Education and accomplish history professor specializing in early us history hes held the Thomas Jefferson chair in American History at the university for the past five years and before that he taught at the university of california and at boston university. He has written eight previous books on topics ranging from the colonial period to the war of 1812 and beyond two of his works have won a Pulitzer Prize in history in 1996 and William Cooperstown over the politician William Cooper and the novelist james cooper and in 2014 he wrote about slavery in virginia during the war of 1812 and the contradictions of early Virginia Society. Thomas jeffersons education he turned his attention to the establishment of the university of virginia with jefferson of course regarded the university diaz a signature achievement and alan god interested as you see a book on the subject seeing correspondence with the efforts to fund the new school it tend to deal with various ways the American Revolution impacted society and politics in the early years of our country the story of jeffersons attempts at educational reform to the founding of the university of virginia certainly is the focus. But also has particular relevance today in the context of current Reform Efforts and controversies of structures and goals and funding things didnt quite turn out as jefferson had hoped in the university of virginia to establish the democratized system of education to cultivate a more enlightened group of future leaders to reject slavery and usher into the egalitarian society. That mentally the sons of wealthy families many of them prove to be unruly and abusive students. Far from changing virginia from reforms the graduates were deeply conservative and holding proslavery views going on to serve in the confederate in the civil war. All in all he presents a compelling case of jeffersons noble intentions to fall short through Virginia Society at the time that refreshingly adds real substance to the literature on jefferson it is called the narrative that has crucial insight into jeffersons thinking as he pursued his vision for what he hoped would be a Better Future please join me to welcome alan taylor. [applause] that was such a good introduction i have almost nothing to add. [laughter] thank you to brad and elizabeth and cody for their help and for all of you for turning out i want to make clear at the start i do Like University of virginia but i dont think i would have liked in the 18 twenties. It didnt get off to the start Thomas Jefferson had hoped for so in the book i have written i am trying to address three questions, why is it the state of virginia suddenly decides to invest in Public Education in the 18 teens . Because this was a complete new development that had a spent anything up until that point so when it comes to invest in Public Education why did they choose just to build the university and not say a Primary School system . That would have benefited many more people. Why do they choose a relatively Small University that was very expensive and educate only the sons of the wealthiest families . And third, why did it go so badly . The story is set in virginia but has National Significance why . Jefferson is involved in is the most important figure in washington but then the most influential figure in the United States and his lifetime other than washington 17 forties through 18 twenties. Second virginia is the largest and richest and most powerful state in the union at that time. The largest population more wealth just about all the president s except for john adams from virginia with the longest congressional delegation virginia is sold they are the leading element and it turns out they are right. When that starts to shift in the 18 teens they become very upset why they establish the university of virginia and why they do. Virginia is also home to half of the enslaved people in the country in the state of virginia. 40 percent of the population is held in slavery. It is a system not marginal to the state but central to the economy, society, and culture and affects every dimension of life including what is possible in terms of education reform. Now jefferson is a key person and this is part of the education jefferson receives. What does he learn and value . What was he like as a student . Primarily its about what part of education does he think young men of the next generation receive . And he pays a little bit of attention to women but the primary focus is young white men those it will be the leaders of the next generation. He focuses on them for a couple of reasons. He does want to change society he wants to become a more Democratic Society for white men. He also wants to end slavery but he wants to end it in a peculiar way. His plan and he lays it out several times is always linked to the forced deportation of read blacks. He could never imagine a virginia where whites and blacks can live as equals and his neighbors. That is the great flaw. It is not unique to jefferson this is the common thinking of the relatively liberal people in virginia of that generation that black and whites cannot live together in safety in which both are free. And that is the great flaw in his thinking. But not unique to jefferson. So the first letter we have is june 1760 a young man, 17 years old and is about education writing to the executors of his fathers estate to control his money his inheritance because he is not 21 yet. And he is asking them to free up funds so he could go to the one college that then existed in virginia. The only place you can go for Higher Education in virginia in the late colonial period. You could go off to princeton like James Madison but if you go in virginia will you marry is your only option. There are no universities to the south to go to. Until after the revolution. As long as they stay on the