One modern reader has called Maury’s “Dissertation on Education” the “most significant cultural document dealing with the colonial society of the Chesapeake.”21 Important in terms of understanding Jefferson’s early biography, Maury’s educational theory takes on additional importance given that one of his students would become president of the College of William and Mary and another would significantly shape educational policy during his political career and later establish the University of Virginia.
What shows most vividly in Maury’s opening paragraph is his profound dedication to teaching. Central to his theory is the idea that a classical education is not essential to a good education. There are some whose education should be grounded in the classics: “An Acquaintance with the Languages, antiently spoken in Greece and Italy, is necessary, absolutely necessary, for those, who wish to make any reputable Figure in Divinity, Medicine or Law.” In other words, all students with professional careers in mind needed to study Latin and Greek. Furthermore, those destined for positions of leadership “to which the Privilege of Birth, the Voice of their Country, or the Choice of their Prince may call them” should have a classical foundation. Also, the well-to-do gentleman “whose Opulence places him far above the perplexing Pursuits and sordid Cares, in which Persons of inferior Fortunes are usually engaged” will benefit from a good classical education because his wealth and position will permit him to indulge himself “in the Enjoyment of that calm Retreat from the Bustle of the World, of that studious Leisure and Philosophic Repose, which furnish him with the happiest Opportunities, not barely of making transient Visits to, but even fixing his Residence within, those sacred Recesses, sequestered Seats and classic Grounds, which are the Muses’ favourite Haunts; a Repose, a Leisure, a Retreat, which nought, but his Countries pressing Calls, on some great Emergencies, has a Right to break in upon or interrupt.”22 Maury’s words describe an ideal Jefferson used to guide his own life. Wanting very much to haunt the sequestered seats and classic grounds Maury described, Jefferson denied himself such pleasures to answer his country’s pressing calls.
Since the situation of young Virginia gentlemen differed from that of the English, Maury argued, their education should differ. There were some subjects Virginia gentlemen must learn as children: arithmetic, chronology, eloquence, English grammar, geography, history, law, reading, and rhetoric. He recommended no specific textbooks in this letter, but his list of useful subjects resembles the list of topics Dodsley covered in The Preceptor.
Unlike the English gentleman, the Virginian born into wealth could not simply relax and enjoy his legacy—he had to keep working to sustain his family’s wealth. The demands of learning a business, Maury held, precluded the time necessary to acquire a classical education. He insisted that the European educational model did not apply in the New World, and he offered a homely, though bookish analogy to stress his point: “Because the Genius of our People, their Way of Life, their Circumstances in Point of Fortune, the Customs and Manners and Humors of the Country, difference us in so many important Respects from Europeans, that a Plan of Education, however judiciously adapted to these last, would no more fit us, than an Almanac, calculated for the Latitude of London, would that of Williamsburg.”23
Becoming a scholar took considerable effort. The pathway to classical knowledge was “rough and difficult.” Temporarily switching to direct address, Maury’s letter sounds like a teacher’s advice to his students: “The Obstacles that are to be surmounted, before you can reach your Journey’s End, are, believe me, far from chimerical and imaginary.”24 For those few Virginia students with the time and desire to study the classical languages, Maury provided some specific pedagogical recommendations.
He suggested storytelling as an excellent way for students to practice language skills. Children “who have but just learned to speak plain, relate Occurrences, which tho’ trivial in themselves, are yet to the little Historians interesting and affecting; will hence naturally conclude Nothing better calculated at once to exercise their Memories and enrich their Understandings, than neat, plain, succinct, affecting Narration.”25 Under Maury’s tutelage, it would seem, Jefferson not only developed his language skills but also developed his storytelling ability.
Some contemporary educators thought that teaching multiple languages simultaneously would overburden students’ minds. Maury disagreed: “The Memories of Children must be exercised, in Order to improve them. And exercising them to a certain Degree will improve and strengthen them. But, to perplex and overcharge, and to give them moderate and due Exercise, are two Things as different, as exhilarating the Spirits with a temperate Glass, and drowning them in Excess and Debauch. That is salutary and beneficial, this hurtful and ruinous.”26 Furthermore, variety could facilitate the study of language. To the human mind, Maury argued, “nothing is more irksome, than an unvaried Prospect, than a uniform Sameness of Employment, and a dull tedious Round of undiversified Exercises.”27 In short, variety is essential to a good education.
Maury’s viewpoint is remarkably similar to educational advice Jefferson would utter. To a law student under his charge, he recommended studying many different subjects beyond the scope of his law books: “The carrying on several studies at a time is attended with advantage. Variety relieves the mind, as well as the eye, palled with too long attention to a single object. But with both, transitions from one object to another may be so frequent and transitory as to leave no impression. The mean is therefore to be steered, and a competent space of time allotted to each branch of study.”28
Though Maury says little in his “Dissertation on Education” regarding the specific curriculum, the few authors he does mention Jefferson came to know well. Maury critiqued the “empty and vociferous Pulpit-declaimer” whom the vulgar masses elevated above “an Atterbury, a Tillotson, or a Sherlock.”29 These three names refer to the day’s most widely known and well-respected Anglican divines. Early American interest in Archbishop John Tillotson crossed colonial and denominational boundaries: his sermons were read from Puritan New England to Anglican Virginia.30 Tillotson possessed a literary eloquence that helped shape eighteenth-century prose style, too. Jefferson had a three-volume folio edition of Tillotson’s Works in his library, which also contained Francis Atterbury’s Sermons and Discourses and the 1744 Williamsburg edition of William Sherlock’s Practical Discourse Concerning Death.
