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 Revolution Impacts 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 havent actually produced any one of the greatest at least nationwide politicians. I live across the river, so the reason i ask the first question is during the summer i took my children to visit monticello. The only attractive thing is perhaps Thomas Jefferson, monticello and the university of virginia. And during our visit to this place, and i asked my older kid e thats in middle school to search what do you want to learn about Thomas Jefferson and monticello. I didnt really notice that until my children note, let me know they dont celebrate Thomas Jeffersons birthday. Whats wrong with it . Just two quick questions, maybe broadly, but i havent got zero clue to help me understand. No other expert i talk to, they dont understand. You live there, you are authority, i appreciate your help understanding these two questions. Okay. [laughter] two very good questions. Ill take the second one first. Virginias not the large state in the union, so its one of the its kind of a midling state now. And thats why its political influence has diminished over time. But virginias also a changing state right now in part because the suburbs around washington are the vibrant growing demographically and economically are part of the state, and theyre becoming much more influential in the state of virginia. Now, the question about charlottesville, and it very much goes to the politics of the city council there. And it also goes to the racial politics of the city. Historically the Africanamerican Community has been marginalized there. Their sensitivities have not been considered by the city council. And this particular vote was, as in so many things that go on in politics these days, its about the similar doll bolls symbols of who is considered legitimate and whos not, okay . And those symbols are shifting all the time and contested in our country. And you can think of all sorts of examples in other places other than charlottesville. [inaudible] well, this is okay. Let me answer the question. [inaudible] okay. Now, the reason it was done is because there was a long tradition of africanamericans feeling like their sensitivities have been ignored in the city, and this was an effort by the city council to say [inaudible] well, again, i think thats an extreme way of putting it x if i could finish what im saying here, i understand the sent isment behind it is the sentiment behind it. I dont think it was the right way to go, okay . Because, again, it plays out there in the country that theyre rejecting Thomas Jefferson and everything about him. And i have found it difficult in talking about the book with people and the press today because the question everybody keeps coming back to me from both ends of the political spectrum is, basically, is jefferson a good guy or not. Its a terrible question, i believe. And the question is i was jefferson why was jefferson so important in the time he lived in. What influence did jefferson have over his time, and in what ways does that influence survive today. Now, it was earlier in the 20th century, it was like jeffersons just the greatest thing ever because he, declaration of independence, creator of democracy, separation of church and state, Louisiana Purchase. Its a pretty winning record. And people just did not talk about slavery. I mean, when i say people, i mean white people who were writing histories and journalists and so forth. It just was not part of the story. Now, we shift to the later 20th century and the early 21st, and then people are suddenly playing catchup and saying, wait a minute, slaves are 40 of the people in virginia, jeffersons a slave holder. Hes talking about all men are created equal, and yet he owns all these people. Doesnt free more than a handful of them in contrast to George Washington who freed just about all of the people that he had owned. So whats going on here, suddenly. And then again, my position here is you swing to the other extreme and say hes just purely evil. And there are people in the city council who are just going, theyre part of that loop. And what im saying is we ought to be able to think about jefferson in all his complexity. We can think about the things that we can still admire like separation of church and state, about seeking democracy, american independence. And then also acknowledge that he could not free himself from slavery in the end. And just say why is it that somebody could be capable of these extraordinary accomplishments and still feel that he could not do anything more to change his society other than to create a university of virginia and hope that the next generation would make the changes that he couldnt. So i would like us to think about him in this kind of complicated way, which we cant if every question is a referendum on whether we like him or not. Well, then you probably wont like my question. [laughter] okay. Having realize a lot about jefferson read a lot about jefferson, one thing that set him apart was, obviously, his intellect and all this was up, but also his arrogance and his, well, this desire to avoid confrontation. Thats, that led arguably to him being kind of a backstabbing weasel. Certainly, his relationship with washington, because they were very, very close until they werent. As washington was with James Madison and stuff that jefferson, you know with, surreptitiously had circulated