Transcripts For CSPAN3 Andrew OShaughnessy The Illimitable Freedom Of The Human Mind 20220907

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 everyone sing the president of the french revolution. He bitterly resented these attacks and some of the worst attacks actually came from president s of northern universities who are also in the same time clerics. The most outspoken with timothy dwight. The president of yale. He went far in 1802 as telling his students that they should take an oath never to vote for jefferson. He thought it was a real problem for the republic to be dominated by his political opponents. He believed only his party was going to save america and save the true tradition in 1776. He thought that the federalists we are going to turn the place into a monarchy. They would reintroduce aristocracy. They would make america just a satellite of britain. Literal hereditary aristocracy. Ashley until 1989, it was a hereditary lobby. There were some like john adams by 1813 [inaudible] so, lets push a little bit more on this question of slavery. I was reading some of the letters that are cited in that report from june 18th and by taylor and by you. Such as a letter from Thomas Jefferson to james breckenridge. The very famous letter on the 22nd of april. Both of which, as the archivist was pointing out in the direction, available in founders online. Anyone can find these letters and read them for yourselves. It seems to me, you are right, at least in the letter of 1821, jefferson does talk about northern seminaries as being a problem. Essentially our sons were in discord of those in the country. It is not at all clear that he necessarily means a strong antislavery sentiment you can make an argument that he was worried they might become insurrectionists on the lines of, insurrectionists just john brown. You read Something Like his letter to john holmes in 1820, so much of jeffersons other writing, he supports emancipation. He is worried, he is fearful of the possibilities of insurrection. In 1782, where he says in the state of virginia essentially god will side with the slaves if they were an insurrection. It was the cause of justice. He really worried that that would happen. On the other hand he, says he supports gradual emancipation. Colonization. Can you talk a little bit more . I was stunned especially but what you found about him writing a letter saying he wouldve supported, he wished he had included support for black children. Where does he stand on all this . We have his correspondence with and others. Where do you think he stands on this point . Let me begin with the question. And incidentally, the National Archives and the founders online is an immensely useful source. Any of our viewers today to come across a jefferson quote, if they are doubtful about it, they can just put it in google. It should immediately bring up one of these letters. If it doesnt, you can be pretty sure its wrong, or you can go on to monticello dot org and find misquotes from jefferson. But you are quite right, the letters you talked about at the beginning were letters written at the height of the missouri crisis. As you know, this was the debate of whether to allow missouri into the union as a free state or as a slave state. In some ways, it was the first real issue that seems to start pitting the north and south on the issue of slavery. We talked about missouri and the crisis of 1820. It continues until 1821. Jefferson writes what these seemingly anxious letters to various people. One of the most famous phrases, he says this is like a he does seem to envisage, possibly, the breakup of the union. What i would stress is that these letters are written when the universities are almost fully complete and when the University Commission report makes the statement that jefferson, and this got repeated in the guardian, the atlantic, in the washington post. Along with a number of more polemical claims in that report. They provide just good basic information. In supporting that contention, jefferson founded the university to protect and expand slavery. It gives this letter to breckenridge. As you say, it by no means clinches that argument. Indeed, a very good historian , arguing that actually, jefferson was writing breckenridge is a political opponent. Basically wanting to get his support for the remaining funding of the university. And that as soon as he got their money, suddenly he seemed to relent to the missouri crisis. And no longer to worry about it. But in terms of his general views on slavery, and on race, which his views on race are even more indefensible, although they do reflect views common in both the north and the south at the time. But nevertheless, he does shift in his views. There is always a sense of doubt and of possibility. It is interesting that he said you couldnt possibly have a racially intermixed society in virginia. And yet, in the last month of his life, he signs a will freeing the remaining sons of sally hemings, and also sends an appeal, a petition to the Virginia Legislature for them to be allowed to remain in virginia. And that the law insisting that free African Americans be waived in their favor. There are letters in which he talks about the possibility of them being equal, intellectual. He alleges that our view, our is based on people who have never had the advantages of in that sense, they are not comparable. On the other hand, he does just dismiss benjamin ultimately. And having been quite polite in his correspondence, was an African American who corresponded within the last and indeed, many modern historians would love to ask him how did he write all men are created equal, and yet you are honorbound to make that more of a reality. Right. Had worked on the design in d. C. And it helped build it. And the almanac, as well. Yes. He had complex mathematical comp i dont think you noted that, but it is there among the records. It is interesting that he did do what he said. Yes. Sorry, go ahead. I see it as conflicting. I do, as well. In terms of his own ownership of enslaved people. It is important to emphasize that he inherited quite a lot of those enslaved people from his father in law, but also with a lot of deaths. And the laws in virginia said that you had to be free of debt before you could free people. So it was actually a more complex situation. I would like to turn our attention to another issue that you raised earlier in passing. That is the religious issue. And i want to, in dealing with this issue, not only think about why jefferson wouldve been so opposed to having a