Years and before that he taught at the university of california at davis and at boston university. Hes also written eightri previs books on topics ranging from the colonial period to the war of 1812 and beyond. Two of his works have one Pulitzer Prize in history, 1996 and william coopers town. In 2014 the history kilojoules given to alan, the internal enemy which is about slavery in virginia during the war of 1812 and the contradictions of early Virginia Society. In Thomas Jeffersons education allen turns hiso attention to the establishment of the university of virginia. Jefferson of course regarded the university as one of his signature achievements, and alan got interested in pursuing a book on the subject after, across some correspondence between jefferson and an associate over the efforts to fund the new school. In general, he deals with various ways in which the American RevolutionImpacts Society and politics in the early years of our country. And the story of jeffersons attempts at education reform through the founding of the university of virginia, certainly fits this focus. But it also has particular relevance today in the context of current Reform Efforts and controversies over the structures goals and funding for education. As alan recounts in his book things didnt quite turn out as jefferson had hoped at the university of virginia. Jefferson envisioned establishing a democratizing system of education, one that would cultivate aro group of future leaders, would reject slavery and usher in a more gallic aryan society. But funding issues met over one sons of wealthy families could afford to attend, and many of them proved to be unruly and abusive students. Far from abasing reforms and changing virginia, these early uva graduates remain deeply conservative, continue told proslavery views and went on to serve in the confederacy in the civil war. All and all our presents a compelling andas constructive ce of jeffersons noble intentions falling short amidst the inequalities injustices of Virginia Society at the time. Ill review said allens book quote refreshingly adds real substance to the abundant literature on jefferson, and review in book page called it an absorbing a narrative that offers crucial insights into jeffersons thinking as he pursued his vision for what he hopedd would be a Better Future for his state. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me join me in welcoming alan taylor. [applause] that was such a good introduction, i have almost nothing to add to it. I do want to thank brad and also elizabeth and cody for their help with this event, and for all of you for turning out. I just want to make clear lighte at the start i do like the university of virginia. But it dont think i wouldve liked it in the 1820s, and it didnt get off to the kindest dart that jefferson hoped for. In the book that ive written on trying to address i think three question. Why is it that virginia, the state of virginia, suddenly decides to invest in Public Education in the 18 teens . Not sooner, not later but in e 18 teens . Because this just was a complete new development for virginia which was not known for spending on anything public. Until that point. Second, when they chose to invest in Public Education why did you choose just to build a university and not, say, a Primary School system that wouldve benefited many more people . Why did he choose a relatively Small University that was very expensive and would educate only the sons of the wealthiest families . And third, why did it go so badly . Now, this story is set in virginia but its the story i would argue has national significance. Why . One, jefferson is involved. Jefferson is the most important figure you could argue in washington but after washington jefferson is the most influential figure in the united states, in his lifetime, other than washington. 1740s into the 1820s. Second, virginia is the largest, richest, most powerful state in the union of that time. Has the largest population. It has more wealth. Just about all the president s, except for john adams, come from virginia, has the largest congressional delegation. Virginians assumed they were going to be the leading element in the country, and it turns out they were right. When that starts to shift in the 18 teens, i they become very upt and that placed into why the established the university of virginia when they do. Virginia is also home in 1790 to half of the enslaved people in the country, live in one state, virginia. 40 of o the population of virginia is held in slavery. It is a system then that isnt marginal to the state of virginia butal it is central to everything, central to the economy, central to the society, central to the culture. Ito affects every image of life in virginia including what is possible in terms of educational reform. Now, jefferson is a key person and the book is in part about the education that jefferson receives. What does he learn, what is the value, what was he like as a student . But primarily its about what kind of education does he think young men of the next generation should receive . We also pay a little bit of a tinny what young women should learn but his primary focus is on young white men. The people he expects will be the leaders of the next generation. He focuses on them for a couple of reasons. One is he does want to change virginias society. There thinks he doesnt like about it. He does want it to become a more Democratic Society for white men. He also does want to end slavery, but he wants to end it in a very peculiar way. His plan, and he lays out several times, is always linked to the forced deportation of free blacks. He can never imagine a virginia in which whites and blacks can live as equals and as neighbors. That is the great flaw in his vision. Its not uniquen to jefferson. This is the common thinking of the relatively liberal people in virginia of that generation, isa that blacks and whites cannot live together in safety in which both are free. And that is the great flaw in his thinking. But again, not unique to jefferson. The first letter we have from jefferson survives is from june of 1760. Hes a young man, 17 years