Thomas Jefferson felt so strongly about education that he submitted this amendment to the constitution to congress in his State of the Union Address, December 2nd, 1806. "Education is here placed among the articles of public care...Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree...An amendment to our constitution must here come to the aid of the public education. The influence over government must be shared among all the people." The amendment was never considered. Jefferson believed the elementary school was more important than the university. He had six objectives he hoped would make every person into a productive and informed voter: 1. To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; 2. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing; 3. To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; 4. To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; 5. To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgement; 6 And in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 01:07:17 +0000
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