We tend to think of education in terms of career and job training. A modern economy like our demands knowledgeable workers.

But education is also important for matters of personal development and civic competence. Without skills in finding and evaluating the quality of information we get, we cannot get about in a complex world like ours. We cannot make good choices as voters and citizens when we do not understand the issues--like stem cell research, the economy, global warming, and geopolitical stability.

Education costs money. What doesn't? But before we can even address the question whether we are spending enough, or too much, or whether it is fairly distributed, we need some idea where the money goes, what it does, and what affects educational outcomes. And for that, we need at least some idea what we are trying to do and how we are going to measure that.

This is by no means as straightforward as just setting up standardized tests or looking at GPAs. One needs to look at outcomes that may not be well captured by either of those, yet are critically important to educational success. What do you think some of those might be, and how do we best measure those?

We measure by employment figures; we measure by how many remedial courses must be taught at state colleges; we measure by the growth of our society both economically and culturally. Special ed has shown great gains in all these areas. Regular ed has not. Why? All children are now kept in school (rather than entering the work force with just an elementary or middle school education), and the schools have to show advanced grade level success with people of all different academic potentials. Teachers are not allowed the resources they need to address this diversity of learning ability. Reasonable expectations for each year's growth are not set....everyone has to perform as if they all are gifted academically.

If we truly want to provide academic education for everyone at the 12th grade level by the time they reach adulthood, the system needs to be changed....not the teachers, but how and what is provided at what times for a suitable number of students to provide adequate individual instruction time.

Amen.

we need school district accountability for how the resources we give them are spent.

What do you have in mind? Multitracks at each grade level? Lowering requirements? Electives? "Reasonable expectations" sounds reasonable, but how do you determine what those are? What standards of reasonableness are you using, and why are those the appropriate ones in this context?

"Accountability" is one of those terms everyone throws around but no one bothers to define. Do you mean you want to look at the books, to see how the money is spent? I'm not sure how that helps here, unless you have reason to believe the system is corrupt and money is being diverted to other uses. Do you mean there has to be some quantifiable boost in standardized test scores or GPAs per dollar? That is an unreasonable standard. Educational outcomes are not like producing sausages, where one can see quanifiable increases in output per input. Educating students is much more complicated (and needs to be much more individualized, as the previous poster correctly states) than producing sausages.

Explain what you have in mind, and give us some of the details on how you think this would be best implemented. I think we are all agreed that people should be held accountable for what they do with money, for what they do with our kids. But everything of importance lies in the detailed articulation of what we behavior expect and how we intend to encourage it.

Looking at the books will help because it will tell us how our tax dollars and if they are being spent on expenses that they are supposed to cover. Some school dostricts are not recieving the funds they need from the state, once the state has them.

One example of acceptable expense is to provide special accomodations for students taking standardized tests, who have learning disabilities. These accomodations, some which require the hiring of new staff and creation of new positions, include test readers or the tes on tape fro the student who is a auditory-verbal learner to listen to, tutoring available to every student that needs it, use of technology to help students who learn on a compuer better, and various others. These are expensive we need more funding to implement them, but then with that funding there should come the ability to look at the books and make sure that the funding is used for what it is granted for and not something else.

I don't have any problem with keeping honest books. Is that the extent of it? Or is there more?

I think the concern is, in general, that despite our being an advanced nation with great educational resources at our disposal, our kids graduate without being able to read, ignore who their leaders are or how the government works, are more concerned with how they dress than with how they think, and display other calamitous symptoms of an ineffective education.

I think the WAY our schools are financed, it being determined by whether or not they are in a well-to-do & safe neighborhood, determines the quality of the education received. This is what has to change. Each kid is entitled to equal opportunity in his/her education and that is not happening. Not only is the education poor but the environment is unsafe or unhealthy. It's not fair to make a kid go to a place like this simply because he has no choice.

I think the Fed. Government could study existing successful schools, both private and public, and apply their successful principles to public schools, and finance every last cent needed to implement these principles.

Is that a possibility? Does it make sense?

I think we may find that for schools, as for medicine, the problem isn't the amount of money spent, but its maldistribution. That Kozol book, Savage Inequalities makes that point eloquently. Perhaps poor performance by schools is yet another manifestation of class warfare, whihc the well to do have more than they need for schools, and the poor have much less than they need.

I realize that money by itself does not solve all the problems, but what can we do to see that the schools of lower income families get more attention paid to how they are run, and see that they have the funds to implement needed improvements and changes?

I think Elowynstar makes a good point. She's saying that not all kids are identical - each one is unique, with special gifts and talents. But our education system is, to a large extent, one size fits all, with the exception of gifted programs and special ed. Special education and gifted programs don't even come close to matching the sort of diversity typically found in the school aged population.

I would think a larger percentage of electives would be a good start. Texas is currently considering adding another year of science to it's requirements (to make four years total), but I don't think it will get the result they're intending (to prepare more students for science fields). If a student isn't interested in the subject matter, they won't retain it beyond the final exam, and the time spent studying it will be wasted. The amount of flexibility in the typical high school, at the moment, isn't nearly adequate. In one or two places, I've seen "coming educational trends" thought out, and one of those was ending the typical public school setting after junior high, and making high school a "community/junior college" of sorts. This would allow the student to take more ownership in his education (which in turn would increase motivation).

