Jefferson said, "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." All his life he believed in education as the cornerstone of republican society. Following are excerpt from various letters and other writings of Jefferson on the topic of education.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education.

It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that, too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

A system of general instruction which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.

The first stage of this education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future order will be laid here. Instead, therefore, of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European, and American history. The first elements of morality too may be instilled into their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by showing them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.-Those whom either the wealth of their parents or the adoption of the state shall destine to higher degrees of learning, will go on to the grammar schools, which constitute the next stage, there to be instructed in the languages. The learning Greek and Latin, I am told, is going into disuse in Europe. I know not what their manners and occupation may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their example in this instance. There is a certain period of life, say from eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, when the mind like the body is not yet firm enough for laborious and close operations. If applied to such, it falls an early victim to premature exertion; exhibiting, indeed, at first, in these young and tender subjects, the flattering appearance of their being men while they are yet children, but ending in reducing them to be children when they should be men. The memory is then most susceptible and tenacious of impressions; and the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory, it seems precisely fitted to the powers of this period, which is long enough too for acquiring the most useful languages, ancient and modern.

I do not pretend that language is science. It is only an instrument for the attainment of science. But that time is not lost which is employed in providing tools for future operation: more especially as in this case the books put into the hands of the youth for this purpose may be such as will at the same time impress their minds with useful facts and good principles. If this period be suffered to pass in idleness, the mind becomes lethargic and impotent, as would the body it inhabits if unexercised during the same time. The sympathy between body and mind during their rise, progress and decline, is too strict and obvious to endanger our being misled while we reason from the one to the other. As soon as they are of sufficient age, it is supposed they will be sent on from grammar schools to the university, which constitutes our third and last stage, there to study those sciences which may be adapted to their views.-By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the state of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.-But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History, by appraising them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary. An amendment of our constitution must here come in aid of the public education. The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth; and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price. The government of Great Britain has been corrupted, because but one man in ten has a right to vote for members of parliament. The sellers of the government, therefore, get nine-tenths of their price clear. It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption. Lastly, it is proposed, by a bill in this revisal, to begin a public library and gallery, by laying out a certain sum annually in books, paintings, and statues.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them-such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, etc., etc., but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this: divide his paper into four chapters, heading the first, Truths, 2nd, Probabilities, 3rd, Possibilities, 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. The second would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much. The third and fourth should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

ON THE SUBJECT of the academy or college proposed to be established in our neighborhood, I promised the trustees that I would prepare for them a plan, adapted, in the first instance, to out slender funds, but susceptible of being enlarged either by their own growth or by accession from other quarters.

I have long entertained the hope that this, our native state, would take up the subject of education and make an establishment, either with or without incorporation into that of William and Mary, where every branch of science deemed useful at this day should be taught in its highest degree. With this view, I have lost no occasion of making myself acquainted with the organization of the best seminaries in other countries, and with the opinions of the most enlightened individuals on the subject of the sciences worthy of a place in such an institution. In order to prepare what I have promised our trustees, I have lately revised these several plans with attention; and I am struck with the diversity of arrangement observable in them - no two alike.

Yet I have no doubt that these several arrangements have been the subject of mature reflection by wise and learned men, who, contemplating local circumstances, have adapted them to the condition of the section of society for which they have been framed. I am strengthened in this conclusion by an examination of each separately, and a conviction that no one of them, if adopted without change, would be suited to the circumstances and pursuit of our country. The example they have set, then, is authority for us to Select from their different institutions the materials which are good for us, and, with them, to erect a structure whose arrangement shall correspond with our own social condition and shall admit of enlargement in proportion to the encouragement it may merit and receive. . . .

In the first place, we must ascertain with precision the object of our institution, by taking a survey of the general field of science and marking out the portion we mean to occupy at first and the ultimate extension of our views beyond that, should we he enabled to tender it, in the end, as comprehensive as we would wish.

Elementary Schools. It is highly interesting to our country and it is the duty of its functionaries to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life. The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes-the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements. A plan was formerly proposed to the legislature of this state for laying off every county into hundreds or wards of five or six miles square, within each of which should be a school for the education of the children of the ward, wherein they should receive three years' instruction gratis in reading, writing, arithmetic as far as fractions, the roots and ratios, and geography. The legislature, at one time, tried an ineffectual expedient for introducing this plan which, having failed, it is hoped they will someday resume it in a more promising form.

General Schools. At the discharging of the pupils from the elementary schools, the two classes separate-those destined for labor will engage in the business of agriculture or enter into apprenticeships to such handicraft art as may be their choice; their companions, destined to the pursuits of science, will proceed to the college, which will consist first of general schools and second of professional schools. The general schools will constitute the second grade of education.

The learned class may still be subdivided into two sections; first, those who are destined for learned professions, as a means of livelihood; and second, the wealthy, who, possessing independent fortunes, may aspire to share in conducting the affairs of the nation or to live with usefulness and respect in the private ranks of life. Both of these sections will require instruction in all the higher branches of science; the wealthy to qualify them for either public or private life; the professional section will need those branches especially which are the basis of their future profession, and a general knowledge of the others as auxiliary to that and necessary to their standing and associating with the scientific class. All the branches, then, of useful science ought to be taught in the general schools to a competent extent, in the first instance. These sciences may be arranged into three departments, not rigorously scientific, indeed, but sufficiently so for our purposes. These are 1, Language; 11, Mathematics; 111, Philosophy.

