University of Virginia Library

III. Bill of 1779

The first of all Jefferson's practical measures for public
education was the Bill of 1779, which carried no expressed
purpose in its text that was to reach beyond the
borders of Virginia, yet, as it was based upon principles
that went down to the foundation of society, its scope, in
its broadest significance, was really as universal as the
scope of the Declaration of Independence itself. In taking
up the subject of his share in the drafting of this bill,
we have come to the most interesting chapter in his career
as an educational reformer previous to the establishment
of the University of Virginia. By this measure, he
sought to create in his native State, even before the fires
of the Revolution had burnt out, a system of public instruction
so far ahead of his times that the community
continued too unripe to receive it until the War of Secession
had removed everyone of those impediments, which
he, with all his zeal and persistency, had found it impossible
to surmount. But the credit due him should not be
diminished but enhanced by the deferred consummation
of his complete design, for it proved that his foresight
was one hundred years in advance of the vision of the
great body of his own countrymen. It was, however, no
new and untried theory that he endeavored to put in

practice. During several centuries, the concept that it
was the duty of the State to educate all its citizens had
prevailed in many coteries in Europe, but it was not until
the eighteenth century that the politico-economical value
of that concept was fully tested by Prussia and Austria
in a scheme of popular instruction scientifically ordered
and rigidly enforced. Massachusetts had adopted a similar
scheme as early as 1647. At first, the system in that
colony stood upon a religious platform; next, the purely
utilitarian view intruded; and then, finally, the belief that,
by universal education, the people could be trained to
govern themselves more wisely, and to preserve their
political freedom more securely.

The latter was the opinion which Jefferson himself
entertained. He wrote Washington, in 1786, that the
liberties of the community were only safe when they were
in the grasp of an "instructed people"; and that it
was the business of the State to give this instruction; and
that this could not be done successfully except in harmony
with a general plan. What he thought that general plan
should be was very lucidly expressed in the bill of 1779.
At the time that he drew up this bill, the schools of Virginia
differed but little in quality from those in existence
there during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
there were the home schools for the children of affluent
planters taught by private tutors; the old field schools
for the children of the upper and middle classes alike;
and the College of William and Mary for the higher
training of all who aspired to it. Jefferson, in later
years, justly claimed for himself the credit of having
been the first citizen of the State to propose, in a formal
way, the substitution of a concatenated system of public
education for the unarticulated methods of private education
which he discovered in use in his youth. Early in

1776, while a member of the General Assembly, he was
chosen as the chairman of the committee appointed to
revise the laws of the new Commonwealth. After the
elimination of Mason by resignation, and of Lee by
death, this committee was composed of Wythe, Pendleton,
and himself, the three men whom the entire community
acknowledged to be the most fully and nicely
equipped for the work in view to be found in Virginia;
but that work was really performed by Jefferson and
Wythe, pupil and master of old, who were keenly in sympathy
with each other in liberality of opinion, and quite
on a level in breadth of information. As a proof of
their insatiable appetite for their task, it is reported of
them that they went carefully through the whole collection
of British and Colonial statutes, and drew out those
that seemed to them to be most apposite to the genius,
and most fostering to the peace and prosperity, of the
Virginian people.

Of the one hundred and twenty-six bills in which their
conclusions were precisely incorporated, the one for the
diffusion of knowledge was hammered into shape by Jefferson
alone. It was drawn up, in reality, in the form
of three bills, which provided (1) for the erection of
primary schools,—in which the children of all classes
were to be taught the rudiments of education,—and of
colleges, in which all higher grades were to be open to
older pupils; (2) for the establishment of a university in
the broadest sense of the word; and (3) for the collection
of a great library, to be used by students and readers
of all ages. Jefferson, in drafting this bill, did not narrow
his gaze to the intellectual and moral advantages of
education only, but, looking forward, he was convinced
that he had raised a new bulwark for the defense of political
freedom, by providing for the division of each

county into wards as the local unit for the elementary
schools.

An examination of the preamble of this famous bill
reveals that it was written under the influence of all those
emotions which were most inflamed by the Revolutionary
struggle that was still in progress. All persons in power,
it states in substance, are invariably inclined to use that
power for the ends of tyranny. How is this disposition to
be combated? By educating the people so thoroughly
that they will be able to detect at once the encroachments
of sinister and scheming office-holders, and to block them
before any permanent damage is done. Education too
will make the average office-holder himself more solicitous
to guard the rights and liberties of citizens as well as
more competent to administer their affairs.