I also think we need more strategies that apply to different learning styles. Holding a pencil is NOT kinesthetic!!! Being kinesthetic means that you learn best in motion (my 4 yo learned his numbers before he was 3 by jumping on a hopscotch). If holding an exercise ball in your hand helps, then let a child have it!

I do realize that all of these ideas require resources, which is always the big sticking point.

I'm curious, elowynstar, what special ed strategies do you use in your classroom that might also be used in a more mainstreamed class? It's always fascinated me that some of the best educational techniques were originally developed for special education (Montessori is the one that always comes to mind for me).

Electives work to give a common core only if there is some way to integrate the resulting curriculum to ensure the same things are covered no matter which elective is chosen. Otherwsie, we give up on the notion of a common core. WhiteRoses, I think, favors preserving some sort of common core, unless my memory is incorrect. How do you propose to preserve something like a common core of knowledge, mom2hs2boys? Even if we give you the different teaching strategies to help with the different learning styles, the question remains whether there is something like cutural literacy we are seeking to foster in K-12, or not. What are your thoughts on this?

There is an easy answer for all your questions. All of these things should be determined by local and state governments, not by federal mandates - whose very goal is summed up by elowynstar's sig. This is the way the system was designed to be run. This was a guarantee given to the American people in the Constitution through Amendment 10: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If the current administration trampled the equally short 2nd Amendment the way they have trampled this one, there would be a true holy war being waged, only within our own country and it would be coming from the Right.

Educators need to come together the way those people holding their right to bear arms have. I don't agree with their tactics, but their results cannot be argued. "Kerry's going to take my gun away" was a much more potent fear than "Bush is ruining your child's education."

I agree that NCLB is wrong for the reasons cited in elowynstars signature. It takes a punitive approach. It straightjackets teachers and doesn't fund the changes. I will add, it takes too narrow a conception of standard. That is a more basic flaw than the misuse of statistics.

I also grant you that our constitution does seem to place this with the states.

But I disagree that the answers here are simple. Some states are poor, and need federal money. Is it inappropriate to insist on some standards of achievement as a target for those schools? People are highly mobile (they have to be in our shifting economy). Would it be nice to have the expectation that anywhere in the US, basically thr same things are being taught to students? This need not kill innovative teaching strategies or curricular development. But it does measure those innovations by some set of agreed upon benchmarks.

Is the very idea of national standards flawed? I don't think so. Geometry students should learn the same things wherever they learn them. History can be expanded to include local history--but surely we want some common notion of national history as part of our national identity. English grammar and punctuation is pretty well standardized, with allowable stylistic variations few and well circumscribed. Standards of readable prose is recognizable nationwide, as the uniformity of editorial standards in news media and publishers shows. We are not talking about genius here, only competence. Curricula that unbleash greater creativity are welcome. Butr for most students, doesn't it make sense to ensure a certatin minimum competence is achieved in every school district?

Not everybody learns the same way. Not everyone has the same aptitudes (or, if you want to use Howard Gardner's phrase: there are multiple intelligences). But I think the push for national standards has come from teachers themselves--science teachers, math teachers, history teachers and english teachers--who all want to aim at a certain level of competence by high school graduation.

The concept of,"Community-based Education" has been floating arround the
edge of the bureaucracy for several decades and occasionally picked up and applied in limited situations with positive results. I think the concept speaks to several concers I'm hearing here.(Rogerv:It could even be considered a
strategic iniative). Much of the education and socialization of children was done in and by the community in the past when life was simpler. The rapid increase in home schooling is one way of utilizing this principle. The above post about reorganizing high schools more like community college is also related but
I see some real danger to using this model alone without doing some other things
to get more community integration. This approach seems to work well in European
countries but the situations are not comparable. My step-son was an exchange student with Germany during his junior year of high school and this model worked very well there and he liked it. Education and school was not bracketed off from the rest of the community there as it is here. He played soccer with a neighbor-
hood team, not a school team, and was otherwise involved in family and community activities when not in class and did more independent study than
highschool stdents do in this country.

My main point of this discussion is that yes we need to radically change the
way education is done because it is not working very well, but what is being
proposed by the powers that be won't help. We need a different approach.
In the really bad schools which constitute a majority, children and young
people are simply taken from their homes and communities(which may or may
not be supportive) and warehoused for X number of hours untill they can be
turned loose. Too often the children are not well integrated into a familly and
families are not integrated into a community. We need a strategy that works on schools and communities at the same time and place.

I don't disagree with a common core, only with including everything but the kitchen sink in it. Can we really say that physics should be a core subject? Calculus or trig? (Let me say this is coming from a math nerd who loves those subjects and tutors them frequently). Are these things every person needs? How many people can say that these are subjects needed on a daily basis (other than for, say, an engineering career)?

I guess we should ask what the whole goal of education really is. To me, it means to prepare a student for life - to teach them how to learn, how to think critically, and to give them a love of learning (because we never really stop learning). We should be teaching kids how to become independent, and I'm not sure plotting out each moment of a student's education is going to do that - you learn by doing, and it's tough to learn independence if you're never allowed to make your own choices and take ownership of the consequences.

A typical college curriculum has a common core - there are certain courses that each student is required to take, but by and large, the course of study is up to the student. Even within a major course of study, the number of electives is significantly greater than what you'd find in a typical high school career. A core is a good and necessary thing, but it shouldn't be so large that a student can't learn to make his own decisions because every spare moment has been taken up by a hodgepodge of useful-only-if-that's-your-future-career topics that someone has decided should be learned, regardless of the students goals, interest, or aptitude. Is it really worth teaching a course if a student is only going to learn just enough to take the test and forget it?