about washington, making him look like a doddering old fool and lying to his face, stuff like that. That kind of separates him from some of the other people, madison who also broke with washington primarily, you know, to side with jefferson because of you know, youre either with me or youre against me. And thats just ive just never understood that about the extent to which that impacted his, the way he operated. Because, like, the famous quote from Martha Washington were the two most painful days of her life was when george died and when Thomas Jefferson came and paid a condolence call because she realized that the relationship had completely broken down. Anyway, take it out where you want it to go. Its not a book that is really about his relationship with these other leaders of the country, so i dont go into that. And i understand what youre saying. There are also times where, for example, jefferson tried to persuade washington to run for a third term. So, which is a little jarring because, again, as you pointed out, hes working behind the scenes to plant some stories in newspapers that make washington look bad. Now, what really concerned jefferson was that washington was so close with hamilton and that they were a team. They were a closer and closer team over time in pursuing their vision of what the country should be. But jefferson kept hoping that he could somehow disconnect hamilton and washington, and he hoped that washington could just become a more passive kind of father figure and that jefferson could replace hamilton as his kind of Prime Minister in the system. And so he doesnt want washington to cease to be president because the alternative he knows is not going to be jefferson probably. Its probably going to be john adams, which it was. And he thought john adams is just much more clearly committed to this federalist vision of the country, and id rather have washington. So its all, its very complicated. But youre right, jefferson is capable of doing things behind the scenes to his political competitors that dont look so good. But again, theres a long tradition in our politics in this country of people doing similar things. A little bit of a followup to that question and an earlier one, but so you said that jefferson didnt like contention, but he was a great politician. And maybe, and ill have a second question as well, but what do you think about that illustrates how great a politician he was . So thats the first question. Second question just in terms of the unruliness and unseriousness, i guess, of the students at william and mary and at uva in the 1820s, how does that contrast to the northern universities that you mentioned and those students . Two very good questions. First of all, jefferson made a great politician. One, he manages to engineer an Opposition Party that comes to power and displaces a very formidable first party that, essentially, founded the federal institutions of the country, the federalists. Thats a tough accomplishment. He pulled it off. And then he consolidated the power of his party, the socalled republicans not the same Republican Party of lincoln or later, but the jeffersonian republicans, he consolidated their power and basically destroyed the federalists. So theres that accomplishment. And then he achieves thing like the Louisiana Purchase where he has to set aside his constitutional scruples and do something thats not in the constitution. He was a strict constructionist of the constitution until it didnt serve his purposes, at which point the constitution become more of an accordion. But its, you know, its a good accomplishment for the country. Saved it from a real crisis at that time. And then on the local level, to get now, 300,000 doesnt seem like a lot of money now, but to get it out of the state of virginia for Higher Education is an extraordinary accomplishment because nobodys ever done that before. And jeffersons very proud of it. He played a game of chicken with the state legislators which is they wanted him to open up when half of the buildings were built. Just get it going. And he says, no, if i do that, they wont fund the other half of the building. So im just going to play chicken with them and tell them theres not a student coming in here until its done. And he largely fulfilled that. The last building, the rotunda, was not completed at the time that they opened the doors, but he pulled this off. And then he gave a kind of indiscreet interview, not with a press member, but with a visitor who came to it, describing just how cleverly he had manipulated the state legislature to get all of this money and get the university built. And unfortunately, this guy who didnt know jefferson that well, published a story about it. And jefferson is just livid about this and said i never did any of those things. Well, of course hed done all those things. But he didnt want a light to be shone on, or his taking kind of a victory tour in explaining how hed done all this and realized hed been indiscreet. Yes. [inaudible] what was the other question. The students, oh, okay. Unruly students everywhere. Okay . But its, theyre the worst in the south. And in the north, the worst were southerners of the most numerous, which is princeton. The trouble in the north is mostly over food service, which is terrible. And students end up basically having food fights and riots over this. There are other issues, but thats the number one thing. In the south its young men trying to