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 j. Of fantasy 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. Founders, online website vested 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. 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 j astonish eight 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 halle ruler a professor American History and an associate professor at the university of maryland. Now lets hear from on drew asana sea 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 arbor 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 bison ten or a, 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 with an 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 ovaries emphasize briefly to my students that there wasnt much Public Education for the revolution. In massachusetts, a little bit of grammar school, especially aimed at outside a 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 of the conversation after 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, interested in reforming. 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 have very high rates of literacy and large numbers of schools thanks to the puritans, the congregationalists and pescatarians, who wanted to have the school and 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 pressure 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 17 90s, the bill did not specifically exclude we free African Americans. [inaudible] would result in it was a very enlightened measure. I do want to point out in this book, the lintel retime of the human mind, it is just out. I point out theres a real difference between what he was doing and what pressure is doing. In pressure we, 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 republicans has failed. A very brittle system. They resulted in a minute terry. 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 we and looked 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 recognize the importance of popular education. And creaits ironic that he ended up just serving the elites and creating the university. The fact is he tried several times, including 1870 1820 was with her similar bills to introduce Public Education. One of the reasons he kept failing, why he opposed the Public Education belle of the political opponent was he was utterly opposed to any kind of religious education. He saw that as actually 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 do initially to the catholic church. Come from an expression of the 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 no. 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 into the world. We into the world. Printing has divulge them 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. It leads to anarchy i hear to deplore 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 round heads in the north. Many of those who went to massachusetts this in great migration and 16 20s 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 convex. The pressure british lord [inaudible] was lord fairfax. Used to own one of the most splendid castles, a castle in england, it is not in the city of leaves, 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 cavalieres. 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. 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 win three white adult men. 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 into 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 dentist 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, she shows it is a language that comes in later. The whole notion of merit is a complicated one, not least because we all 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, to, on his overall plan that would have included Public Education. He could be moved into could be pushed up the scale of education. Were there scholarships . When i remember in your book is that the two wish and 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 wealth . 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 slaves it slavery. Although he want to have scholarships, they were not introduced until about 20 years later. There were 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. All they dont take into account that the 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 there should be a Public School system. And it certainly is represented by moving in the right direction. 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 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 so 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 brics 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. Sometimes they were hired out her. 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 bye centenary of the university in 2019. Preceded by the commission on slavery for the university. And they do represent a very informed corrective to earlier work in acknowledging the presence of slavery. Its unbelievable now that earlier histories just didnt discuss this feature of the university. 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. So that our peoples 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 17 1817 90s, when hes first embarked on the project to create a Major University in virginia, and basically to transform the college of william and mary, whats 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. The 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 the southerners resented but 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 was dominated by the political opponent. It was dominated by presbyterians. Universities and colleges themself. A lot of them were created and set up by federalist pescatarians. Certainly, all of them were religious colleges except for transylvania and the university of north carolina. It experimented with education, they did not continue him. 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 rotarian british radical political refugee joseph briefly. [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 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 [inaudible] president s of the french revolution. He bitterly resented these attacks 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 tending 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 opponents. He relieved only his party was going to save america and save the true tradition in 1776. He fought with the federalists we are going to turn the place into a monarchy. They reintroduced erica stocky. They made america just e 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 new. Such as