The founding fathers seemed to be educated men, what was their education like?

by dragonrebornx

I’m aware to a certain extent, that they had some foundations in classics, to what degree and how they went about it eludes me. Can anyone elaborate what that may have looked like for them? I know this may be a genera question, if it helps to narrow down to a person; Thomas Jefferson.

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Jefferson, as was typical of elite Virginians, was educated first through private tutors then by attending the College of William and Mary, though most of his learning came from experience, understudy, and reading. By his late thirties/early forties he had amassed thousands of books in his personal library - in 1815 it was roughly 6000 titles when it was sold to rebuild the destroyed Library of Congress (and he then began his collection anew.). It's important to stop here and note Founders were the exceptions to the rule - most white males attended only a brief stint at a community schoolhouse, never reaching any higher level of education, particularly in Jefferson's Virginia. Women of the colony typically didn't even recieve that, and blacks were excluded regardless of gender. The snippet below is from a post I made previously on colonial education, particularly at the collegiate level.


Elsewhere things were generally more spread out (particularly Chesapeake colonies and further south). In Virginia, for instance, towns weren't needed for much more than court days at the courthouse or for the gentleman of the legiature to assemble. As a result folks like Jefferson went to private tutors and often boarding at their homes. According to Jefferson himself he began at age 5 (1748) in English, then to Latin at 9 (1752) and continuing until the death of his father (1757). The Latin school was run by Reverend William Douglas (who Jefferson gave a less than flattering review of) and in 1758 he attended the Maury School for Boys under Reverend James Maury. He thought Maury a proper tutor, and it was here he made a few longtime friends including his best friend ever and future brother in law, Dabney Carr. Upon Carr's death about 14 years later Jefferson wrote that "of all men living [I] loved him most." He was the first person laid to rest in the cemetery at Monticello, long before the house had its current shape, and beneath the oak where the two would read for hours to educate themselves on all things they could get books about. They had made a pact that the first to go would be placed there by the survivor, and Jefferson kept that pact. Two years after attending Maury's school, in 1760, he left for Williamsburg with the enslaved Jupiter Evans, his childhood companion, in tow.

1760 W&M was still the old colonial college. The only degree programs available were in divinity and professorships, and they took about five years. Jefferson only attended for two. In that time he grew very attached to William Small, one of the professors, later writing;

It was my great fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. William Small of Scotland was then professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners and an enlarged and liberal mind.

And

He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me & made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science & of the system of things in which we are placed.

Small would introduce Jefferson, who had enrolled in the philosophy school, to George Wythe and Gov Fauquier. The four would dine often and Jefferson's constant pursuit of knowledge in all areas made him an interesting conversationalist, which in turn gained him invitations to numerous dances, balls, and dinners at the nearby Governors Palace. At W&M one could attend the divinity school after attending the philosophy school to obtain a degree, but Jefferson, as was the norm, opted for a "gentleman's education" and left the school never having "graduated" or receiving a degree. Also on site was the Indian School and a boys Grammer school. Nearby was the Williamsburg Bray School. Small had a falling out with the Board of Visitors and left for Europe in 1762, only four years after joining the staff at W&M. Jefferson next spent five years in the shadow of Wythe, learning the law practice and passing the bar from his guidance in 1767. For him, the intimate moments with Small, dinners with the group, musical performances of his on the violin at the Palace, dances attended at the Apollo Room, and years spent observing Wythe was his true Williamsburg education. Btw, while Jefferson never graduated W&M in the 1760s he later received four honorary degrees.

Women from notable families in the south and Chesapeake were taught manners and etiquette, dancing, and usually some music, like the pianoforte, fiddle, or violin. Many from this select group did learn to read and write and employed those skills in tasks like writing their husbands off in the capital, on survey/military adventures, or to read recipes from a newly acquired cookbook to their enslaved kitchen staff, and sometimes to educate their children themselves.

To stitch some of this back together, we see a big shift around 1750 (or slightly before) into education and the diversification away from the massive focus on divinity. Six of the nine colonial colleges opened between 1746 and 1769. This trend was mimicked in lower schools, too, and that did give options to those often left out of the narrative. Thomas Bray, who held a doctorate from Oxford in Divinity, had launched an effort to educate blacks (and some Natives) in an attempt to spread christianity. While Bray died in 1730 after starting nearly two dozen missionaries aimed at teaching natives and enslaved blacks the gospel, the group marched on. They became entangled in the formation of Georgia but soon were focused back on education. It was suggested that a teacher be sent to Pennsylvania to teach the enslaved, but when (guess who!) Ben Franklin recieved the letter, he and another decided instead to open a school. Soon multiple Bray Schools were opened including, as mentioned earlier, one at W&M, and they lasted until around the revolution. The letter was in 1757, so chronologocally Franklin did the Junto, then libraries, then started U of Penn's preceeding lower school while suggesting some really revolutionary ideas about running a proposed higher school, then starting black schools in numerous colonies, then becoming involved with Anthony benezet who had opened a female public secondary school at Philly in 1754 and opened a free black day school in 1770, though he had offered free classes in his home at nights to any blacks, free or otherwise, since 1750. While not a college degree these schools allowed a small minority of the disenfranchised a way to a better life and more importantly helped change the widely held but stupidly racist belief that blacks were simply mentally inferior to whites. It showed the condition, not nature, had made them appear less intelligent and when that condition of bondage and suppression was removed that allowed proof that we are all equal, helping spur emancipation legislation throughout the northern states immediately after we gained our independence.


So, in Jefferson's case, he attended a local school (of sorts) at an instructors private house to learn English, then about the age of a forth or fifth grader today he went to another and began on classical languages and some more advanced coursework like mathematics, morals, and geography. From there he begged, at age 17, to go to college claiming he would actually party less there than at home in Albemarle, which was likely true in his case. After a couple years there he learned the intricacies of British law, namely by working under George Wythe, and passed the bar in the mid 1760s. There was no Law School anywhere in America until the mid 1770s so no lawyer before then was educated at a colonial institution. The first collegiate law program was started a few years later than that at W&M where Wythe would teach John Marshall, the future SCOTUS Chief Justice, starting in 1780.

Side note: The Rev James Maury actually held geography in high esteem and plotted a plan to send an expedition westward, all part of the Loyal Virginia Company, started in part by Peter Jefferson (Thomas's father), and with the idea of discovery. Perhaps the Corps of Discovery Jefferson would establish, better known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was influenced by this early influence of Rev Maury and his strikingly similar plan!