[quote=mom2hs2boys,Nov 14 2004, 01:51 PM]
I don't disagree with a common core, only with including everything but the kitchen sink in it.

To make my point simple I'm replying on the last post of this topic, "Democracy Depends on Public Education".
"If you thought things couldn't get worse, consider this; The number of schools subject to punishment under the "No Child Left Behind" law has skyrocketed." http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0411/upfront.html

(I teach at a Title I school that failed to make our (AYP) for the 03-04 school year.)

A Proposed Strategic Initiative for Education--

The Republican Party since Raegan's administration has wanted to eliminate
the Sec, of Ed. from the cabinet and close the US Office of Ed. operation. Now is
a good time for Democrats to agree to this. We really don't need a bunch of Neocons and other Cheap Labor Conservatives micromanageing local schools
from Washington. Now is the time to reinstitute their concept of block grants and
send all federal dollars presently spent on education directly to the states except 5% which should go to the Justice Department budget to make sure the states
distribute the money legally. The grants management system through which
these funds have been distributed has never worked very well and is getting progressively worse.

I wonder what you think of Conant's approach to science education, as set forth in his book "Science and Common Sense". I agree that piling on courses with specialized material is not the way to go. But I also think that we are missing the boat on basic science literacy--to our detriment. Conant's book is old but not dated. He strikes a good balance with his choice of case studies, and does a better job of conveying how science is actually done than do much heftier, more expensive and glossy textbooks in science I have seen. And there are similar books on math, books that Dover press brings back into print in cheap papperbacks--books that give some idea how math is actaully done, that show it to be an interesting endevevour that people might actually want to do for a living. I don't think we need to teach more material. Students already have way too much material. (WhiteRoses has made this point several times; I think she is right; RLA just made this point above.)

I agree with most of what you have said. There are some things however, that we just expect literate adults to know something about, without having to look them up. It is what Hirsch calls 'superficial knowledge', and it is valuable for intelligent conversations that go beyond personal autobiography. Insofar as we live in a common world, there are a certain number of facts (names, dates, places, battles, kings, novels, movies, etc.) that people will at least have come across in their reading and experience, even if they don't know very much about them. It is best if we don't have to look everything up, don't you agree? It makes for a ceratin efficiency when we do want to look things up.

[quote=kindergarten teacher,Nov 14 2004, 10:28 PM]
[quote=mom2hs2boys,Nov 14 2004, 01:51 PM]
I don't disagree with a common core, only with including everything but the kitchen sink in it.

To make my point simple I'm replying on the last post of this topic, "Democracy Depends on Public Education".
"If you thought things couldn't get worse, consider this; The number of schools subject to punishment under the "No Child Left Behind" law has skyrocketed." http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0411/upfront.html

(I teach at a Title I school that failed to make our (AYP) for the 03-04 school year.)




[/quote]

I agree. The punitive approach is the wrong approach.

I've never seen this as a positive move before. I'll have to think about it. My initial inclination is to say we need coordination at the national level to compensate somewhat for the lack of education funds available in poor states. But maybe I need to rethink this.

I haven't read that book. I'll check into it.

I think we're saying the same thing, coming from different perspectives. I don't disagree with a certain core - but you notice that Hirsch's books only go to 6th grade (am I right here?). Either he's got more books in the works, or you might draw the conclusion that most of the "core" we need to know is learned in those first six years.

Again, I go back to the college example. I was an engineering major, but was required to take a few humanities courses, one political science course, one history course, two social sciences courses, four English courses, as well as all of the math and science that were inherent in my degree anyway. I know there were more than that - I just don't have the requirements sitting in front of me. The core was still there, but there was so much more choice and ownership in the courses taken. I'm glad I had to take the courses I had to take, as I may not have taken them otherwise in my zeal to finish my degree with co-oping. What I was specifically disagreeing with is the idea that we have four solid years planned for the typical high school student, with very little choice afforded, because it's ALL "core". Is this all superficial knowledge? I don't think so. In our local school district, if a student wants to participate in ANYTHING extracurricular (drama, band, or sport), it's pretty much a requirement that they'll have to make up time in summer school, because the "core curriculum" is so packed. You'll have a hard time convincing me that this is all superficial knowledge that everyone needs to know to be considered "educated". We appear to agree that we're packing too much into a typical high school schedule, and that a core is a good thing. So exactly where do we disagree? Or are you just trying to stir up conversation ?

I do think, though, that if we are fostering a love of learning (which I don't think is happening, at least around here), that this alleviates a lot of the debate we're having. If we are fostering a love of learning - lifelong learning, then the superficial knowledge takes care of itself. There is a desire to be educated - to read and learn and find similar people with which to discuss issues (as we're doing here). Notice that education isn't anywhere close to my degree. I'm not on the environmental board talking about those issues (my degree was in Chemical Engineering) - but I have a desire to learn all that I can about education. So here I am.

