Monticello guide Olivia Brown looks at Thomas Jefferson's earliest education and his lifelong promotion of learning, including his efforts to establish a system of public schools and the founding of the University of Virginia.
In The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, Andrew O’Shaughnessy offers a twin biography of Jefferson in retirement and of the University of Virginia in its earliest years. He reveals how Jefferson’s vision anticipated the modern university and profoundly influenced the development of American higher education
Kyle Chattleton: This is Mountaintop History, a podcast produced by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.
Olivia Brown: Mountaintop History brings forward meaningful stories from this historic home and plantation — from the past and from the present.
Kyle Chattleton: My name is Kyle Chattleton.
Olivia Brown: And I'm Olivia Brown.
Kyle Chattleton: Thank you for joining us. We hope you'll learn something new.
Olivia Brown: In an 1817 letter to George Ticknor, Thomas Jefferson wrote of three "important truths." He said, "that knoledge is power, that knoledge is safety, and that knoledge is happiness." These "important truths" dictated many parts of Jefferson's life and undoubtedly came out of his own formal education and lifelong dedication to the Enlightenment. These ideas seemingly came out of his own father's upbringing as well.
According to the partial autobiography that Jefferson wrote in 1821, he said his father's education was "quite neglected," but that "being of a strong mind, sound judgment and eager after information, he read much and improved himself." Clearly, Peter Jefferson valued education highly throughout his adult life, as seen in the example of his eldest son Thomas' education. In part, however, the formal education Thomas Jefferson received was due to the fact that he was born into a privileged life of the Virginia landed gentry.
From the time he was quite young, Thomas Jefferson began formal schooling. At only five years old, living at the Tuckahoe plantation of the late William Randolph, Jefferson began learning at what he called the "English school." Along with his three sisters and three Randolph cousins, he was taught by a tutor at Tuckahoe, likely in English grammar, spelling, composition, and arithmetic. In 1751, the Jeffersons left Tuckahoe and returned to their home plantation of Shadwell in Albemarle County. The next year, young Thomas Jefferson began his classical education under a Scottish Reverend named William Douglas, who lived in Goochland, Virginia. Rather than the "English school" he had previously attended, Jefferson referred to Douglas's school as a "Latin school," and, while boarding at the clergyman's home, he studied languages like Greek, Latin, and French. Reflecting on his childhood education under Douglas, Jefferson seemed rather critical in his later autobiography, writing that Douglas "was but a superficial Latinist, less instructed in Greek." Jefferson continued at the Latin school of William Douglas until his father Peter died in 1757, at which point he returned closer to his home. Though it's unclear how Jefferson truly felt about the instruction he received from Douglas, the two did continue to correspond via letters until Douglas's death in 1798.
After returning home, Jefferson continued with a formal tutor for another two years, from 1758 through 1760. He attended the school of Reverend James Maury in Albemarle County, a man Jefferson described as a "correct classical scholar." Maury led the parish near Shadwell and in a letter to Joseph Priestley, an English chemist and natural historian, Jefferson wrote, "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 any thing which I could then have acquired & have not since acquired." Maury was clearly a leading educator for young men who would go on to be influential in the founding of the United States. In addition to Jefferson, he also taught James Madison, James Monroe, and four other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson completed his two years of study with Maury, during which he read Greek and Latin works and their original language, and learned history, geography, and mathematics. At 17 years old, he entered the College of William & Mary, Maury's alma mater, in the spring of 1760.
Life in Williamsburg was thrilling for Jefferson, but not in the way that going to college was thrilling for some. In petitioning to the executors of his father's will for permission to attend William & Mary, Jefferson argued he would not be distracted by socializing with certain company who would be calling upon the Shadwell home. In a later letter to his eldest grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, he said that he recollect[ed] the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time." He continued, musing on his time at college and the choices he made. He said, "from the circumstances of my position I was often thrown into the society of horse racers, cardplayers, foxhunters, scientific & professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar or in the great council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a foxhunter? an Orator? or the honest advocate of my country's rights?" It's clear to us today that Jefferson did not choose the path of the horse jockey or the foxhunter.
When he moved to Williamsburg in 1760, he was going from Albemarle County, considered essentially Virginia's frontier, to the heart of Virginia's colonial government. The clash between the Virginia gentry, of which Jefferson was a part, and the British Imperial authority was happening on a smaller scale at the College of William & Mary. There was constant conflict between students, faculty, clergy, and the Board of Visitors, which was the main governing body of the College. Jefferson would spend many of the preceding years of the American Revolution in this tense and precarious environment.
Despite the possibility of unrest, he once described Williamsburg as "the finest school of manners and morals that ever existed." He saw first-hand the role of legislative leaders in the colonial government and met influential people. William Small, a mathematics and natural philosophy professor, was the first layman appointed to the William & Mary faculty and became Jefferson's mentor. Under Small's tutelage, Jefferson met Governor Francis Fauquier and prominent local lawyer George Wythe when Small took him to play the violin in weekly chamber concerts due to the musical acumen Jefferson displayed. Fauquier also held dinners at his home that Jefferson attended, and where he heard, "more good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations then in all my life besides." Small fostered Enlightenment ideas in Jefferson, who said he got his "first views of the expansion of science" through this education. A diligent student to say the least, Jefferson was said to study up to 15 hours a day, and was once subject to pranks by his fellow students who broke into his room and stole his books in the dead of night.
His formal studies at William & Mary lasted two years and Jefferson never received a degree, but that was not uncommon for the time. He ended his studies with Small in 1762 and begin reading the law under George Wythe as his next endeavor. He spent the next five years studying under Wythe, and in 1767 Jefferson recorded his first legal case. While working as a lawyer, he returned often to his home at Shadwell, and within two years of starting his law career, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, effectively then ending his time as a practicing lawyer.
Jefferson's devotion to education did not end with his own formal studies. During his time in Virginia's government, however, Jefferson continued to work toward a system of public education in the state. He put forth his Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge to the legislature in 1778 and 1780. Though it wasn't passed in its original form, a version of this bill was made into law in 1796. Many years later too, after 40 years of public service, after authoring the Declaration of Independence, after serving two terms as President, Jefferson continued to care about the education of American citizens. In his retirement years, Jefferson spent hours working on what he called "the hobby of my old age." He devoted his time to founding the first public university in the state of Virginia. Drawing the architectural plans, crafting the curriculum, and hiring the faculty, Thomas Jefferson was involved from start to finish in the founding of the University of Virginia. While at William & Mary, Jefferson acquired his first book on architecture, which would become one of his lifelong passions. In another letter to Joseph Priestley and 1800, Jefferson wrote of a wish to create a university in the central part of the state that he said would be "so broad & liberal & modern, as to be worth patronising with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other states to come, and drink of the cup of knoledge." The original charter from the Virginia General Assembly in 1816 was for the establishment of Central College, which later officially became the University of Virginia in 1819. Classes began after eight long years of planning in 1825 when Jefferson was 83 years old, and less than one year before his own death.
To Thomas Jefferson, a person's education was never complete, and he devoted his own life to what he called the "illimitable freedom of the human mind." Students at the University of Virginia still hold an age-old tradition. They refer to themselves as first, second, third, and fourth years, as an indication that their lives as students will never truly end. This is an homage to the University's founder, and his belief that a person's education can continue beyond the confines of the University they attend.
This has been another episode of Mountaintop History, a collaboration podcast between WTJU and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Kyle Chattleton: Join us for new episodes every two weeks on Apple and Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and the Virginia Audio Collective.
Olivia Brown: To learn more about Monticello or to plan your next trip, visit us online at Monticello.org.
