School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Chapter Two
Liberty and Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Fundamental Tenets of Classical Liberal
Ideology
• Faith in Reason
• Natural Law
• Republican
Virtue
• Progress
• Nationalism
• Freedom
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
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Faith in Reason
A better guide than tradition, custom,
and dogmatic faith
Mind as “blank slate”
Humankind capable of great feats
Galileo, Copernicus, Newton
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
• “Universe isNatural
a machine”
Law
• Understanding yields control
• Science replaces theology as guide to
action
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Republican Virtue
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Perfectibility of the individual
Duties to God and to nature
The work ethic
Men’s virtues/ Women’s virtues
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
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Progress
Continual individual and societal
progress toward perfection
Changing the world to what ought to
be
Revolution as an option
Commitment to social meliorism
Education as the vehicle
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Nationalism
• Allegiance to a nation, not a state
• A new national identity
• Uneasy balance between national
government and local selfdetermination
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Freedom
• “Negative freedom”
 Intellectual
• Free from external coercion of church and state
 Political
• Representative government
 Civic
• Freedom to “live as one pleases”
• Bill of Rights
 Economic
• “Laissez-faire” economy
• The Wealth of Nations
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Jefferson’s Plan for Popular Education
Elementary
Schools
Grammar
Schools
University
Self-Education
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
First Tier—Elementary Schools
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Foundation of entire education structure
Decentralized districts
Three years of free education
Screening for future leaders
Preparing citizens for effective functioning
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Second Tier—Grammar Schools
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Boarding schools
Languages, advanced curriculum
Developing local leadership
Preparation for university
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Third Tier—University Education
• Common education from grammar schools
allowed for advanced instruction
• Specialization in a “science”
• Preparation for leadership—law,
government, the professions
• Education for meritocracy
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Fourth Tier—Self-Education
• Lifelong learning as the culmination of
educational aims
• Jefferson’s support of public libraries
• “Knowledge is power; knowledge is safety;
knowledge is happiness”
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Concluding Remarks
• Political economy and ideology influenced
early education processes, inside and
outside of schools
• Jefferson’s thinking reveals the tensions in
classical liberalism
• Admirable ideals versus the “dominant
ideology”
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Your Professional
Vocabulary
• democratic
localism
•Developing
Bill for a More
General Diffusion of
• “divine right” of the
nobility
Knowledge
• elementary schooling
• bourgeoisie
• faculty psychology
• capitalism
• faith in human reason
• civic freedom
• feudalism
• classical liberal
• freedom and “negative
• conservative
freedom”
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e
School & Society: Chapter 2
Liberty & Literacy:
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Developing Your Professional Vocabulary
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grammar schools
happiness
intellectual freedom
meritocracy
nationalism
natural aristocracy
natural law
patriarchy
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political freedom
progress
religious revelation
republicanism
Rockfish Gap Report
scientific reason
social meliorism
virtue
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e