I would honestly love to see more "appreciation" courses. I'm currently part of an online group that is reading The Heart of Mathematics by Burger and Starbird. It's a college level text (but would be easily accessible by a bright high schooler) that can be best described as "math appreciation". One of my "far off" dreams is to open up a resource center that offers more fun-like summer courses (like math or science appreciation) and tutoring during the school year. Again I don't disagree - but one course of math appreciation (with maybe a year or two of integrated Algebra and Geometry) is plenty for a student who plans on becoming a journalist or a lawyer. I do think a certain amount of algebra and geometry is necessary, since it fires up the synapses and trains the brain to think critically, but at the rate we're going, Calculus is going to be a requirement because we want to force more students into an science or engineering field (which is the whole goal behind requiring the fourth year of science).

I'm not sure where we disagree or whether it is even important that we do disagree, mom2hs2boys. I guess I am trying to stir up a conversation.

I am not an advocate of Hirsch, by the way, but I agree with WhiteRoses that Hirsh does raise some legitimate points.

By the way, this thread is a continuation of a thread we had at the old Kerry forum. Here's the link:

http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=44237

rogerv,
I agree because Raegan and Bush administrations wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. I'm talking tatics more that strtegy. Too many of the federal dollars are going into supporting bureauracy and the Bush administration simply can't be trusted to support policies and programs that will improve public education. I've had a fair amount of experience dealing with local school boards and I am well aware that they don't generally represent a very high level of enlightenment but
state departments of education are generally as advanced as the federal
department. The actual leadership for improving and coordinating comes
primarily from the professional associations and University Departments. I
don't think this loose confederation or network wouldn't change very much if
the role of the feds were radically reduced as long as the money was channeled
through the states and regulations were in place to prevent states and then
local systems from reducing their dollar contributions.

mom2hrs2boys,
I very much appreciate the point of view you express about education. I am a retired educator who has taught and counseled learners from grade 7 through post-graduate settings. Promoting the love of learning and the habit of keeping one's situation learning oriented is what I most value. Unfortunately the system as presently structured does not support this goal very well. There is so much waste
of time and resources--it is very sad.

Information should be organized in smaller chunks than courses. I think the
strategy of concept maping could be used to organize the curriculum in a much
more functional way. The different components of the arts and sciences could
be organized with general system language that would make the whole process much more effective and efficient.

Could you elebaorate on this a bit, rla?

I haven't kept up with the specifics of curriculum development during the past
20 years but even back then there were some pretty impressive taxonomies
of concepts and skills to be included in K-12 curriculums. There is a continous
process of specialization that goes on in the arts amd sciences but there is also
a continous process of combination going on as in such new disciplines as
ecology. Given the newer developments in linguistics and communication
and access to modern information technology, it makes more sense to organize the curriculum in terms of instructional units at the various grade levels which
integrates concepts and operations from different arts and sciences in smaller units
than courses and text books. Of course there is the vested interest of text book publishers to overcome. The notion of concept mapping is important for
achieving better understanding of how knowledge is hiearchcally structured within domains and how "minds" are structured.

Are you refering to the Bloom taxonomy of educational objectives, in the cognitive and affective domains respectively? If so, maybe that could be the framework for an interesting discussion here. If not, what do you have in mind?

rogerv,
I don't know whether this approach has been up-dated or whether something better has replaced it. I was hoping someone who has kept up in this field would be pulled into the discussion. Trying to get this little horse ranch and bed & breakfast going keeps me away from the library and my progress in trying to learn to use this pc is going real slow. I did a lot of work in the 70's and 80's
developing and evaluating Life Skills Training:Akridge, R.L. & Means, B.L(1982).
Psychosocial adjustment skills training. In B. Bolton (Ed.), Vocational adjustment
of disabled persons. Baltimore, MD:University Park Press.

The kind of model I see emerging in the psychocial field lumps several instructional
units under each of three domains:Self Management, Relationship Management
and Life Management which includes Career Development.

Here's a link on systems thinking
http://www.thinking

Sorry, try this--
http://www.thinking.net/Systems__Thinking/...__thinking.html

Couldn't get either link, rla.

As a teacher of special needs students, I'm proud to say that our school corporation is setting up the infrastructure for differentiated instruction through our staff development program. We are taking slow steps but steps to have individualized education for all, not just special needs students.

http://www.thinking.net/

Got it. Thanks, RLA.

Sounds interesting. Could you give us some of the details?

I said something to my students yesterday I have never said before, but it strikes me I should. I told them I was grateful for being part of their lives, and having them part of my life, for the past semester.

It sounds thoroughly weird, but I think it is absolutely right. Let me explain. I think human existence is profoundly isolating and lonely. WE should be grateful for the people who come into our lives. In my classes, the communication is never just one way. I always learn things from my students. And we are working together to imporve each others lives. I am trying to make them better students (and, I hope, better persons) by teaching them skills of critical thinking and providing opportunities for them to reflect on their lives. They in turn are helping me become a better teacher, and, I hope, a more empathetic and caring human being. I think gratitude is exactly the right attitude to take towards all of this. And I hope I never forget that.

A couple of ideas:

1) do away with mandatory school. That way, only the kids whose parents WANT their child to be educated will show up. Still make school available to all who WANT it.

or

2) switch secondary education to something more like our higher educational system with the proviso that the private schools MUST accept government vouchers.

One good thing about this approach is that it does away with controversies like those about creationism; e. g., I want my daughter to recieve a real science education I can send her to a school where real science is taught; holy rollers can send their offspring to holy roller school.

In each case, all who want it have access but no one is coerced (sp).