mountain which would later be monticello he lives on a plantation. As long as they stay on the mountain my time is inevitable from companies coming here to detain me from school his social life is too rich if he stays there and hes trying to justify to the executor he will learn more if he goes away to school. He is an unusual young man the first and probably the last two claim he will party less if he goes off to college. It turns out he does get into some hijinks but in the end he is about the most studious person to ever go to the college of william and mary. Eighteen oh eight looking back he is writing to her grandson to the grandsons education and he says he credits education from saving him. And if he had not been saved then he would become worthless to society so this is the mixed feelings or virginians he thinks of them as gregariou gregarious, sociable, generous , not intellectual. Again he talks about the free elite class of gentlemen who prided themselves there is plenty of hard workers in virginia but they are not the ones doing it. They are the beneficiaries. So jefferson really wanted to change virginia to be disciplined and hardworkin hardworking, cosmopolitan benefiting from education. But this is one of the keys to jefferson he does not want to confront them he has a very thin skin he doesnt like contention. His favorite philosopher preaches moderation and serenity to have a life as little education as possible. So jefferson is complex very able and brilliant and capable to be a very close critic of slavery but he doesnt want contention for him to have the changes that he wants. That is for the next generation. So jefferson is important they must be prepared to do the things he was not able to achieve which is a more Democratic Society and also that has lightened itself by also getting rid of black people. That is not entirely admirable but yet by virginia standards of that time, he is considered a dangerous radical by many virginians who do know the full range of his thinking. Jefferson and is famous for a plan he put out 1779 for an Education SystemPrimary Schools now we call them high schools or academies. Primary schools what have been for girls and boys. Academies just adolescent boys. The capstone the third level is university. One university. He thought william and mary to reform but then he thought that was hopeless it was doomed. He would like to help kill it. And would like to create a new university in piedmont preferably to see it from the top of monticello. And he is a very good politician and has very powerful friends and they end up making it happen the key moment comes 1817 through 1818 when the state and the windfall money from the federal government but its not enough for jeffersons full system for all three tiers another politician says lets build a Primary School system first and jeffersons is no bill the university first. Theres a limited amount of money i want to spend it on the university. So this clashes with our usual thinking to be this democratic figure and in many ways he is but it goes to the peculiarities of a man who wants to democratize but he wants the next generation to do it so he thinks the way you get there is not by uplifting the entire population but by educating the future leaders from the elite families and they will do it. You can probably imagine what will go wrong in that scenario. Also jefferson is getting to be elderly when he wants to see this before he dies and it is reasonable to think if you build one university to educate 200 young men faster than you can set up a whole Education System with fewer complications plus jefferson liked architecture. He will not design a lot of one room schoolhouse as he would much rather design a neoclassical campus for a university he thinks by designing that architecture he could reengineer young men to be the man that will do the good deeds he wants the next generation to do the problem is the young men that show up our fox hunters and the card players and the horse racers and they invent conditions by the society they have grown up in which says if you are the future masters of plantations , you must worry about your honor and make a show of your ability to practice leisure and generosity to prove you are not a moneygrubbing yankee or someone that would actually have to work or get your hands dirty and certainly you are not enslaved. So this class altogether no fellowships or scholarships at the university it is the most expensive institute for education in the United States only people that can afford it or those coming from the plantations. It turns out this Educational Institution is not capable of transforming them the way jefferson thought it would. So this is about his noble intentions in most ways, not always but the deportation of africanamericans is the least attractive element of his scheme but how that fall short and in part because white he is able to pitch this to the virginians they are nervous because they look essences returns to find out is not the largest anymore and its not the richest and fearful it will not be the most politically powerful because it is slipping relative to new york and pennsylvania and they are nervous ohio is coming up very fast. So the population the wealth is shifting to the north so now they are not the most powerful state so they persuade themselves why they will invest in part of his plan is that if they can educate their young men to be the future congressman than they can win arguments in congress and fend off yankee influence. So jefferson has created a university in partnership with other leaders in virginia with two contradictory emissions which is jeffersons preferred Mission Educate from within but also to fend off yankee influences including anti slavery activist so that when virginia reforms its institutions it will do so on its own