John A. Ragosta - The Founding of Thomas Jeffersons University

JEFFERSONIAN AMERICA

Peter S. Onuf
and Andrew OShaughnessy,
Editors

The Founding of
THOMAS JEFFERSONS UNIVERSITY

Edited by

JOHN A. RAGOSTA, PETER S. ONUF, AND ANDREW J. OSHAUGHNESSY

U NIVERSITY OF V IRGINIA P RESS

Charlottesville and London

University of Virginia Press

2019 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

All rights reserved

First published 2019

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Ragosta, John A., editor. | Onuf, Peter S., editor. | OShaughnessy, Andrew Jackson, editor.

Title: The founding of Thomas Jeffersons university / edited by John A. Ragosta, Peter S. Onuf, and Andrew J. OShaughnessy.

Description: Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2019. | Series: Jeffersonian America

Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019001721 (print) | LCCN 2019011096 (ebook) | ISBN 9780813943237 (ebook) | ISBN 9780813943220 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: University of VirginiaHistory. | Jefferson, Thomas, 17431826Political and social views. | Education, HigherUnited StatesHistory19th century.

Classification: LCC LD5678.3 (ebook) | LCC LD5678.3 .F68 2019 (print) | DDC 378.755/481dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001721

Contents

J. JEFFERSON LOONEY

NEVEN LEDDY

ALAN TAYLOR

ERVIN L. JORDAN JR.

EL LEN HICKMAN

JOSEPH MICHAEL LASALA

DOU GLAS J. HARNSBERGER

MAURIE D. M c INNIS

ROBERT S. GIBSON

JURRETTA JORD AN HECKSCHER

ENDRIN A TAY

JAMES P. AMBU SKE AND RANDALL FLAH ERTY

CAMERON ADDIS

CAROLYN EASTMAN

JOHANN N. NEEM

F OR T HOMAS J EFFERSON , the University of Virginia was not an end in itself. It marked instead the culminating achievement of a career dedicated to promoting the ongoing progress of enlightenment and republican self-government in America and the world. With his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the founding of the University was one of the three accomplishments he asked to have inscribed on his tombstone. Each was essential for a functioning republic; each was essential to end the tyranny over the mind of man that had plagued mankind for millennia and bedeviled Jefferson throughout his life. Together those achievementspolitical liberty, religious freedom, and public educationwould empower the people to make their own history, a better history. He and his fellow Founders would not rule from the grave; Jefferson believed that they had no right to do so and could not possibly comprehend the challenges that their progeny would face. If they succeeded, every subsequent generation of Americans would govern itself, looking toward an ever better and more enlightened future. But their success depended on a broadly and properly educated populace.

Today, the centrality of educating new generations for a functioning democracy may seem self-evident, but Jefferson believed that there was a fundamental battle in the early republic between those who looked to the past (tradition, hierarchy, the old world) and those who looked to an improving, enlightened future, one in which the nation that he helped to create would be a beacon. This battle threatened both the republic and education. Jefferson the revolutionary was dedicated to liberating the living generation from the dead hand of the past and the old structures of knowledge and power controlled by kings, nobles, and priests. While Jefferson loved history and believed that the study of history was essential to identify and tackle the problems of the present, he was equally adamant that the past should not control the present and that excessive reliance on the past for wisdom about the present was both impractical and ill advised in a dynamic world. He referred dismissively to the sanctimonious reverence of those who saw in the past unchangeable mandates that cannot adapt to new times and new challenges. Monarchs and aristocrats looked backward; republicans must look to the future.

True self-government depended on demolishing hierarchy and hereditary authority in order to free the people and permit them to reach their potential. There was no place for monarchs or aristocrats or state-sponsored priestcraft in the land of the free, where all men are created equal. Jefferson celebrated the American Revolution as the epochal triumph of the Sons of Liberty over the tyrannical rule of King George III, an unnatural father who betrayed his own children by restricting their commerce, saddling them with taxes and regulations, and undermining their control of their own destiny.

By contrast, Jefferson would be a different kind of father, and nowhere was this more evident than in his dedication to education and to the University. In our republic, educated citizens would participate broadly in government and control their own destiny and write their own future. By founding a university rather than a dynasty, he would not perpetuate his power and privilege across the generations, exalting his family over all other families. The dead have no rights, no claims on the future. Rather, conforming to natures dictates and recognizing their own mortality, Jefferson and his fellow Revolutionary fathers instead prepared the way for succeeding generations of Americans to take their place, to govern their nation, and to continue improving the human condition.