Rather than this social darwinism approach, I believe we can develop democratic
communities capable of facilitating the socialization and self-actualization of all children--though it won't be easy. The alternative is more regression away from the Jeffersonian ideal.

Interestingly enough, back in the 20's, creationism was a backlash of sorts against social darwinism. That came to mind because of another one of the topics I was discussing.



I don't believe this is possible; for example: what about the case where the parents are just too lazy to get the kid ready for school? Don't laugh; this has happened to my ex (who teaches in a public elementary school).

Another problem: what is the best way to divy up the resources? Do we spend lots of time and effort getting someone with, say, an IQ of 70 to be able to write their name or do we use that money to, say, help poverty stricken students with IQ's of 110 get to college? Tough call; I wondering if having many schools who can tailor their programs to certain students would be more efficient than the "one size fits all (none)" approach.



True enough; I guess complicated problems don't have easy answers.

Making school voluntary will simply mean fewer attend. There will be all sorts of (seeming good) reasons for the increased drop out rate, but all will amount to short term thinking winning out over long term thinking--something that is already a problem in spite of mandatory schooling.

There are few things I think should be required, but public education is one of them. It is an investment in the lives of the young. If done right, it will make up for a lot of initial disadvantages. (Done wrong it will simply reinforce them- a problem we do indeed face). It is one thing we as a society owe the next generation if we demand the parents work. Somehow, kids need to learn how the world works if they are going to be effective agents and have a shot at a decent life.

I am not opposed to choice, in some sense of the word, if it is used to maintain interest, and is not at the expense of important pieces of the world-view. For example, history, geography and science are non-negotiable--not because anybody is going to do these professionally, but because without some grasp of the elements of these fields, one cannot think productively about the problems we face as citizens and as human beings. If I could figure out how to add it in, I'd probably include the elements of economics. Now there is no rason everyone should take all the same courses. Interests differ, and I am all in favor of tailoring curriculum to interest and offering alternative ways of meeting graduation requirements. But in the end, we want people who are competent adults, capable of meeting their responsibilities as parents, coaches, grocers, bus drivers, soldiers, teachers--functioning with the financial institutions we have, the media we have, the transportation system we have, the legal system we have--well--you get the point.

I have just read Pericles's Funeral Oration to the Athenians. It is a really good reflection on what one prominent Athenian thought was the heart of Athenian democracy and includes his reflections on education. I have posted this speech elsewhere in this forum, but it is appropriate here too for our discussion of democratic education. I'd be interested in comments and discussion of it on matters we are addressing in this thread.


http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/per...eralspeech.html

Ancient History Sourcebook:
Thucydides (c.460/455-c.399 BCE): Pericles' Funeral Oration
from the Peloponnesian War (Book 2.34-46)

This famous speech was given by the Athenian leader Pericles after the first battles of the Peloponnesian war. Funerals after such battles were public rituals and Pericles used the occasion to make a classic statement of the value of democracy.

In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their ancestors, and the manner of it is as follows. Three days before the ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such offerings as they please. In the funeral procession cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed. Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:

"Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed. Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.

"Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad.

"My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you may depart."

Source:

Thucydides (c.460/455-c.399 BCE): Peloponnesian War, Book 2.34-46

While we're at it, I might as well throw in some of Thomas Jefferson's thoughts on this, since Jefferson is part of my inspiration for this thread.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/qu...ns/jeff1370.htm

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

40. Publicly Supported Education

Jefferson developed an elaborate plan for making education available to every citizen, and for providing a complete education through university for talented youths who were unable to afford it. He considered his most important accomplishment, after Author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute for Religious Freedom, to have been the Father of the University of Virginia.

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810. ME 12:393

"Of all the views of this law [for public education], 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." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:206

"Education not being a branch of municipal government, but, like the other arts and sciences, an accident [i.e., attribute] only, I did not place it with election as a fundamental member in the structure of government." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:45

"Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:423

"The present consideration of a na
tional establishment for education, particularly, is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the necessary income. The foundation would have the advantage of being independent on war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring for its own purposes the resources destined for them." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:424

A Bill for Educating the Masses

"The object [of my education bill was] 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." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1817. ME 15:156

"The general objects [of a bill to diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the people] 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." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:204

"A bill for the more general diffusion of learning... proposed to divide every county into wards of five or six miles square;... to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools, who might receive at the public expense a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects, to be completed at an University where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completely prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:399

"This [bill] on education would [raise] the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety and to orderly government, and would [complete] the great object of qualifying them to secure the veritable aristoi for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the pseudalists... I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will... call it up and make it the keystone of the arch of our government." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:400

"My partiality for that division [of every county into wards] is not founded in views of education solely, but infinitely more as the means of a better administration of our government, and the eternal preservation of its republican principles. The example of this most admirable of all human contrivances in government, is to be seen in our Eastern States; and its powerful effect in the order and economy of their internal affairs, and the momentum it gives them as a nation, is the single circumstance which distinguishes them so remarkably from every other national association." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson C. Nicholas, 1816. ME 14:454

"The less wealthy people,... by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:73

Three Main Divisions

"I... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should 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 expenses of [the elementary] 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." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:70