show that nobody can control it. And its confronting faculty members, its stealing their horses, knocking down fences, hooting and hollering, just showing that youre in control instead of the faculty. Its much more violent. So, and this is true at the university of georgia, university of north carolina, university and uva. And those other three were actually founded theyre older universities. They were founded in the 1780s and 90s and as early as the 19th century. Yeah. Two questions. One completely off the wall. You pointed out that jefferson made a choice of funding the University Rather than k12 right. That reminds me that in recent Years Development economists comparing asia, little tigers, and china to latin america have pointed out that a stylized [inaudible] the little tigers paid for k12 and worry about the university at the end. Latin america, the upper class yeah. Is there anything its a parallel story. So this is the earliest example ive found. Yeah. And the other question is, its my impression that the english colleges oxford, cambridge reformed to get the kids out of their boarding houses where there was no supervision and that within a generation the colleges managed to quiet the kids down quite a bit. The faculty, headmasters and adults, supervisors, in the 15th century the kids went to oxford and cambridge, they lived in boarding houses, and there was no adult supervision so town people hated the students because nobody [inaudible] yeah. So what was the process by which these southern students got tamed . Okay. One of, a big part of the book which i havent gone into here is about churchstate relations in virginia. In the revolution through jefferson and madisons influence, they destroy the church establishment. Colonial virginia had levied a tax on everybody to support the anglican church, church that would later become the episcopalture episcopal church. And its the highest single tax thats levied. It means there are 110 churches or so in virginia who are all receiving tax support x. These ministers double as teaching schools. Again, theyre not truly public schools, but theyre schools where jefferson goes to one of these schools. With albemarle county. When the tax gets taken away, the anglican Episcopal Ministry shrinks down to approximately about 1520 parishes are active, and just about all these schools are gone elsewhere. And jefferson says in the 1820s primary, i mean, education is in worse shape now than it was before the revolution in virginia. Well, in part because of what jefferson had done. But jefferson had expected that when virginians destroyed the churchstate establish withment, they would take the establishment, they would take the tax savings and invest it in Public Education. And they decided not to do that but, instead, to essentially give tax relief to people. And jefferson regretted that. Now, the question then becomes what is it that, and in jeffersons lifetime theres a struggle between jeffersons vision of a Secular University no chapel, no professor of theology, purely secular, nothing like this in the world. Very important to jefferson to do it that way. That starts to break down once hes dead. And during his lifetime, there was an element primarily people who were press presbyter who were active in politics that were trying to get control of the university away from jefferson and give it a more religious mission, including a chaplain and Church Services and prayers every day. Presbyterian. That presbyterian push never fully triumphs, but it becomes more powerful in the next generation. The next generation jefferson said sometime in the 1820s, you know, at some point in the near future every young man in america is going the to be a unitarian. Well, it turns out thats not true. Turns occupant theyre much more turns out theyre much more likely to be a presbyterian, at least in virginia. Or an episcopal evangelical. So what happens is the culture of young gentlemen in virginia evolves in part through the influence of their mothers into a more genteel evangelical culture which promotes a kind of selfcontrol that means theyre not just fox hunters and horse racers. Theyre also people who are going to church in a new way. And its slow, it finally starts to kick in in a serious way at uva in the 1850s. And so if you look at the people who are uva graduates who are active in the confederacy, theyre people who are pious christians of a certain sort, pious christian gentlemen who are also committed to preserving slavery. Yeah. I have a question which is a bit off topic, but i think it relates to our relations today in the, in america and University Education in america and also to what youre talking about. And because youre an educator. I have five sons, ive told them all that they should study math and chinese. And theyve all ignored me. Theyre all studying history . No. [laughter] well, actually, one did, you know, one did study history, but one was interviewed by the Financial Times of london and they said whats the best advice you got from your parents, and he said study math and chinese, and i totally ignored my dad. Anyway, but this goes to when i was growing up, we didnt have things like africanamerican studies and womens studies, and i thought, why . Who needs them . And over time, im an old white guy, you may have noticed, there are a lot of things that have come out that we never learned about right. Im wondering you, as an educator, what youd think, should