university that taught religion. As william and mary had done. But why he cared so much about religion in general. When i talk about this with my students, one of the things i emphasize is that the church of england, which jefferson grew up in, the head of that church was the king of england. And every church service, and in fact every meeting of would involve oaths of allegiance, undying allegiance to the hereditary monarchs. And this became a real issue with revolution. Teachings of past obedience are embedded. And yet, to me it gets at the heart of two kinds of issues. One of them, and i was thinking that maybe you could explain this a little bit, what his purpose for the university. But one of them is that having a university that focuses so much on religion is in fact not compatible with teaching independents. The second of them is a question of governance. I will hold this for just a second and come back to it at the very end. Go ahead. Well he saw Political Freedom and religious freedom as essential for intellectual freedom. His great fear with religious colleges was not so much religion itself, he always claimed not to be an atheist, and he said, i am a christian the way that i am that would be alien to most modern christians, because he did not believe in the fundamentals like the trinity. His great fear was actually denominational control. The individual religions, like presbyterianism. Interestingly, he was less fearful of the baptists and the quakers, that they were not nearly as engaged in the project of founding colleges and schools. The press and this was very important to them because they believed in having an educated clergy. The same is true of the catholic church, and the church of england. He felt that, firstly, such colleges were less open to new kinds of sources of information and ideas, especially science. Which to some extent, was true. And they were more concerned with tradition and less concerned with basing knowledge purely on demonstrateable facts. What we call empirical knowledge. He also felt that they all have their own kinds of bigotry. That were groundless and based on misreadings of the bible. On years of adding what he called accretions to the bible. The year that the bill went through to found the university of virginia, he started this remarkable project of, and you can see the project in the library of congress. Creating what people now call the jefferson bible, it is also known as the life and morals of jesus. He basically cut and pasted gospels and removed every passage that he felt was false. Anything that involved a miracle, and he basically reduced it down to the teachings of jesus, which was a name for it. And he did it in four different languages, columns side by side. You have to say that it was a remarkable project. Not only showing his skills languages, but what we would call it was a form of hermeneutics. Reading a text critically. Right. I was fascinated by your discussion there, and i have written about it. I havent published it, but lockes last work was also a commentary on the bible, which was also hermeneutics in some of the same ways. Its important to recognize some of the passages from the bible as they were interpreted in the early 19th century. For example, they were used to justify hierarchy and obedience and slavery, et cetera. Especially passages from, for example, paul. And jefferson completely excised paul. So i went and looked it up. It is fascinating. Finally, i have just a few minutes and then we are going to take questions. But i wanted to push on something that i find fascinating and you didnt dwell on. But you do talk about it, and that is that he gave up on william and mary because there were six faculty members there. They all came from a religious background. They were appointed as ministers, which had been the condition for most education in william and mary. But they had control over who got hired. He couldnt just fire the six faculty members, he had to rely on them to choose their replacements. And he didnt feel like he could get scientists in the medical school, and a law faculty, and other things that he wanted. That was why he gave up on william and mary. Obviously, the new School Starting from scratch. There was a new board of directors, a board of governors which was chosen by the legislature. I guess he had more say in it too. They could choose who the faculty members were. But then the faculty members had a lot of authority in this division. The way he describes it, and you talk about this in your book, is the faculty members at the university of virginia were the executive branch. And the board of directors, the board of governors was the one is a called at uva again . Is a board of governors . The board of visitors. The board of visitors were supposed to represent the legislature. He had this balance of power thing going on. But there is no space in that balance of power for administrators. And we live in a world now where in the 21st century, here at the university of maryland, faculty have no control over who gets which departments gets. Or where the money goes, et cetera. Its all up to administrators. I guess you could say, what would jefferson think about that . But more importantly, how has that initial vision of a faculty running their own school with advice from a university board, how has that changed over time . Do you think this is a good change . Firstly, i think one of the reasons we have not fully recognized jeffersons extraordinary achievement and the novelty of what he did and how it impacted our education in america generally is we now take some of these key ideas, like a secular university, a collective curriculum where students choose courses. We take those now for granted. Other ideas that he had that we have abandoned, and i say we, i mean the university of virginia has abandoned. One of those was faculty self governance. The university didnt have a president until 1900. So much of its first hundred years was actually with a chairman of the faculty running the university. It was a rotating chair. They made it automatic so everyone had to do it in time. They recognized after time that not everyone was cut out to be chair. So it became an elected system. But i think it is worth recognizing that i cannot think of any head of any state in any time period who spent so long thinking about the creation of a university. And jefferson, i doubt if any other president was so concerned about faculty. It was somewhat ironic, but a lot of faculty today so detest the man and are so virulent against him