect. About three
years ago they enacted that part of my bill which related to English
schools, except that instead of obliging, they left it optional. in
the court of every county to carry it into execution or not. I think
it probable the part of the plan for the middle grade of education,
may also he brought forward in due time. In the meanwhile, we are not
without a sufficient number of good country schools, where the
languages, geography, and the first elements of mathematics, are
taught. Having omitted this information in my former letter, I thought
it necessary now to supply it, that you might know on what base your
superstructure was to be reared.
The Gothic idea that we are to
look backwards instead of forwards for the improvement of the human
mind, and to recur to the annals of our ancestors for what is most
perfect in government, in religion and in learning, is worthy of those
bigots in religion and government, by whom it has been recommended,
and whose purposes it would answer. But it is not an idea which this
country will endure; and the moment of their showing it is fast
ripening; and the signs of it will be their respect for you, and
growing detestation of those who have dishonored our country by
endeavors to disturb our tranquility in it.
to Joseph Priestly, 27 January 1800
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