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Chapter 1. Classical Education in Colonial America
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13 Classical Education in Colonial America Tacitus I consider as the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example. —Thomas Jefferson1 Despite voluminous writings that reveal his polymath interests through essays, speeches, and letters, Thomas Jefferson wrote only one book: his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1782.2 The book outlined a variety of proposals for the organization and operation of the new state government. Among Jefferson’s proposals was a system of public education for Virginia , which included a scheme whereby twenty students from across the state would each year be provided free education at state-established grammar (secondary) schools, and ten would have received a free education at the College of William and Mary, then the only degree-granting institution in the state. In discussing the curriculum for his proposed state grammar schools, Jefferson commended the usefulness of studying the ancient languages of Greek and Latin as tools for attaining a deeper knowledge of the wisdom of classical antiquity. He contrasted the prevailing attitudes of Europeans toward ancient languages with those in the sWilliam J. Ziobro Chapter 1 Meckler.ClassicalAntiquity 5/25/06 12:07 PM Page 13 14 Classical Education in Colonial America nascent United States of America. “The learning of Greek and Latin, I am told, is going into disuse in Europe,” Jefferson wrote. “I know not what their manners and occupations may call for: but it would be very illjudged in us to follow their examples in this instance.”3 He further discussed the political merit of historical studies, especially ancient history, at all levels of public education. “History,” Jefferson wrote, “by apprising them [students] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experiences of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every guise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.”4 Jefferson was not alone among the Founders in his opinion that study of classical antiquity, through its languages and history, provided salutary protections for the people in the democratic exercise of political power.5 John Adams also extolled the merits of a classical education. He stated that if in his youth he had studied Greek and Latin more diligently than mathematics and natural sciences, which were his natural inclinations, he would have been better prepared for his career as a politician and statesman —a truly interesting reflection since from the outset of his public life Adams had deliberately imitated Cicero in all his legal and political engagements.6 At any rate, he was not about to allow his son, John Quincy Adams, to stray in his own educational efforts. In the spring of 1780, with the recently born United States still at war with Britain, the elder Adams was on a diplomatic mission in Paris on behalf of the Continental Congress. The twelve-year-old John Quincy Adams accompanied his father to Europe, where he was enrolled at a school in Passy, roughly sixty miles southeast of Paris. During this time, John Adams wrote several letters expressing concern that his son was not giving adequate attention to the learning of Greek and Latin, languages the elder Adams described as “useful and necessary.”7 The utility of classical education did not detract from the refinement it provided to English composition or from the beauty of expression and thought revealed in examining ancient literature in the original—two other common reasons given in the eighteenth century for study of the language and ideas of the Greeks and Romans.8 Yet the political importance attached to classical antiquity ensured its promotion in the public colleges and universities established in the years following the American Revolution. For example, classical education formed the only course of study at the University of North Carolina, which opened in 1795, and at the University of Georgia, which opened in 1801. Very late in his life, Jefferson became the creative and motivational force behind the founding of the University of Virginia. He was solely responsible for the design of its classically inspired buildings, the selection of its first faculty, and the forMeckler .ClassicalAntiquity 5/25/06 12:07 PM Page 14 [18.224.32.86] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 03:56 GMT) William J. Ziobro 15 mat of its earliest curriculum...