The practical clauses of the bill provided for the election
in every county of three persons to be known as aldermen,
who were to meet first at the court-house to divide
the county into hundreds, each of which was to embrace
a sufficient number of pupils to make up a school. The
site of the school-house having been chosen by the voters
of the hundred, the aldermen were to erect a suitable
building thereon, in which were to gather the children
for instruction in reading, writing, and common arithmetic,
and also in Roman, Greek, English and American
history. They were to be at no expense for this tuition
during the first three years of their attendance. Each set
of ten schools was to be under the supervision of officers,
with authority to appoint the teachers, to visit the several
school-houses, and to inspect and question the pupils;
and each school was to be subject to a competent overseer.
Next the State was to be divided into groups of
counties with a view to the establishment of colleges for
secondary education. The overseers of the elementary

schools of each group were to choose the site for the college
of that group, which they were required to construct
of brick or stone, with ten or twelve lodging rooms for
the use of double that number of pupils. A master and
usher were, in each college, to give instruction in the
Greek and Latin languages, English grammar, geography,
and the higher branches of arithmetic,—for such was
the course which Jefferson thought to be sufficient for the
education of the average person who was in the possession
of an easy fortune. Each college was to be under
the watchful and controlling eyes of a rector and board
of visitors, who were to select its teachers and administer
its finances.

The expense of gathering up food for the students, employing
a steward, and hiring servants, was to be divided
among the pupils. Those among them who were attending
the classes gratuitously were also to be relieved,
through the public treasury, of the cost of subsistence,
while the balance of the expenses was to be met by the
parents of the pupils who were able to pay. Every elementary
school in each group of counties was to have
the right to enter its most promising scholar each year,
without charge, in the college of that district, if his father
or guardian was too indigent to provide for his
necessary outlay. Annually, too, one third of the boys
thus advanced were to be dropped from the roll; and of
those who should succeed in remaining two years because
of their industry and talents, one was to be retained, with
the privilege of staying two years longer in the college.
The students who should thus signalize themselves were
to be chosen as seniors; and every year one senior was
to be selected from the whole number of those in attendance
at each college, to be sent on to William and Mary
University,—for the bill, as we see, converted that institution

into a university,—there to be taught, clothed,
and boarded at the public charge. This regulation would
assure the presence annually in Williamsburg of about
twenty young men of no fortune, who had exhibited in
the colleges superior capacity and scholarship, and who
would, otherwise, have failed to receive the higher education
to which their ability and diligence justly entitled
them.

There were four remarkable features in this scheme
of public instruction. The first was that the pupils in
the elementary schools, which embraced the children of
the entire white population, were to be grounded in history,
both ancient and modern. The reason given for
this provision was characteristic of Jefferson: by apprising
them of the experience of other times and other nations,
they would be the better qualified to fortify themselves
against the intrigues of lurking tyranny. A second feature
was that it would enable the poorest boys of talent to
enjoy every advantage of education that was in the reach
of the sons of the wealthy. And, thirdly, by giving an
opportunity to youths of promise to advance from the
lowest to the highest grade,—that is to say, from the elementary
school to the university,—it would knit all parts
of the system firmly together. Finally, by imposing local
taxes for the support of the elementary schools, it would
establish a principle that would entirely relieve the State
treasury of their charge, and also ensure a more careful
attention to the proper use of the money to be raised, by
obtaining it exclusively from the parents of the pupils
immediately benefited.

By the terms of the second bill, the College of William
and Mary was to be transformed into a veritable university.
The courses of instruction laid off for it, in its altered
form, were to be distributed under the following

heads: the fine arts, applied science, municipal and foreign
law, theology, and also ecclesiastical history so far as it
was not coupled with sectarianism. No provision seems
to have been made for languages, perhaps because the
Greek and Latin tongues were expected to make up an essential
part of the curriculum of the district colleges.
Under the head of applied science, military and naval
science was to be taught; horticulture and agriculture too;
and also the practical relations of science to the arts and
manufactures, to medicine, surgery, and pharmacy.

It was Jefferson's opinion that the whole educational
scheme of 1779 failed to become law largely on account
of this second bill. He had hoped that, by arranging
for the elementary schools and colleges in a separate
measure, and by making the divinity course at the new
university purely historical, he would disarm the hostility
of the Presbyterians and Baptists, and bring them to a
hearty concurrence with his plans; but they soon began
to suspect that there was some secret purpose to favor
the Episcopalians by placing the old Episcopal College
at the apex of the public school system; and they coldly
turned their patronage away from the whole design.[3]
But it is possible that the reluctance of the property-holders
to shoulder the additional taxes, which, as will be seen,
cropped up in 1796, when the like plan was broached,
had much to do with the defeat of these educational bills.
Had Jefferson not been kept out of the State by his mission
to France, and afterwards, by his occupancy of a seat
in Washington's Cabinet, his energy and persistency,
brought to bear directly on the spot, would, perhaps, have
led to the early adoption of his scheme of popular education,

—not simply in the letter, as was partially done in
1796, but in positive actual practice.