The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION / EDUCATION
We thought that
a systematical plan of general education
should be proposed, and I was requested to undertake it. I accordingly
prepared three bills for the Revisal, proposing three distinct grades
of education, reaching all classes. 1st. Elementary schools, for all
children generally, rich and poor. 2d. Colleges, for a middle degree
of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life, and such
as would be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And, 3d,
an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally, and in their
highest degree. The first bill proposed to lay off every county into
Hundreds, or Wards, of a proper size and population for a school, in
which reading, writing, and common arithmetic should be taught; and
that the whole State should be divided into twenty-four districts, in
each of which should be a school for classical learning, grammar,
geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. The second
bill proposed to amend the constitution of William and Mary college,
to enlarge its sphere of science, and to make it in fact a University.
The third was for the establishment of a library. These bills were not
acted on until the same year, '96, and then only so much of the first
as provided for elementary schools.
And in the Elementary bill,
they inserted a provision which completely defeated it; for they left
it to the court of each county to determine for itself, when this act
should be carried into execution, within their county. One provision
of the bill was, that the expenses of these schools should be borne by
the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general
tax rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor; and
the justices, being generally of the more wealthy class, were
unwilling to incur that burden, and I believe it was not suffered to
commence in a single county. I shall recur again to this subject,
towards the close of my story, if I should have life and resolution
enough to reach that term; for I am already tired of talking about
myself.
from Notes for an Autobiography, 6 January 1821
|