because he wanted the faculty of the university of virginia to be the best paid faculty in america. And they were, other than harvard. He designed the university, of course. He was its architect. And he built what were known as pavilions for the faculty. I can assure you, any modern day faculty member, if they were offered this as faculty accommodation, they would think it was wonderful. One of the few universities that still has real faculty governance is oxford. And cambridge, where essentially the fellows of the college are largely self governing. And the Central University still has quite a small administration. I personally always liked it, because you are than guaranteed of having people with real academic values. On the other hand, people within oxford were criticizing it all the time because it was somewhat like the running of america under the articles of confederation. Just doing their own thing, its difficult to get people on the same page and to get any central reform or changes. I think it was alex von humboldt who said that he was a great german education reformer, that having faculty running a university, this is a rather hierarchical european, is like having animals run the zoo. Well, i get that, but i also think there should be checks and balances. I think weve lost some of the checks and balances nowadays. Im just so interested in what you wrote about this governance. Jeffersons view of proper governance in the university. Can we talk just a little bit more about what was to be taught at the university of virginia . Obviously, there were limits to what electives people could choose. And jefferson, as you point out, organized his library in a particular way to emphasize history which is memory, and philosophy. That is also law. And literature, or imagination. And that didnt seem to correspond exactly, from what i can see, about the courses that were supposed to be taught. He writes in the notes to the state of virginia to emphasize how important history is. And all of this was a big break away from what had been taught at older universities. Not to put too fine a point upon it, but cambridge university, for example, just found one of newtons debates when he was in college, which was on the question of freewill versus divine control. So much and here is this major scientists were coming up, and how did the courses that were actually part of the university correspond to jeffersons ideas about history and literature . He was very innovative, both in the core structure and offerings, and also in pedagogy and how those courses were taught. The very decision to call the university a university was a big one. There were very few places in america at the time that called themselves universities. Some like columbia was still known as a college. Similarly, South Carolina was South Carolina college. It was difficult to keep using the original terms for readers. I sometimes deliberately transpose and put something in brackets. His idea of the university was it basically taught everything. It should be as universal in knowledge as possible. Many people today tend to think of jefferson as someone whos pushing Something Like stem, science, technology, engineering, mathematics. And that actually is an error. What was innovative if he really wanted to teach the pure sciences. Chemistry was often not being taught in other universities. This was one of the first universities to teach economics. But he also argued that learning anglosaxon was essential. And spent a lot of time writing out the reading list for an anglosaxon course. He believed in the teaching of modern languages. Few universities taught modern languages. What was so distinct about him was he was breaking away from the old classical model. Basically teaching the classics. Only two years after jefferson died in 1828, yale issued a report, anything coming from here was important. That was the most influential university in america, at the time. Yale basically said we should go back to the classics. Yale, in practice, did start offering science. Nevertheless, the scientists were segregated. They were put in a special place in chapel, rather made to feel inferior even though they had some great scientists. That was not the case with jefferson. The word science in this period is used very broadly. Its more about a methodology. It is a system of Knowledge Based on facts and observation. It was a system of observation and experimentation. I was thinking a lot about about the medical school there, which became very prominent quickly, and was very important. And how it also illuminates both the inspired and forwardlooking nature of jefferson, but also the ways in which sometimes quietly that became implicated with slavery and racism. One of the chapters in one of the books you are criticizing in part by mcguinness and nelson is about the operating theater. And the fact that for medical students to understand how the human body worked, they needed bodies, corpses. And how they were sometimes going and stealing the bodies of enslaved people who were recently buried in nearby plantations. Would you say that the quiet way in which they became a part of this, the way that the lessons were done and the fact the students were all white, would you say that captures some of the tensions and uva in the early 19th century on these questions . What would you add . It does. My problem with their work is there is no context. They dont look at other universities or colleges. I spent a great deal of time in writing this book on reading about the history of education, more generally. If you look at using cadavers for medical experiments, this was a notorious operation. Everywhere. Throughout modern europe and america, and essentially it was always the poorest in society whose bodies were used. They might use homeless people. And there was a notorious trade, since very few people were willing to leave their bodies to medicine. Im not sure there was any such thing. There was a notorious trade in body snatching. Its not just about slavery. It is tensions within medicine in modern science. Thats interesting. Okay, you know, i hate to end this conversation but we are out of time. Just as i was saying that, we got a note here. So its been so wonderful to talk to you. And i have so enjoyed reading your book. I have like three other things we could still talk about. Theres a lot. Hopefully we will continue that over coffee. I hope other people buy it and enjoy reading your book. Thank you so much. And thank you so much the National Archives for having us. Absolutely