The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
Philosophy
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
they will accept that place for their establishment. In the 1st will
be taught reading, writing, common arithmetic, and general notions of
geography. In the 2d, ancient and modern languages, geography fully, a
higher degree of numerical arithmetic, mensuration, and the elementary
principles of navigation. In the 3d, all the useful sciences in their
highest degree. To all of which is added a selection from the elementary
schools of subjects of the most promising genius, whose parents are too
poor to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense
through the colleges and university. The object is to bring into action
that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for
want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of
mind, which, in proportion to our population, shall be the double or
treble of what it is in most countries. The expense of the elementary
schools for every county, is proposed to be levied on the wealth of the
county, and all children rich and poor to be educated at these three
years gratis. The expense of the colleges and university, admitting two
professors to each of the former, and ten to the latter, can be completely
and permanently established with a sum of five hundred thousand dollars,
in addition to the present funds of our Central College. Our literary
fund has already on hand, and appropriated to these purposes, a sum of
seven hundred thousand dollars, and that increasing yearly. This is
in fact and substance the plan I proposed in a bill forty years ago,
but accommodated to the circumstances of this, instead of that day. I
derive my present hopes that it may now be adopted, from the fact that
the House of Representatives, at their last session, passed a bill, less
practicable and boundlessly expensive, and therefore alone rejected by
the Senate, and printed for public consideration and amendment. Mine,
after all, may be an Utopian dream, but being innocent, I have thought
I might indulge in it till I go to the land of dreams, and sleep there
with the dreamers of all past and future times.
I have taken measures to obtain the crested turkey, and will endeavor
to perpetuate that beautiful and singular characteristic, and shall be
not less earnest in endeavors to raise the Moronnier. God bless you,
and preserve you long in life and health, until wearied with delighting
your kindred spirits here, you may wish to encounter the great problem,
untried by the living, unreported by the dead.
TO MR. DUPONCEAU.
MONTICELLO, December 30, 1817.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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