The official founding of the university of virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote to artist Charles Wilson peale in 1802. I have our considerable amount of time a plan for a general university for the state of University One of the most liberal scale that our circumstances were called. For jefferson considered the university to beat one of his three greatest achievements, the declaration of independence and the virginia statute of freedom. In his post president ial years, he was able to devote himself to fulfilling that dream of an academic village. Today, we will hear from Andrew Oshaughnessy about his aspirations for his university. His book is a twin biography of jefferson in retirement and and seeking to understand figures from the, past the ability to read it their own recorded shot is immensely valuable. Todays author used founders online, in researching this book. By the National Archives, to the National Historical publications and records commissions. Its can transcriptions of thousands of documents written by into the nations founders. Jeffersons letters to peel is easily accessible on founders online, and that also gives us the contest for the title of todays book, Andrew Oshaughnessy the illimitable freedom of the human mind. In an 1820 letter at the end of a proud description of the new university, jefferson and told his corresponded, this institution 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 era, so long as reason is left free to combat it. Andrew oshaughnessy is the Vice President of the thomas as President Foundation of the monticello the jefferson studies. His previous books include an empire divided, the American Revolution, and the british caribbean and the men who lost america. Joining him in conversation, is professor American History and an associate professor at the university of maryland. Now lets hear from Andrew Oshaughnessy and holly brewer. Thank you for joining us today. Hello, thank you for coming with. This is going to be a fun conversation a terrific book and an important topic. It can you ten used to be relevant and powerful. The most particularly, the questions are, what is the legacy of the American Revolution what does it mean in terms of citizenship, especially higher education. How strut we understand ideals versus reality in the complex atmosphere of education is currently, especially higher education, is very strong. What extent has, the universities, they were founded in the wake of the revolution in particular, what extent were they tainted or compromised by questions of slavery. And those questions particular surrounding the founding of the university of virginia. As it nears its 200th anniversary, i guess its just passed, it right . Its somewhat arbitrary. In 2019, they celebrated the year that the bill was passed to create the university of virginia. An actual fact, it is a rolling anniversary. 2025 would be the bicentennary of the very First Student university with when it opened its doors, it shouldve for 2019. We i feel that its still relative i wrote it feeling that this is much more important than the university of virginia. Its alumni and its students. I think that there are lessons in this book and insights that are relevant to any of us interested in our education and education more generally. It is a Creative Vision that we it is useful to engage with as we think today about the purpose of a university and the role of a university. When i talk about education and the impact of the revolution on education, i always emphasize briefly to my students that there wasnt much Public Education before the revolution. In massachusetts, a little bit of grammar school, especially aimed at teaching the bible. Outside of massachusetts and a few other places, normally you had to be wealthy to get an education. Everything cost quite a bit of money. There wasnt much funding by the state. We should think of Public Education as a consequence, a part of the revolution, what is jeffersons role in pushing through education in virginia and generally. What is his general impact on the american conversation after the revolution . There is really no other founder who was so engaged in the idea of creating and university. I see the American Revolution as the origins of that. Initially, he was interested in reforming william and mary. The university was just the apex of this much broader educational vision. I think very remarkable for the time. It took the form of a in 1779 from the general diffusion of knowledge in virginia. This would have really created the First Public School system. As you rightly note, massachusetts and connecticut had very high rates of literacy in large numbers of schools thanks to the puritans, later congregationalists and who wanted to have a school in every town. So that they could read the bible. It was not an entirely systematic Public School system. Scotland, in the same nations as new england and connecticut, pressure had some of the autocratic countries. They were issuing decrees for Public School education. There wasnt realized in prussia until the early 19th century. Jeffersons bill had passed which would have given both boys and girls with an education for three years. Basic Primary School education. As he told a quaker abolitionist in the early 1790s, the bill did not specifically exclude free African Americans, or he expected that is the way it would be interpreted. Would result in it was a very enlightened measure. I do want to point out in this book, of the human mind, it is just out. I point out theres a real difference between what he was doing and what is doing. In what are sometimes called enlightened despotisms, they were interested in strengthening the state. By training bureaucrats and functionaries. Jefferson was as much interested in educating people to hold the government accountable. He felt it essential to the survival of the republic system. Which