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Education Commons

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Journal

2015

Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling

Jefferson

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Education

Educating Each According To His Needs: A Response To “Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics”, Andrew Holowchak Apr 2015

Educating Each According To His Needs: A Response To “Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics”, Andrew Holowchak

Democracy and Education

This essay is a reply to Brian Dotts’s “Beyond the Schoolhouse Door,” which focuses on the need of a system of general education in Jefferson’s writings on educative reform.


Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics, Brian W. Dotts Apr 2015

Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics, Brian W. Dotts

Democracy and Education

Jefferson believed that citizenship must exhibit republican virtue. While education was necessary in a republican polity, it alone was insufficient in sustaining a revolutionary civic spirit. This paper examines Jefferson's expectations for citizen virtue, specifically related to militia and jury service in his 'little republics.' Citizens required not only knowledge of history and republican principles, but also public spaces where they could personify what they learned. Jefferson often analogized the nation as a ship at sea, and while navigational instruments are necessary in charting an accurate course, i.e., republican theories, they become inconsequential without the decisive action required for their …