i have told my sons to study, you know, africanamerican studies, womens studies . Because i want to make this not a racial discussion right. And some of these other things. I can see that it could have helped, perhaps, with Critical Thinking in a liberal arts education, but i still kind of like, guys, you should have studied math and chinese. So anyway [laughter] well, i do think people should study math and chinese, but i also think they should study art and literature and history. But i understand your point. And this is a dilemma that were in in this country, and particularly as the cost of Higher Education has gone up. We feel compelled to tell students to start specializing. And to specialize in things that will make money sooner rather than later. Entirely understandable because of the debt burdens that families and students are faced with because of the Public Investment in education that has gone down. [inaudible] yeah. Well, i, you know, i feel your pain, right . And i understand your advice. I completely understand it. Im never going to dismiss somebody who gives advice to their young people who have to cope with these debt burdens or the family has to cope with it. I understand that entirely. I do wish, and what i push for is, okay, yeah, you absolutely more students should be studying math and chinese. But i still think theres a place to also have a minor, say, in history or literature or art or music and that this will make them better at being Business People in the future if they have this, if they have this range to their own intellect and if they have the capacity to investigate things along several different avenues. Is what im thinking. Yes, be a math major and study chinese. But an english minor as well, would be my design for an ideal education. So i [inaudible] uva graduate, and william and mary likes to claim Thomas Jefferson as one of their alumni, so i was just interested in your passion about the fact that he was, obviously, not a william and mary fan and went on to kind of establish yeah. And destroy william and mary while he did it william and mary does not tell people that. Well, you know, its funny, when you go to william and mary to talk they have an ambivalence of jefferson. Because on one hand, they want to claim him. On the other hand, the wellinformed know he tried to do the school in. So jefferson persuaded himself, and he had some good reason. William and mary was in a bad way come the 18teens. Its enrollment had shrunk, there was major violence between the students and the community and also with the faculty, and it suffered from a setting that was very malarial. And williamsburg was a dying town after the capital moved out and moved to richmond. So the leaders of the college wanted to save it by moving it to richmond, and jefferson and his allies blocked that move and used that opportunity to say, well, since theyve invited the legislature to look into their operations, why dont we just take their money away from them and make them, essentially, a williamsburg academy, and well get their money and well just use it for uva. In the end, they dont succeed in that. Obviously, youve been to william and mary, it still exists, but it was nearly killed at the time when the university of virginia was created. [inaudible] yep. Actually two [laughter] well, im curious okay. You have, like, a description of like or maybe an appendix which indicates who the first few classes of students and the families they came from . Is that covered in your book . Because that would be fascinating. It is fascinating. Theres a guy whos written a dissertation on that subject, so i just used his work rather than repeat what he did. My other question is would it have been back then, presumably, virginia was still pretty agrarian . Oh, yeah, very rural. So would it even have been practical within any reasonable bounds of practicality or expense to create a primary system of education everywhere . Or would it right. I mean, it seems to me he made the right choice in a way if you buy into, you believe that its going to have the impact because you get more bang for the buck by, since there is probably not going to be a realistic manner in which to do a statewide primary educational system. Uhhuh. No, its a reasonable question because virginians have especially large farms and plantations, and they dont have a lot of villages. So its not like new england. You know, the population density in new england is twice what it is in virginia. There are also problems with virginia included West Virginia at that time. There are a lot of mountains up there. So people do live more dispersed in virginia than new england, and new england was the only part of the country at that time until the 18teens that had public primary education. And jefferson says, well, its easy for them to do because you can walk to school. A lot of virginians, its too far to walk, and a lot of virginians couldnt afford shoes. Theres a lot of white poverty in virginia at that time. That said, people still want to have education, and they had a system of what they called old field schools which were set up. And they its very hard to have comprehensive coverage, because what you would need is a Critical Mass of parents that would be willing that have children in the right ages, and theyve lived reasonably close enough that they could sustain one of these oneroom schoolhouses. And some years you had that and some you didnt. Still, if