"The public education... we divide into three grades: 1. Primary schools, in which are taught reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to every infant of the State, male and female. 2. Intermediate schools, in which an education is given proper for artificers and the middle vocations of life; in grammar, for example, general history, logarithms, arithmetic, plane trigonometry, mensuration, the use of the globes, navigation, the mechanical principles, the elements of natural philosophy, and, as a preparation for the University, the Greek and Latin languages. 3. An University, in which these and all other useful sciences shall be taught in their highest degree; the expenses of these institutions are defrayed partly by the public, and partly by the individuals profiting of them." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:487

"My bill proposes, 1. Elementary schools in every county, which shall place every householder within three miles of a school. 2. District colleges, which shall place every father within a day's ride of a college where he may dispose of his son. 3. An university in a healthy and central situation... 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." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1817. ME 15:155

--Elementary Schools

"At [the elementary] school shall be received and instructed gratis, every infant of competent age who has not already had three years' schooling. And it is declared and enacted, that no person unborn or under the age of twelve years at the passing of this act, and who is compos mentis, shall, after the age of fifteen years, be a citizen of this commonwealth until he or she can read readily in some tongue, native or acquired." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:424

"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." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1817. ME 15:156

"If twelve or fifteen hundred schools are to be placed under one general administration, an attention so divided will amount to a dereliction of them to themselves. It is surely better, then, to place each school at once under the care of those most interested in its conduct." --Thomas Jefferson: Plan for Elementary Schools, 1817. ME 17:417

--A University

"What object of our lives can we propose so important [as establishing a State university]? What interest of our own which ought not to be postponed to this? Health, time, labor -- on what in the single life which nature has given us, can these be better bestowed than on this immortal boon to our country? The exertions and the mortifications are temporary; the benefit eternal." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1821. ME 15:312

"We fondly hope that the instruction which may flow from this institution, kindly cherished, by advancing the minds of our youth with the growing science of the times, and elevating the views of our citizens generally to the practice of the social duties and the functions of self-government, may ensure to our country the reputation, the safety and prosperity, and all the other blessings which experience proves to result from the cultivation and improvement of the general mind." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1821. ME 19:407

Benefits of Public Education

"[We proposed a plan] to avail the commonwealth of those talents and virtues which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as rich, and which are lost to their country by the want of means for their cultivation." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:440

"The annual tribute we are paying to other countries for the education of our youth, the retention of that sum at home, and receipt of a greater from abroad which might flow to an University on an approved scale, would make it a gainful employment of the money advanced, were even dollars and cents to mingle themselves with the consideration of an higher order urging the accomplishment of this institution." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819. ME 19:386

"Our institution will proceed on the principle of doing all the good it can without consulting its own pride or ambition; of letting everyone come and listen to whatever he thinks may improve the condition of his mind." --Thomas Jefferson to George Ticknor, 1823. ME 15:455

"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness... The tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." --Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786. ME 5:396

"[Surely no] tax can be called that which we give to our children in the most valuable of all forms, that of instruction... An addition to our contributions almost insensible... in fact, will not be felt as a burden, because applied immediately and visibly to the good of our children." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:422

Related Issues

"The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1820. ME 15:291

"People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace." --Thomas Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1807. ME 11:401

"I now think it would be better for every ward to choose its own resident visitor, whose business it would be to keep a teacher in the ward, to superintend the school, and to call meetings of the ward for all purposes relating to it; their accounts to be settled, and wards laid off by the courts. I think ward elections better for many reasons, one of which is sufficient, that it will keep elementary education out of the hands of fanaticizing preachers, who, in county elections, would be universally chosen, and the predominant sect of the county would possess itself of all its schools." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, 1820. ME 15:293

"The transfer of the power to give commencement to the Ward or Elementary Schools from the court and aldermen to the visitors, was proposed because the experience of twenty years has proved that no court will ever begin it. The reason is obvious. The members of the courts are the wealthy members of the counties; and as the expenses of the schools are to be defrayed by a contribution proportioned to the aggregate of other taxes which every one pays, they consider it as a plan to educated the poor at the expense of the rich... The modification of the law, by authorizing the alderman to require the expense of tutorage from such parents as are able, would render trifling, if not wholly prevent, any call on the country for pecuniary aid." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1816. ME 14:413

"I never have proposed a sacrifice of the primary to the ultimate grade of instruction. Let us keep our eye steadily on the whole system. If we cannot do everything at once, let us do one at a time." --Thomas Jefferson to James Breckinridge, 1821. ME 15:316

"I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country, under such regulations as would secure their safe return in due time." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wyche, 1809. ME 12:282

"A plan of female education has never been a subject of systematic contemplation with me. It has occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters occasionally required. Considering that they would be placed in a country situation, where little aid could be obtained from abroad, I thought it essential to give them a solid education which might enable them, when become mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable, or inattentive. My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother of many daughters as well as sons, has made their education the object of her life." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, 1818. ME 15:165

Compulsory Schooling

"Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? --to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these: we draw a line, but where? --public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely... It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father... What is proposed... is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis, and to strengthen parental excitement by the disfranchisement of his child while uneducated. Society has certainly a right to disavow him whom they offer, and are permitted to qualify for the duties of a citizen. If we do not force instruction, let us at least strengthen the motives to receive it when offered." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:423

Education Courses

"In the [elementary schools] will be taught reading, writing, common arithmetic, and general notions of geography. In the [district colleges], ancient and modern languages, geography fully, a higher degree of numerical arithmetic, mensuration, and the elementary principles of navigation. In the [university], all the useful sciences in their highest degree." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1817. ME 15:155

