Jefferson About Education
Thomas Jefferson believed that universal
education would have to precede
universal suffrage. The ignorant, he argued,
were incapable of self-government.
But he had profound faith in the
reasonableness and teachableness of the masses
and in their collective wisdom
when taught. He believed that the schools should
teach reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Also, the children should learn about
Grecian, roman,
English, and American History. Jefferson believed the nation
needed public
schools scattered around, for all male citizens to receive free
education. By
1789, the first law was passed in Massachusetts to reaffirm the
colonial laws
by which towns were obligated to support a school. This law was
ignored.
Private schools were opened only to those who could afford to pay
them.
In the middle states religious groups opened most schools. Not many
schools or
institutions were opened to the nonwealthy people. The women,
blacks, and
Indians were not able to go to school. It was not until the
early 1900’s that
the Nation began making academies for females, because
government thought that
they needed to be educated mothers to educate their
children. Jefferson believed
in the "Republican Mother". Later, many 19th
century reformers believed in
the power of education to reform and redeem- to
release a blame or debt, to buy
back- "backward" people. As a result, they
generated a growing interest in
Indian Education. Jefferson and his
followers believed that the Native Americans
were "noble savages", they hoped
that schooling the Indians in white culture
would "uplift"- to improve the
spiritual, social, or intellect condition-
the tribes. But the states and
local government did little to support education.
Unlike the women and
Indians, blacks had no support at all. There were no
efforts to educate
enslaved African Americans, mostly because their owner
preferred that they
remain ignorant and this presumably less likely to rebel. By
1815 there
were 30 secondary private schools in Massachusetts, 37 in New York,
and many
others scattered all around the nation. They were mostly aristocratic;
they
were not many that were public. Higher education similarly diverged
from
Republican ideals. The number of colleges and universities in
America grew
substantially; they went from nine of the time of the
Revolution, to twenty-two
in 1800, and after that increased steadily.
Scarcely more than one white man in
a thousand, had access to any college
education, and those few who did attend
universities were almost without
exception members of prosperous, propertied
families. Jefferson strongly
believed that the nation’s future depended, in
great part, on the nation’s
education. He said in 1782, "Every government
degenerates when trusted to the
rulers of the people alone. The people
themselves, therefore, are its only
safe depositories. And to render even them
safe, their minds must be improved
to a certain degree". He believed that in
order for people to trust the
people who are in charge of their government, they
need to have some kind of
education, to be able to make decisions based on their
knowledge. Jefferson
also believed that there wasn’t any freedom without
education. He said, " If
a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a
civilization, it expects what
it never was and never will be". By this, he
means that in order for the
people to want a free nation and expect for great
things to happen, they need
to have some education. If they don’t want an
education, then they are just
going to always dream and never get anywhere. The
Connecticut school
master and lawyer Noah Webster, said that the American
schoolboy should be
educated as a nationalist. "As soon as he opens his
lips", Webster wrote, "
he should rehearse the history of his own
country". Every citizen was to be
educated to some degree. For the less
wealthy people, to also have some
education. Jefferson believed that the nation
really needed to have schools.
He wanted for the poor and rich to have some kind
of Education, not only for
themselves, but also for the nation’s
future.