I. Language. In the first department I would arrange a distinct science: (1) languages and history, ancient and modern; (2) grammar; (3) belles lettres; (4) rhetoric and oratory; (5) a school for the deaf, dumb, and blind. History is hem associated with languages not as a kindred subject but on a principle of economy, because both may be attained by the same course of reading, if books arc selected with that view.

II. Mathematics. In the department of mathematics, I should give place distinctly to, (1) pure mathematics; (2) physicomathematics; (3) physics; (4) chemistry; (5) natural history, to wit: mineralogy; (6) botany; and (7) zoology; (8) anatomy; (9) the theory of medicine.

III. Philosopby. In the philosophical department, I should distinguish (1) ideology; (2) ethics; (3) the law of nature and nations; (4) government; (5) political economy.

But, some of these terms being used by different writers in different degrees of extension, I shall define exactly what I mean to comprehend in each of them.

I. (3) Within the term of belles lettres I include poetry and composition generally, and criticism.

II. (1) I consider pure mathematics as the science of numbers, and measure in the abstract; that of numbers comprehending arithmetic, algebra, and fluxions; that of measure (under the general appellation of geometry) comprehending trigonometry, plane and spherical, conic sections, and transcendental curves.

(2) physico-mathematics treat of physical subjects by the aid of mathematical calculation. These are mechanics, statics, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, navigation, astronomy, geography, optics, pneumatics, acoustics.

II. (3) physics, or natural philosophy (not entering the limits of chemistry), treat of natural substances, their properties, mutual relations, and action. They particularly examine the subjects of motion, action, magnetism, electricity, galvanism, light, meteorology, with an etc. not easily enumerated. These definitions and specifications render immaterial the question whether I use the generic terms in the exact degree of comprehension in which others use them; to be understood is all that is necessary to the present object.

Professional Schools. At the close of this course the students separate; the wealthy retiring, with a sufficient stock of knowledge, to improve themselves to any degree to which their views may lead them, and the professional section to the professional schools, constituting the third grade of education, and teaching the particular sciences which the individuals of this section mean to pursue with more minuteness and detail than was within the scope of the general schools for the second grade of instruction. In these professional schools each science is to be taught in the highest degree it has yet attained. They are to be the:

First Department, the fine arts, to wit: civil architecture, gardening, painting, sculpture, and the theory of music.

Second Department, architecture, military and naval; projectiles; rural economy (comprehending agriculture, horticulture, and veterinary), technical philosophy; the practice of medicine, materia medica; pharmacy and surgery. . . .

Third Department, theology and ecclesiastical history; law, municipal and foreign.

To these professional schools will come those who separated at the close of their first elementary course, to wit: the lawyer to the school of law; the ecclesiastic to that of theology and ecclesiastical history; the physician to those of the practice of medicine, materia medica, pharmacy, and surgery; the military man to that of military and naval architecture and projectiles; the agricultor to that of rural economy; the gentleman, the architect, the pleasure gardener, painter, and musician to the school of fine arts. And to that of technical philosophy will come the mariner, carpenter, shipwright, pump maker, clockmaker, machinist, optician, metallurgist, founder, cutler, druggist, brewer, vintner, distiller, dyer, painter, bleacher, soapmaker, tanner, powder maker, salt maker, glassmaker, to learn as much as shall be necessary to pursue their art understandingly, of the sciences of geometry, mechanics, statics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hydrodynamics, navigation, astronomy, geography, optics, pneumatics, acoustics, physics, chemistry, natural history, botany, mineralogy, and pharmacy.

The school of technical philosophy will differ essentially in its functions from the other professional schools. The others are instituted to ramify and dilate the particular sciences taught in the schools of the second grade on a general scale only. The technical school is to abridge those which were taught there too much in extenso for the limited wants of the artificer or practical man. These artificers must be grouped together according to the particular branch of science in which they need elementary and practical instruction; and a special lecture or lectures should be prepared for each group - and these lectures should be given in the evening so as not to interrupt the labors of the day. The school, particularly, should be maintained wholly at the public expense on the same principles with that of the ward schools.

Through the whole of the collegiate course, at the hours of recreation on certain days, all the students should be taught the manual exercise; military evolutions and maneuvers should be under a standing organization as a military corps, and with proper officers to train and command them. . . .

On this survey of the field of science, I recur to the question, what portion of it we mark out for the occupation of our institution? With the first grade of education we shall have nothing to do. The sciences of the second grade are our first object, and to adapt them to our slender beginnings, we must separate them into groups comprehending many sciences each, and greatly more in the first instance than ought to be imposed on or can be competently conducted by a single professor permanently. They must be subdivided from time to time as our means increase, until each professor shall have no more under his care than he can attend to with advantage to his pupils and ease to himself.

In the further advance of our resources, the professional schools must be introduced, and professorships established for them also. For the present, we may group the sciences into professorships as follows, subject, however, to be changed according to the qualifications of the persons we may be able to engage. …

The organization of the branch of the institution which respects its government, police and economy, depending on principles which have no affinity with those of 'its institution, may be the subject of separate and subsequent consideration.

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