he was paranoid would be seen so today. He was very aware historically that all republics had failed. A very brittle system. They resulted in a military, a war. He saw education as we still do to some extent as the against we he was also interested in creating what he called a natural aristocracy, it was different from a european aristocracy. He sought as based on merit and educating elites. What he hoped was that they would go to france for one of these top universities. They would be with, in terms of the time, they put their self interests aside and look to the public good. He was always quite cynical about that. He insisted throughout his life that what was most important was actually the Public School system. It would be better if you had to choose to have the population largely educated rather than just a few. Far from being elitist, he recognized the importance of popular education. Its ironic that he ended up just serving the elites and creating the university. The fact is he tried several times, including 1817 1821 with very similar bills to introduce Public Education. One of the reasons he kept failing, why he opposed the Public Education bill of his political opponent was he was utterly opposed to any kind of religious education. He saw that as actually mandated virginia statute for religious freedom. He wouldnt even have clergy teaching in the schools. At a time when education everywhere was dominated by different religious denominations, we should give credit to the fact that the whole evolution of universities was due initially to the catholic church. A lot of our expressions, such as the dean and rector, wearing of robes, the ceremony, some of the older ones have ones on their hands. These come from religious traditions. You talked about a lot, some of those threads, can i just pause for a minute. I wanted to remind you of a quote which you no doubt know. More than a century before, we berkeley, government of virginia we went an answer to a question from the authorities in britain in england and said, i thank god there are no preschools nor printing. I hope you shall not have these hundred years for learning has brought disobedient and heresy and sect into the world. Against the best governments, god keep us from what do you think we jefferson would have had to say to berkeley . Do you think some of that sentiment that barely expressed we existed a century later . We i love that quote i, it is one my favorites. That education essentially leads to pandoras box and it leads to anarchy. Berkeley as cavalier. Ironically, the University Sports team known as the cavalieres, the royalists who fought against parliament. Ive always seen the term. It is subversive. My students of jefferson parliamentary vision. You are quite right, cavalier tradition continued, ironically elite virginias like to think of themselves as of the descendants of cavaliers. The descendants of english aristocrats. As opposed to the puritan round heads in the north. Many of those who went to massachusetts in the great migration in the 1620s went to escape charles the first, whats known as the period of personal rule by the monarchy. The virginian elite love to think of themselves as it is a small grain of truth. A lot of them in fact were descendants of indentured servants. And even convicts. The only british lord in the americas was lord fairfax. Used to own one of the most splendid castles, a castle in england, it is not in the city of leeds, it is much further south. It has a moat. It is often used by authority. They were the people who were the patrons of george washington. There were enough real cavaliers. To some extent, the anti intellectual tradition, antieducation remains. This was another reason why jefferson couldnt gets education bills passed. They simply werent willing to expand that amount of money. He was becoming quite desperate by the early 19th century. He recognized that virginia was falling behind new york and massachusetts. Especially behind an education. Im sure you know that at the debates over the constitution for virginia and 1830, one of the worries, one of the concerns, expanding the suffrage to they would all vote for free Public Education. Even then, we werent necessarily willing to pay for it. They were willing to find, at least in part literary finds that set up an eighth of payments of 15,000 a year. They were willing to find this institution for a university. How does that fit within the american republic. In the famous letter, adams in 1813, he talks about an aristocracy of talent. What did he mean by that . What was he arguing with adams about . How did that fit in to his vision for a university . They, in many ways, had a different ideas of what an aristocracy talent meant. John adams was always much more a pessimist and felt that you would always get an aristocracy in society. They might not have titles, they may not be in the context of the monarchy, but you would get these very wealthy people whose differences were at odds with the population at large. They would pursue their self interest to the detriment of others and to the public good. Jefferson suddenly recognized the danger. It was not an entirely utopian thing. But he did believe that by having real competition, and the university of virginia was one of the first in america to have an examination system, although it doesnt use the language of merit which is one of my former colleagues here at the university, shows as a language that comes in later. The whole notion of merit is a complicated one, or at least have such Different Levels of opportunity based on their background, race, and gender. But still, there is a notion of with jefferson, not of pure elitism. Ironically, the most impressive feature of his vision is that he does say that the very poor are capable of producing talent. He wanted scholarship at the university, so that the poorest could potentially be part of the natural aristocracy. That was based in part, t0o, on his overall plan that would have included Public Education. Those who did well could be pushed up the scale of education. Were there scholarships . When i remember in your book is that the tuition ended up being higher than a lot of other colleges across the country. 