In terms of classical authors, Maury saved his highest praise for Cicero, whom he called “Reason’s great Highpriest and Interpreter.” Jefferson would share this opinion. The epithets he would use to describe Cicero resemble Maury’s. Jefferson said that when it came to matters of literary style Cicero was “the first master in the world.”31
The extracts from Cicero in Jefferson’s literary commonplace book date from the time he studied with Maury. Mainly they come from the Tusculan Disputations, in which Cicero grappled with the problems of death, grief, fear, and passion and attempted to discern the essence of happiness. Indebted to the Stoics, Cicero concluded that philosophy alone let man cope with the pain, affliction, and death he must face. Jefferson’s excerpts from the work reveal his affinity with Cicero’s thought. Encountering the Tusculan Disputations shortly after his father’s death, he recognized the work’s lasting relevance. Cicero’s words offered salve to his grief. Jefferson was impressed with the ideas he read and the eloquence with which they were conveyed. His appreciation of the work affirms his discriminating literary tastes, too. Classical scholars consider the Tusculan Disputations one of the most majestic and beautiful works of Latin prose ever written.
Jefferson internalized ideas Cicero expressed in the Tusculan Disputations, and they became a part of his thought. In a letter to a friend a few years later he made a statement strongly reminiscent of Cicero: “The most fortunate of us all in our journey through life frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us: and to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of t
he principal studies and endeavors of our lives.”32 Jefferson continued to admire the Tusculan Disputations and sought additional copies of the work in elegant, small-format editions. In his retirement library, he had two copies, an octavo in the Latin original and a pocketsized French translation.
In the sixteenth chapter of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero reconciled the state of the soul after death with the material world. He granted the existence of souls yet questioned the behavior of those people who conjure up the souls of the dead. They “wish the phantoms to speak and this cannot take place without tongue and palate, or without a formed throat and chest and lungs in active working.”33 Into his literary commonplace book Jefferson transcribed this passage in its Latin original. Cicero’s distinction between spirit and matter reminded Jefferson that no longer could his father speak to him.
One reason Maury gave for rendering the study of classical languages unnecessary is that the discipline of learning the intricacies of grammar need not require the study of Latin and Greek. Such discipline could be achieved by studying the English language. Maury’s letter contains an excellent appreciation of English, which he called “a Language as copious and nervous, as significant and expressive, as numerous and musical, nay, to my own Ears, as inchanting as any that was ever spoken by any of the different Families of the Earth.”34 Many years later, Jefferson would write a similar appreciation of English. Compared to French, the expressive possibilities of which he greatly appreciated, “the English language is founded on a broader base, native and adopted, and capable, with the like freedom of employing its materials, of becoming superior to that in copiousness and euphony.”35
Maury not only advocated the powers of the English language, but exemplified them in his own writing. Boucher, despite his differing pedagogical views, called his friend “a singularly ingenious and worthy man” and praised his literary style: “His particular and great merit was the command of a fine style. It would have been difficult for him not to write with propriety, force and elegance.” Maury’s surviving sermons reveal his careful diction, clear organization, and detailed knowledge of scripture.36 In addition, the numerous literary references they contain show the breadth of his reading and his recognition of the relevance of modern English literature.
The correspondence Maury left behind provides another good indication of the personality, reading tastes, and literary style of Jefferson’s teacher. In one letter to an uncle, for instance, Maury describes with energy and enthusiasm the natural advantages of the Virginia countryside. He makes speculations regarding the commercial possibilities of the region, the expanse of the Mississippi Basin, and the possibility that Virginia could be connected to the Pacific Ocean via the waterways of North America.
In terms of both its magnitude and the enthusiasm of its author, Maury’s description anticipates the “Rivers” chapter of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. Taking delight in his speculations, Maury incorporated an indigenous adjective—canoeable—and devoted much space defining what the word meant. Jefferson would come to share his teacher’s fondness for neologisms. The introduction of new words, Jefferson believed, improved the English language, making it both dynamic and beautiful.37
Maury’s description also reveals his classical knowledge. Two canoes lashed together draw only a few inches of water but “move down a current with great velocity, and leave the waterman nothing but Palinurus’s task to perform when going downwards,”38 alluding to the helmsman Palinurus from The Aeneid. Though displaying his knowledge of classical literature, Maury’s erudition rests lightly on his words, which remain playful and unassuming.