old, and its about education. Its about his education, and is writing to the executors of his estate, of his fathers estate rather, who control his money, which his inheritance because hes not 21d 21 yet. Hes asking them to free up funds so he can go to the one college that there existed in virginia, the college of willm and mary. Its the only place you could go for Higher Education in virginia in the late colonial period. You might go t off to princetono wait say James Madison did that if youre going to go to college in virginia during the colonial period, william and mary is onlr only option. There are no universities to the south of virginia to go to. Until after the revolution. He writes quote as long as i stay on the mountain, the mountain is what later with the monticello, he lives on a plantation, the parental plantation was at the foot of the mountain called shadwell but its called about sometimes. The loss of t onefourth of my time is inevitable by Companies Come here and detain me from school. In other words, his social life is too rich if he stays there, and he wants, he tries to justify he will learn more if he goes away to school. So hes an unusual young man. He is the first and probably the last that can possibly claim he will party less if he goes off to college. Itit turns out he got into some high jinx wants. He does go to college, but in the end hes about the most studious person to ever go to the college of william and mary. In 1808 looking back on it, 40 years later and is writing to a grandson, writing about the grandsons education, and he says that he credits education for saving him from quote, q the society of horse races, card players. N and if yet he had not been savd from that company, he would quote become too worthless as society as a day. So this goes to jeffersons mixed feelings about virginians. The thought of them as darius, sociable, generous, not intellectualot, not particularly hardworking. Again hes talking about the free elite class of gentle men who prided themselves on leisure. Theres plenty of hard work going onge in virginia that they are not the ones doing it. They are the beneficiaries of it. Y so jefferson really wanted to change virginia. He wanted to make them more like himself. Disciplined, hardworking, cosmopolitan, benefiting from education. He wants to change them, but this is one of the keys to jefferson. He does not want to confront them. Jefferson has a very thin skin. He doesnt like contention. His favorite philosophers epicurus who preached moderation, serenity, trying too just have a life with as little agitation as possible. This usually isnt a good philosophy for a politician. And so jefferson is a complex guy, very able, brilliant, capable of being a very close critic of this variety societys and a close critic of slavery, but he doesnt want contention, which means hes not going to push the changes he wants. Thats for the next generation. So in jefferson its all important the next generation must be prepared to do the things he wasnt able to achieve, which is a more Democratic Society and also a society that has lightened itself by getting rid of slavery but also getting rid of black people. So its not entirely admirable what you would like to pull off, and yet by virginia standards of the time, he is considered a dangerous radical by many virginians who do know the full range of his thinking. Now, jefferson is famous for a place he put in 1779 for comprehensive education system, we did in Primary Schools, witty than what we call high schools now, academies. Primary schools would have been for girls and boys. Academies wouldve been just for adolescent boys, and then the third level of the system would be a university, one university. Initially thought it would be reformed by weight and married but then he decided that william and mary was hopeless, was doomed, and he woulds like to help kill it. And create a new university which would be in the piedmont and preferably you could see from the top of monticello. And hes a very good politician. He has some very powerful friends, and end of making it happen. Key moment comes 18171818 when the state has m a windfall amout of money that it has gotten from the federal government, but its not, enough for jeffersons full system, all three tiers. Another politician says lets build a Primary School system first, and jefferson says no. Lets build the university first. Theres only l a limited amountf money. I want to spend it on the university. To educate meaning fewer people. This clashess with her usual thinking as jefferson being this democratic figure. In many ways he is a democratic figure but taking a goes to the peculiarities of a man who wants to democratize society but he wants the next generation to do it. And he thinks the way you get there is not by uplifting the entire population, but but educating the future leaders from theom elite families, and they will do it. Now, is think you can probably imagine whats going to go wrong in this scenario. Now also, jefferson is getting to be elderly and he wants to see a payoff before he dies. And its reasonable to think that if you could build a a university, one university to educate approximately 200 young men, faster than you could set up a whole educational system for the state with fewer complications, and plus jefferson liked architecture. He liked designing things. Hes not going to design a lot of oneroom school houses. He would much rather design a neoclassical campus for a university. And he thinks by designing the right kind of architecture, he can reengineer young men to be the kind of young men who will do the kind of good deeds he wants the next generation to do. But the problem is the young men who show up at the university f virginia, they are the fox hunters and the card players and the horse racers, and they have been conditioned by the society they have grown up in, which says if you are to be the future masters of plantations, you must be very prickly about your honor and you need to make show of your ability to practice leisure and generosity to prove you are not one of these money grubbing yankees of the north and a bridge