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T H OM A S J E F F E R S ON

On Education (1785)

In the colonial American South, formal schooling was generally restricted to the children of well-to-do

parents. No public, tax-supported schools existed, and the children of most colonists rarely received more

than a perfunctory education, either at home or in makeshift local schools.

Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) passionately advocated not only for improvements in

education but for improved access to education. In particular, he developed a plan to establish a three-

level, tax-supported system of schooling that would make primary education available to all Virginians

and an advanced education accessible to talented students whose families could not afford the

considerable expense of formal schooling. A fair and equitable system of education, Jefferson firmly

believed, was crucial to the survival of republican government, for it was the only means by which a free

people could guard their liberties. As he later wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state

of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

In 1778 Jefferson authored legislation to put his proposed system in place. Although he and his friend

and collaborator James Madison repeatedly introduced the bill into the Virginia legislature throughout the

next decade, it was defeated time and again by fiscal conservatives and religious zealots, who feared that

the schools would be either insufficiently pious or influenced by rival denominations. A fully funded

system of public education would not be implemented in Virginia until after the Civil War.

In the following document—an excerpt from Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson’s sole published

book—he lays forth the details of his educational plan.

From Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832), 144–150, 153–156.

nother object of the revisal1 is, to diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the

people. This bill2 proposes to lay off every county into small districts of five or six miles

square, called hundreds, and in each of them to establish a school for teaching reading,

writing and arithmetic. The tutor to be supported by the hundred, and every person in it entitled to

send their children three years gratis, and as much longer as they please, paying for it. These schools

to be under a visitor, who is annually to choose the boy, of best genius in the school, of those whose

parents are too poor to give them further education, and to send him forward to one of the grammar

schools, of which twenty are proposed to be erected in different parts of the country, for teaching

Greek, Latin, Geography and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. Of the boys thus sent in

one year, trial is to be made at the grammar schools one or two years, and the best genius of the

whole selected, and continued six years, and the residue dismissed. By this means twenty of the best

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geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed at the public expense, so far as the

grammar schools go. At the end of six years instruction, one half are to be discontinued (from among

whom the grammar schools will probably be supplied with future masters); and the other half, who

are to be chosen for the superiority of their parts and disposition, are to be sent and continued three

years in the study of such sciences as they shall choose, at William and Mary college, the plan of

which is proposed to be enlarged, as will be hereafter explained, and extended to all the useful

sciences. The ultimate result of the whole scheme of education would be the teaching all the children

of the state reading, writing, and common arithmetic: turning out ten annually, of superior genius,

well taught in Greek, Latin, Geography, and the higher branches of arithmetic: turning out ten others

annually, of still superior parts, who, to those branches of learning, shall have added such of the

sciences as their genius shall have led them to: the furnishing to the wealthier part of the people

convenient schools at which their children may be educated at their own expense. The general

objects of this law are to provide an education adapted to the years, to the capacity, and the condition

of every one, and directed to their freedom and happiness. Specific details were not proper for the

law. These must be the business of the visitors intrusted with its execution. The first stage of this

education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the people will receive their

instruction, the principal foundations of future order will be laid here. Instead therefore of putting the

Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently

matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from

Grecian, Roman, European and American history.—The first elements of morality too may be instilled

into their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may teach

them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by showing them that it does not depend on the

condition of life in which chance has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good

health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. Those whom either the wealth of their parents or

the adoption of the state shall destine to higher degrees of learning, will go on to the grammar

schools, which constitute the next stage, there to be instructed in the languages. The learning Greek

and Latin, I am told, is going into disuse in Europe. I know not what their manners and occupations

may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their example in this instance. There is a

certain period of life, say from eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, when the mind like the body is

not yet firm enough for laborious and close operations. If applied to such, it falls an early victim to

premature exertion: exhibiting, indeed, at first, in these young and tender subjects, the flattering

appearance of their being men while they are yet children, but ending in reducing them to be children

when they should be men. The memory is then most susceptible and tenacious of impressions; and

the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory, it seems precisely fitted to the powers of

this period, which is long enough too for acquiring the most useful languages ancient and modern. I

do not pretend that language is science. It is only an instrument for the attainment of science. But

that time is not lost which is employed in providing tools for future operation: more especially as in

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this case the books put into the hands of the youth for this purpose may be such as will at the same

time impress their minds with useful facts and good principles. If this period be suffered to pass in

idleness, the mind becomes lethargic and impotent, as would the body it inhabits if unexercised

during the same time. The sympathy between body and mind during their rise, progress and decline,

is too strict and obvious to endanger our being missed while we reason from the one to the other. As

soon as they are of sufficient age, it is supposed they will be sent on from the grammar schools to the

university, which constitutes our third and last stage, there to study those sciences which may be

adapted to their views. By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of genius

from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the state of those talents which nature has sown

as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.

But of the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the

people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading

in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be

chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will

avail them of the experience 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 disguise it may assume;

and knowing it, to defeat its views. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness,

some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly

open, cultivate and improve. 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.—This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it

be essentially necessary. An amendment of our constitution must here come in aid of the public

education. The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual

which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe;

because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth : and public ones

cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own

price. The government of Great Britain has been corrupted, because but one man in ten has a right to

vote for members of parliament. The sellers of the government therefore get nine-tenths of their

price clear. It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a

few of the wealthier of the people: but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that

right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption.

Lastly, it is proposed, by a bill in this revisal, to begin a public library and gallery, by laying out a

certain sum annually in books, paintings, and statues.

Study Questions

1. What were the three stages of Jefferson’s proposed educational system?

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2. What would be taught at each level? What subjects did Jefferson specifically wish to be included

and excluded?

3. What, according to Jefferson, would be the “ultimate result” of his proposed system? Why did

Jefferson believe education to be so important in a democratic republic?

4. Do you believe Jefferson’s proposed system of education was fair and equitable? Why or why not?