"I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is, the holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elementary qualification only, and sufficient age." --Thomas Jefferson to George Ticknor, 1823. ME 15:455

"This institution [i.e., the university] will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." --Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, 1820. ME 15:303

"We do not expect our schools to turn out their alumni already enthroned on the pinnacles of their respective sciences; but only so far advanced in each as to be able to pursue them by themselves, and to become Newtons and Laplaces by energies and perseverances to be continued through life." --Thomas Jefferson to John P. Emmet, 1826. ME 16:171

"In most public seminaries textbooks are prescribed to each of the several schools, as the norma docendi in that school; and this is generally done by authority of the trustees. I should not propose this generally in our University, because I believe none of us are so much at the heights of science in the several branches as to undertake this, and therefore that it will be better left to the professors until occasion of interference shall be given. But there is one branch in which we are the best judges, in which heresies may be taught of so interesting a character to our own State and to the United States, as to make it a duty in us to lay down the principles which are to be taught. It is that of government... [A new professor may be] one of that school of quondam federalism, now consolidation. It is our duty to guard against such principles being disseminated among our youth and the diffusion of that poison, by a previous prescription of the texts to be followed in their discourses." --Thomas Jefferson to -----, 1825. ME 16:103

University Professors

"In the selection of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously attentive to his political principles... It is in our seminary that that vestal flame [of republicanism] is to be kept alive." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1826. ME 16:156

"A man is not qualified for a professor, knowing nothing but merely his own profession. He should be otherwise well-educated as to the sciences generally; able to converse understandingly with the scientific men with whom he is associated, and to assist in the councils of the faculty on any subject of science on which they may have occasion to deliberate. Without this, he will incur their contempt, and bring disreputation on the institution." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1824. ME 16:6

"Besides the first degree of eminence in science, a professor with us must be of sober and correct morals and habits, having the talent of communicating his knowledge with facility, and of an accommodating and peaceable temper. The latter is all important for the harmony of the institution." --Thomas Jefferson to Dugald Stewart, 1824. ME 18:333

Obejctives in Elementary Schools

"The objects of... primary education [which] determine its character and limits [are]: To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." --Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.

"The reading in the first stage, where [the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed.. 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." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:106

"Such a degree of learning [should be] given to every member of the society as will enable him to read, to judge and to vote understandingly on what is passing." --Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.

"A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life. This mass of trash, however, is not without some distinction; some few modeling their narratives, although fictitious, on the incidents of real life, have been able to make them interesting and useful vehicles of a sound morality... For a like reason, too, much poetry should not be indulged. Some is useful for forming style and taste. Pope, Dryden, Thompson, Shakespeare, and of the French, Moliere, Racine, the Corneilles, may be read with pleasure and improvement." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, 1818. ME 15:166

"Promote in every order of men the degree of instruction proportioned to their condition and to their views in life." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, 1820. ME 15:292

"Every folly must run its round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning and self-sufficiency: of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience, I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education. I mean of education on the broad scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1814. ME 14:150

Specific Subjects

"I hope the necessity will, at length, be seen of establishing institutions here, as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in its highest degree." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1814. ME 14:151

"What are the objects of an useful American [college] education? Classical knowledge, modern languages and chiefly French, Spanish, and Italian; Mathematics, Natural philosophy, Natural history, Civil history, and Ethics. In Natural philosophy, I mean to include Chemistry and Agriculture, and in Natural history, to include Botany, as well as the other branches of those departments." --Thomas Jefferson to J. Bannister, Jr., 1785. ME 5:186, Papers 8:636

"It would be time lost... to attend professors of ethics, metaphysics, logic, etc. The first of these may be as well acquired in the closet as from living lecturers; and supposing the two last to mean the science of mind, the simple reading of Locke, Tracy, and Stewart will give him as much in that branch as is real science." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1820. ME 15:265

"Agriculture... is a science of the very first order. It counts among its handmaids the most respectable sciences, such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany. In every College and University, a professorship of agriculture, and the class of its students, might be honored as the first." --Thomas Jefferson to David Williams, 1803. ME 10:429

"In my view, no knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions. And Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider its subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man and beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves, materials for our buildings, or medicaments for our bodies. To the gentleman it is certainly more interesting than Mineralogy (which I by no means, however, undervalue), and is more at hand for his amusement; and to a country family it constitutes a great portion of their social entertainment. No country gentleman should be without what amuses every step he takes into his fields." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:201

--Languages

"I do not think [languages] very essential to the obtaining eminent degrees of science; but I think them very useful towards it. I suppose there is a portion of life during which our faculties are ripe enough for this, and for nothing more useful." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestly, 1800. ME 10:146

"We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them." --Thomas Jefferson to ----, 1825. ME 16:107

"I have never thought a boy should undertake abstruse or difficult sciences, such as Mathematics in general, till fifteen years of age at soonest. Before that time they are best employed in learning the languages, which is merely a matter of memory." --Thomas Jefferson to Ralph Izard, 1788. ME 7:71

"In general, I am of opinion, that till the age of about sixteen, we are best employed on languages; Latin, Greek; French, and Spanish, or such of them as we can... Of the languages I have mentioned, I think Greek the least useful." --Thomas Jefferson to J. W. Eppes, 1787. ME 6:190