or not some sort of poor white that might have to actuallyve work hard and get yor hands dirty, and certainly that youre not an enslaved person. Answer this class is brought together. There are no fellowships, no scholarships atni the universit, the most expensive institution the fire education in the 1820s in the united states. So the only people who can afford theirir other people comg from these plantations. It turns out this Educational Institution is not capable of transforming them in the ways that jefferson thought that it would. And so this is this is a book s not jeffersons noble intentions, noble in most ways, not in all ways but compulsory deportation of africanamericans is certainly not least attractive element of his scheme. But how it falls short. And in part it falls short because why jeffersons able to pitch this in 18 tens to virginians is they are very nervous because theyre looking at census returns and finance the virgin is not the largest date anymore. Its not the richest date anymore, and they are fearful its not goingin to be the most politically powerful state anymore because its slipping relative to the the state of nw york and the state of pennsylvania, and they are nervous that ohio is coming up very fast, too. Otherwise, population and wealth in the country shifting towards the north, and virginians decide they dont trust the union in which they are not the most powerful state, but they persuade themselves and the reason why they willing to invest in part of jeffersons plan is that if they can educate their young man to be the future congressman, that they will be able to win arguments in congress and send off yankee influence send off. So jefferson has created a university in partnership with other leaders ofgi virginia so t has two contradictory missions. Theres jeffersons preferred mission which is reform the state from within. But theres the other nation which is also bought into, which is to send off yankee influence so that when virginia will reform its institutions it will do so on its own terms at some undetermined date in the future. Well, it turns out these young men from the plantations are much more prepared for the second mission, to fend off the yankees and preserve in the conservative way the virginia they have caught up in, rather than to fulfill Jefferson Station to transform virginia into something else. And so thats what the book is about. Thank you. Happy to take any questions that you have. [applause] a question, could you please go to that microphone . You have a question. I do. But you dont want to go to the microphone . No, i dont mind that, im just trying to think about how to phrase [inaudible] okay. Throughout your talk, throughout your talk i heard you say he was kind of waiting for the next generation to take over. Was that clearly stated, or was that something that he kind of looked back on and said, oh, i didnt look at my generation, i was looking at the next generation . He pretty clearly says it, and he starts saying it in the 1780s when hes 43 years old. So my question about that is any indication of why he didnt want to change the current well, he did want to change it, but he himself is very, as i said, thinskinned, doesnt like contention, wants serenity. Now, he has when hes a young legislator, he wants to introduce a piece of legislation that in a very small way is going to improve the conditions of enslaved people. He doesnt as a young legislator want to introduce this. So he goes to one of the most senior, most respected legislators and says will you present this . He says, okay, ill do it. Presents it, and this guy gets attacked by all the other legislators saying we dont talk about that kind of stuff, okay . We Start Talking about that stuff, then enslaved people will get ideas that were, you know, setting up a dynamic thats going to lead to their freedom, and then they may want to rise up in rebellion to accelerate that day. So shut it completely down. And jefferson writes about this and says what a sering experience it was for him to see how all these people pounced on him. Jefferson never, ever wants to take up an unpopular stand. So that leads to another question i have about jefferson and then ill turn, turn it over to others. My very shallow understanding of history, of the revolution and after the revolution was that he was quite effective in getting what he wanted. And i am kind of surprised to hear he was not that he was prickly, but that he was thinskinned because i, my interpretation or understanding is that he wasnt all that thinskinned, and he, you know, during the fight between he and, you know, between all of those post, all the revolutionaries, it seemed like he was out there pushing pretty hard for what he wanted. Jefferson is a very good politician. One of the things is he figures occupant what the majority out what the majority, including the majority of leaders around him want. And how he can nudge them just a bit in the direction he wants to go. But he also knows when he cant push them too far where therell be major pushback. Hes also, because he doesnt like contention and he says in his letters that criticism or contention is ten times more painful than any praise is positive for him. So somebody like Alexander Hamilton thinks of jefferson as a conniving, backstabbing kind of guy who will smile in your face and, meanwhile, is working behind the scene ises with other people scenes with other people to achieve his political ends. And its natural that somebody like hamilton would see it that way because hamilton doesnt mind contention. Hes an inyourface kind of guy saying very bold and clear about what he wants to do and confronts other people who dont want to do it. Thats not jeffersons style. [inaudible] [laughter] well, i dont say that in the book, but i can understand saying that. Yes. I have two quick questions. Okay. Maybe broadly, and one is what happened to. [inaudible] the city Council Voted to scrap jefferson birthday as a national holiday. Secondly, what happened to virginia . Produced maybe next to, above ohio. The last president we have from virginia was woodrow wilson, and since then we haven