To support his argument regarding the natural resources of North America, Maury cited information from Daniel Coxe’s Description of the English Province of Carolana. He apologized for his inaccuracies because he was citing the book from memory: “I have read a History of the travels of an Indian towards those regions, as well as those of Mr. Cox, the reports of the natives to both of them as to the large canoes are so similar, that I perhaps may confound one with the other. Mr. Cox’s book, I imagine, is very scarce. I know of but one copy in this colony, of which I had an accidental, and therefore a cursory view, about four years ago.”39 Bringing the letter to a close, Maury mentions that the copy of Coxe he had seen was the one owned by Colonel Joshua Fry.
The Indian whom Maury mentioned, best known by the name Moncacht-Apé, purportedly traveled throughout North America and found a waterway linking the Mississippi with the Pacific. The story first appeared in Dumont’s Mémoires de la Louisiane, where Maury likely encountered it. Three decades before Dumont, Coxe’s Carolana anticipated the story of Moncacht-Apé in much of its geographical detail. Since Maury read Coxe’s Carolana at Fry’s home, he suspected that the book had incited Fry’s scheme to cross the Alleghenies and discover a waterway to the Pacific, a scheme abandoned with the onset of the French and Indian War. The war prompted Maury to take caution sending this letter. He instructed his messenger to throw the letter overboard in case of danger. Maury may have exaggerated the danger, yet he obviously relished the thrill of intrigue. He kept apprised of the war through its duration and later acquired a copy of the Dublin edition of William Livingston’s account of the war, Review of the Military Operations in North America.
Maury’s letter shows the different ways books could be used, all of which anticipate ways Jefferson would use his. Books of history, geography, and travel gave readers information regarding what was known and what had been accomplished, yet they also let them dream: to imagine the unknown and to foresee what could be accomplished. Books in colonial Virginia also functioned as social capital. Bookmen in colonial Virginia not only knew their own collections, but also familiarized themselves with their friends’ and neighbors’ libraries. A fine collection of books gave its owner great status in the region. A home with a superior library became a locus for interested, intelligent Virginians. Sharing a private library with houseguests became a part of Virginia hospitality.
Advocated in his pedagogical theory and exemplified in his own writings, Maury’s appreciation of the power of the English language follows a trajectory in Anglo-American literary culture that begins with Paradise Lost. Milton’s decision to write his great poem in English instead of Latin reflects his enthusiasm for his native language. Evidence suggests that Jefferson was reading Milton under Maury’s tutelage, too. Entries in his commonplace book written around the time he spent with Maury contain numerous quotations from Paradise Lost.40 From the first book of the poem, for instance, Jefferson copied the following:
—What tho the Field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And Study of Revenge, immortal Hate
And Courage never to submit or yield.
These lines come from a speech by Satan, who, having just been thrown from Heaven, is attempting to rouse his minions to action. Jefferson clearly appreciated these words of rebellion and bravado. He would remember them all his life. In a letter he wrote a half century later, he found these same lines from Paradise Lost appropriate and quoted them again.41
Though Maury enhanced Jefferson’s appreciation of the English language, he was fueling flames kindled by Jefferson’s boyhood reading of belletristic essays in his father’s library. Maury’s most important contribution to Jefferson’s education remains the classical knowledge he gave him. In a letter to Joseph Priestley, Jefferson ably conveyed his love of ancient languages:
I think the Greeks and Romans have left us the purest models which exist of fine composition, whether we examine them as works of reason, or of style and fancy; and to them we probably owe these characteristics of modern composition. I know of no composition of any other antient people which merits the least regard as a model for its matter or style. To all this I add that to read the Latin and Greek authors in their original is a sublime luxury; and I deem luxury in science to be at least as justifiable as in architecture, painting, gardening or the other arts.
I enjoy Homer in his own language infinitely beyond Pope’s translation of him, and both beyond the dull narrative of the same events by Dares Phrygius; and it is an innocent enjoyment.42
Conveying a preference for classical Greek and modern English verse over the pre-Homeric history of the Trojan War attributed to Dares of Phyrigia, Jefferson revealed his belief that when it came to literature, quality superseded genre. It is better to read good poetry than bad history. His preference indicates the enduring impact of his teacher, the Reverend James Maury. By the time Jefferson left Maury, the same epithet he applied to his teacher could be applied to Jefferson himself: he had become a correct, classical scholar.
CHAPTER 4
William and Mary
Christmas 1759 found Jefferson at the home of Nathaniel West Dandridge, where, coincidentally, Patrick Henry was also spending the holiday. The two had never met. Jefferson was sixteen, Henry twenty-three. Henry was at an unsettled time in his life. He had tried being a shopkeeper and a farmer but failed in both pursuits. Yet to realize his true calling as a lawyer, he may have started reading law this holiday season. If so, he told Jefferson nothing about it. Regardless, Henry refused to let his professional uncertainty dampen his holiday spirits. Jefferson found him dancing, fiddling, and regaling others with fanciful tales.
The serious-minded Jefferson regretted Henry’s apparent inability to participate in the intellectual conversations that were taking place among those gathered at the Dandridges that Christmas. Among their well-educated guests, the talk frequently turned to the sciences, but Henry showed little knowledge of them. Jefferson gave him the benefit of the doubt, surmising that the occasion of the holidays “prevented his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure either of his mind or information.”1
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