"The French language, become that of the general intercourse of nations, and from their extraordinary advances now the depository of all science, is an indispensable part of education for both sexes." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, 1818. ME 15:167

"The Spanish language... and the English covering nearly the whole face of America, they should be well-known to every inhabitant who means to look beyond the limits of his farm." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1788. ME 7:44

--Classical Education

"For classical learning I have ever been a zealous advocate."--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:200

"When we advert that the ancient classical languages are considered as the foundation preparatory for all the sciences; that we have always had schools scattered over the country for teaching these languages, which often were the ultimate term of education; that these languages are entered on at the age of nine or ten years, at which age parents would be unwilling to send their children from every part of the State to a central and distant university, and when we observe that... there are to be a plurality of them, we may well conclude that the Greek and Latin are the objects of these colleges... and that they are intended as the portico of entry to the university." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson C. Nicholas, 1816. ME 14:452

"To whom are these [classical languages] useful? Certainly not to all men. There are conditions of life to which they must be forever estranged, and there are epochs of life, too, after which the endeavor to attain them would be a great misemployment of time. Their acquisition should be the occupation of our early years only, when the memory is susceptible of deep and lasting impressions, and reason and judgment not yet strong enough for abstract speculations." --Thomas Jefferson to John Brazier, 1819. ME 15:209

"[The Latin and Greek] languages... constitute the basis of good education, and are indispensable to fill up the character of a 'well-educated man.'" --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1824. ME 19:444

"[As to] the extent to which classical learning should be carried in our country... The utilities we derive from the remains of the Greek and Latin languages are, first, as models of pure taste in writing. To these we are certainly indebted for the rational and chaste style of modern composition which so much distinguishes the nations to whom these languages are familiar... Second. Among the values of classical learning, I estimate the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals. And why should not this innocent and elegant luxury take its preeminent stand ahead of all those addressed merely to the sense?... Third. A third value is in the stores of real science deposited and transmitted us in these languages, to wit: in history, ethics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, natural history, etc." --Thomas Jefferson to John Brazier, 1819. ME 15:208

"[Greece was] the first of civilized nations [which] presented example of what man should be." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:481

"I think the Greeks and Romans have left us the present models which exist of fine composition, whether we examine them as works of reason, or of style and fancy; and to them we probably owe these characteristics of modern composition. I know of no composition of any other ancient people which merits the least regard as a model for its matter or style. To all this I add, that to read the Latin and Greek authors in their original is a sublime luxury; and I deem luxury in science to be at least as justifiable as in architecture, painting, gardening, or the other arts." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestly, 1800. ME 10:146

"It may be truly said that the classical languages are a solid basis for most, and an ornament to all the sciences." --Thomas Jefferson to John Brazier, 1819. ME 15:211

"I make it a rule never to read translations where I can read the original." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1794. ME 9:280

"Indeed, no translation can be [an adequate representation of the excellences of the original]." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:14

"I have not, however, carried so far as [some] do my ideas of the importance of a hypercritical knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. I have believed it sufficient to possess a substantial understanding of their authors." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:200

--Oratory

"In a country and government like ours, eloquence is a powerful instrument, well worthy of the special pursuit of our youth." --Thomas Jefferson to George W. Summers and John B. Garland, 1822. ME 15:353

"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead of persuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour." --Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME 16:30

--Religion

"The want of instruction in the various creeds of religious faith existing among our citizens presents... a chasm in a general institution of the useful sciences. But it was thought that this want, and the entrustment to each society of instruction in its own doctrine, were evils of less danger than a permission to the public authorities to dictate modes or principles of religious instruction, or than opportunities furnished them by giving countenance or ascendancy to any one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1822. ME 19:414

"After stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there and have the free use of our library and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences... And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1822. ME 15:405

--Other Subjects

"The ornaments too, and the amusements of life, are entitled to their portion of attention. These, for a female, are dancing, drawing, and music. The first is healthy exercise, elegant and very attractive for young people... Drawing is thought less of in this country than in Europe. It is an innocent and engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother and an instructor. Music is invaluable where a person has an ear. Where they have not, it should not be attempted. It furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life. The taste of this country, too, calls for this accomplishment more strongly that for either of the others." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, 1818. ME 15:167

"I need say nothing of household economy, in which the mothers of our country are generally skilled, and generally careful to instruct their daughters. We all know its value, and that diligence and dexterity in all its processes are inestimable treasures. The order and economy of a house are as honorable to the mistress as those of the farm to the master, and if either be neglected, ruin follows, and children destitute of the means of living." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, 1818. ME 15:168

"I should not like to have [a school of deaf and dumb] made a member of our College. The objects of the two institutions are fundamentally distinct. The one is science, the other mere charity. It would be gratuitously taking a boat in tow which may impede, but cannot aid the motion of the principal institution." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1816. ME 14:414

The Educational Setting

"Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:226

"The article of discipline is the most difficult in American education. Premature ideas of independence, too little repressed by parents, beget a spirit of insubordination which is the great obstacle to science with us and a principal cause of its decay since the Revolution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1822. ME 15:406

"The rock which I most dread is the discipline of the institution, and it is that on which most of our public schools labor. The insubordination of our youth is now the greatest obstacle to their education. We may lessen the difficulty, perhaps, by avoiding too much government, by requiring no useless observances, none which shall merely multiply occasions for dissatisfaction, disobedience and rev