terms at another date in the future so it turns out these young men from the plantations are much more prepared for the Second Mission and to preserve in a conservative way the virginia they have grown up in rather than build his vision to transform into Something Else so that is what the book is about. Thank you im happy to take any questions. [applause] throughout your talk i heard you say he was waiting for the next generation to take over was that clearly stated or was that something he looked back on to say i didnt look at my generation but the next generation . He clearly says when he is 43 years old. Is there any indication he didnt want to change the current . He is thinskinned and love serenity so when he is a young legislator he wants to introduce a piece of legislation and in a very small way will improve the conditions. Ghost one the most senior and respected legislatures and says present this and he gets attacked by all other legislators. We dont talk about that if we Start Talking about it then enslaved people gets ideas for setting up a dynamic to lead to their freedom and then they will rise up in rebellion to accelerate the day so they shut it down so he writes about this to what an experience to see all these people jefferson never ever wants to take an unpopular stance. So that leads to another question about jefferson. My very shallow understanding of history of the revolution is that he was quite effective to get what he wanted and im surprised to hear that he was thinskinned because my interpretation or understanding is that he wasnt that thinskinned is especially with all the revolutionaries it seems like he was pushing pretty hard for what he wanted. Jefferson is a very good politician he figures out what 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 he cannot push them too far. Because he doesnt like contention and he says in his letters that criticism or contention is ten times more painful than any praise that is positive for him so somebody like Alexander Hamilton thinks of jefferson as a conniving backstabbing kind of guy to smile in your face but meanwhile working behind the scenes with other people to achieve political ends. Its natural somebody like hamilton and one will see it that way. He is in your face type of guy to say this is been very bold and clear about what he wants to do to confront other people who dont want to do it. That is an jefferson style. The city Council Voted as a holiday so what happened to virginia . So the last we had from virginia and one of the greatest nationwide politicians so during the summer i get my children to visit monticello and the university of virginia and i asked my older kids what do you want to learn . This is a quick question may be brought the. And i appreciate your help. And those are two very Big Questions i will take the second one first. And thats why the political influence has diminished over time. And virginia is a changing state right now because of the vibrant growing demographics. And with charlottesville it very much goes to the politics of the city council and also goes to the racial politics. And then to be marginalized with their sensitivities had not been considered by the city council. So this was that goes on in politics. Who was legitimate and who was not. And you can think of other examples. This is a long tradition of africanamericans feeling like this and their sensitivities have been ignored in the city but if i could finish im saying that i understand the sentiment behind it. So it plays out in the country they are rejecting jefferson and everything about him. I find it difficult to talk about the book with people in the press today. It was t thing ever because the declaration of independence, creator of democracy, separation of church and state, Louisiana Purchase. Its a pretty winning record and people just didnt talk about slavery. When i see people i mean people were running history and journalism and so forth. It just wasnt part of the story. We shift and then people are suddenly playing catch up and say wait a minute they are 40 of the people in virginia, jefferson is a slave holder, talking about all men are created equal and he owns all these people and thousand three more than a handful of them in contrast to George Washington who freed just about all the people that he had owned the. So whats going on here. Then again my position here is you swing to the other extreme and say its just purely evil and what im saying is we ought to be able to think about jefferson in all of this complexity is. We can think about the things we still admire like separation of church and state, seeking democracy, american independence, and then also acknowledged he couldnt free himself from slavery in the end. And just to say why is it somebody could be capable of these extraordinary accomplishments and still feel that he couldnt do more to change the society other than create the university and hope the next generation would make the changes that he couldnt so i would like us to think about him in this complicated way that we can think of is every question as a referendum on whether we like it or not. Then you probably wont like my question. Having read a lot about jefferson, one thing that sets him apart also was his arrogance and a desire to avoid confrontation that led to him arguably being kind of a backstabbing weasel certainly in his relationship with washington because they are very, very close to and the stuff that he circulated a that kind of separates him away from the other people like madison who also worked with washington decided jefferson because you are either with me or against me. I guess i never really understood that about the extent they operated because the famous quote from Martha Washington the famous painful days were when george tied into Thomas Jefferson came wi