75 a year, now, seems pretty cheap. But then, it wasnt quite as cheap. Do you think he actually worked in the first few years to promote an aristocracy of virtue and talent . Or did he promote a more traditional wealthy, hereditary leaders who already started with , as it were . Like his other great project, the declaration of independence, it was flawed. As you said in your introduction, it was obviously, like all colleges in the south, it was blemished by the presence of slavery. Although he want to have scholarships, they were not introduced until about 20 years later. Then only a very few of them. His critics, and there were many, argue that actually, the number of scholarships contained in this bill for the general institution of knowledge, and his later bills, was very, very small. Although they dont take into account feasibility. We always hold jefferson to absolute standards. We forget, he is a politician. His bills dont necessarily represent what he would most like to do. Especially in their final form, right . He is very keen that this should be a public university, and that there should be a Public School system. And it certainly is represented by moving in the right direction in terms of opportunities for the right populace. Can we explore this question of slavery a little bit more . There has been several recent books, and also the report generated by the university of virginia. I am thinking about books by mcguinness and nelson, allen and taylors recent book. They have argued that lets be honest, there was a whole lot of just plain clelebration of and not much criticism about its connection slavery, not even a discussion of that topic. Now, the university of virginia has joined many other universities, including my own, the university of maryland, in exploring more some of the connections to slavery in georgia. The role that slaves played an actually building in the buildings. I remember seeing at the university of mississippi a handprint on one of the bricks of one of the slaves. The enslaved people who had left that print. From building the buildings to the fact that they were serving as servants to some of the students and the professors. They were enslaved. Sometimes they were hired out. So there has been this big exploration. The reason for this founding was to perpetuate slavery. Can you talk about what your opinion is about that . I read you saying that that is misguided and that is misleading, with the university of virginia was all about. Yes. I would say from the outset, most of these books came out during the bicentenary of the university in 2019. Preceded by the commission on slavery for the university. And they do represent a very important corrective to earlier work in acknowledging the presence of slavery. Its unbelievable now that earlier histories just didnt discuss this feature of the university or only tangentially. And i profited a lot from these books, and i incorporate their insights and information. Where i disagree with them is where they give a causal role to slavery in jeffersons motivation to create the university of virginia. I can see why they do it, because jefferson is constantly talking about major reasons to have a university. And a university of virginia, so that our people would not go north, and be contaminated by what he calls the pointless ideas. The problem with him thinking that this is just code for slavery is that obviously, the 1780s and 1790s, when hes first embarked on the project to create a Major University in virginia, and basically to transform the college of william and mary, what divided the north and south most was not a debate on slavery. Historians argue that during the constitution, this debate was ongoing. It was a debate on the, how one represented enslaved populations, in terms of Electoral College votes. The voting, numbers of votes in the south. Whether the south could keep their historical dominance over the north and would dominant the presidency and the senate much like its ongoing, we continue to play. And terms of real abolitionism, major abolitionists movement, there was a very slow and low and occurred after the American Revolution. It was slow to rise, other major issues like the tariff. Southerners resented paying the tariff to import goods from england. They imported so much. It was protecting northern manufacturers. The banking system, the credit system, these were issues between the north and south. The real issue, the real poison for jefferson was, firstly, most of the Education System and all of it in the north was dominated by the political opponent federally. It was dominated by presbyterians. Universities and colleges themself. A lot of them were created and set up by federalist presbyterians. Certainly, all of them were religious colleges except for transylvania and the university of north carolina. It experimented with secular education, but they did not continue it. It is very interesting to me, he first mentions [inaudible] i dont think anyone has made this connection. He first mentions the name the university of virginia and his desire to create the university, to the british radical political refugee joseph priestley. [inaudible] largely discussing religious ideas. It is to him that he says he wants to found the university. Significance is the year 1800. He was engaged in the most bruising election, president ial election, almost in history. It compares very much with the eve of the civil war. One of the things that hurt jefferson most was the attack upon him, the accusations of being a radical, being an atheist, claims that he would make e