Many Children Left Behind

Thomas Jefferson's opinion on the importance of education is understood by reading the engraving on his tombstone, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson/ Author of the Declaration of American Independence/ The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom/ And Father of the University of Virginia" (Hollis). For such an experienced man to choose only these three accomplishments to appear on his tombstone (all of them being intellectual achievements) shows that he must have placed the most importance on his successes achieved as a result of his education. Since those accomplishments have helped him earn the respect of both his contemporaries and modern-day Americans, it is valuable to consider his opinions on how the future generations of America should be educated.

Made evident in his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson believed that it was important to "diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the people," and that the best way to do this was through educating young Americans in reading, writing, and arithmetic in small, county schools (p. 195). He wrote that "every person [is] entitled to send their children three years gratis, and as much longer as they please, paying for it" (p. 196). He even described something that seems like a combination of the modern concepts of merit and need-based scholarships: "A visitor is annually to chuse the boy, of best genius in the school, of those whose parents are too poor to give them further education, and to send him forward to one of the grammar schools" (p. 196). However, this policy means that poor children can only gain an education if they are the most intelligent pupil in their school. Only one child can score the highest on a test or be the teacher's favorite, so many other equally-intelligent children would be unable to receive higher education.