there had been more money put into this to support these teachers, more of these schools would have existed. Because eventually, come right after the civil war when virginia isnt much more urbanite, they do set up a Primary School system. So youre right, its difficult, but they could have done a lot more than they did because they decided to prioritize the University Rather than the primary education. My question is kind of a followup. You mentioned the press presbytn church, students were somewhat more disciplined. The fact that we were told when i was a student at the school was that the honor system [inaudible] right. [inaudible] its a contributor, but its not the central factor which, youre right, in the kind of mythic history of uva, its the honor code that saved it. The honor code is part of this bigger cultural shift. Initially, the honor code is very narrow. It just basically says you wont cheat on exams. It doesnt keep you from going out and burning tar barrels on the lawn and disrupting the fact fact faculty. But it is a step in the right direction, and its part of this cultural shift which is influenced by evangelical christianity. So, yeah, it makes a difference, but its not the beall and endall of this change that will stabilize the university. But like any kind of popular history, you want to boil things down to a simple explanation and not have a history professor come in and tell you exactly how complicated it is when youre giving a tour to people visiting or youre trying to explain to undergraduates today why the university copped out. [inaudible] yep. Okay. Youve got to set a good example. I wanted to get you to talk a little bit about the scholarship that went into this book. I mean, id read somewhere and you mentioned in the introduction that youd come across some correspondence between jefferson and an associate, and this is what initially kind of drew you in. I mean, so much, of course, has been written about jefferson, but there is some new stuff in this book. Can you talk a little bit about it . Well, what got me going was correspondence between jefferson and the state senator named joseph cabal, for those of you who have been to uva,cabal law is named for him. He gets the laws passed and the funding for the university. Theres very interesting correspondence about the politics of the state of virginia at that time which were very regional. Theres the tidewater, theres the piedmont and then theres western virginia. And i was interested in these regional politics and how they play into the decisions of what kind of education virginia should fund. That was my starting point. Now, this correspondence between jefferson and cabal is actually pretty well known. But what i tried to do in the book was bring in other characters who are not who were not attended to, i think, in the usual study. A guy named Francis Gilmer. He is the guy who went over to england to recruit most of the first faculty. He was considered by jefferson to be the most brilliant young man, essentially the only smart young man in jeffersons opinion before the university of virginia comes along. And jefferson really relies on Francis Gilmer to get things done, help create the university. And he expects gilmer to be the first law professor which, for jefferson, is the most important faculty position at the new universitiment university. And then i found these fascinating letters written by gilmer, and it turn out he didnt trust jefferson at all. Gilmer was a young, ultraconservative. The purpose of the university of virginia is to defend virginias way of life, period. So or john hotwell cock who was a very pious christian, and hes one of the leaders of the early university, and hes trying from the inside to take it over. Doesnt get anywhere until jefferson dies, and then hes going to be a real influence, is going to be a real influence over what the university will become in the 1830s and 40s and 50s. Yep. All right. I had one you have to go to the mic though. Or i can repeat it for you. There was an article in the where i leave off mostly. Theres some on the jefferson era. But a theyre taking the story on into the 19th century and into the 20th. [inaudible] yep. Want to sign some we were joined the author and wall street journal columnist jason riley. In this portion of the Program Offers his thoughts on race and the criminal Justice System. I think the criminal Justice System is an improvement today over what used to be over what my father or grandfather experienced in this country but its still not perfect. But i would caution against taking these examples and saying they are typical versus exceptions or aberrations, or saying the reason so many blacks are involved in the criminal Justice System is because its a racist system per se. I dont feel out of evidence for that and i think oftentimes we have discussions about say the racial makeup of prisons and jails but we dont talk about the racial makeup of people who perpetrate crimes in this country. I dont think you can really have one discussion without the other. As imperfect as the criminal Justice System is, has been and continues to be, i still think that there are behavioral differences among groups that lead to something overrepresented in that system and others being underrepresented. To watch the rest of this interview and to find more episodes of indepth visit our website booktv. Org and click on the
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.