The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
EDUCATION / STUDYING THE CLASSICS
Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you
and I were. They acquire all learning in their mother's womb, and
bring it into the world ready made. The information of books is no
longer necessary; and all knowledge which is not innate, is in
contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run its round; and so,
I suppose, must that of self-learning and self-sufficiency; of
rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new
ground of intuition. When sobered by experience, I hope our successors
will turn their attention to the advantages of education. I mean of
education on the broad scale, and not that of the petty
academies, as they call themselves, which are starting up in
every neighborhood, and where one or two men, possessing Latin and
sometimes Greek, a knowledge of the globes, and the first six books of
Euclid, imagine and communicate this as the sum of science. They
commit their pupils to the theatre of the world, with just taste
enough of learning to be alienated from industrious pursuits, and not
enough to do service in the ranks of science.
to John Adams, 5 July 1814
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