The Jefferson Lies (9 page)

Today's writers frequently describe Locke as a deist (or at least a follower of an early form of deism),
³⁸
but historians of earlier generations described him as a Christian theologian.
³⁹
After all, Locke wrote a verse-by-verse commentary on Paul's Epistles
⁴⁰
and also compiled a topical Bible, called a
Common Place-Book to the Holy Bible
,
⁴¹
that listed verses by subject for easy study reference. And when antireligionists attacked Christianity, Locke defended it in his book
The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures
(1695).
⁴²
When attacks continued, Locke responded with
A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity
(1695)
⁴³
and then with
A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity
(1697).
⁴⁴
Furthermore, in his
Two Treatises of Government
(1689)—the work specifically relied upon by Jefferson and the other Founders as they drafted the Declaration
⁴⁵
—Locke invoked the Bible over 1,500 times.
⁴⁶

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Jefferson studied not only Locke's governmental and legal writings but also his theological texts. His own personal summation of Locke's view of Christianity clearly shows that he definitely did not consider Locke to be a deist. According to Jefferson:

Locke's system of Christianity is this: Adam was created happy & immortal. . . . By sin he lost this so that he became subject to total death (like that of brutes [animals]) to the crosses & unhappiness of this life. At the intercession however of the Son of God this sentence was in part remitted. . . . And moreover to them who believed their faith was to be counted for righteousness [Romans 4:3, 5]. Not that faith without works was to save them; St. James, chapter 2 says expressly the contrary [v. 14–26]. . . . So that a reformation of life (included under repentance) was essential, & defects in this would be made up by their faith; i.e. their faith should be counted for righteousness [Romans 4:3, 5]. . . . [A]dding a faith in God & His attributes that on their repentance He would pardon them [1 John 1:9]; they also would be justified [Romans 3:24]. This then explains the text “there is no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved” [Acts 4:12], i.e., the defects in good works shall not be supplied by a faith in Mahomet, Fo [i.e., Buddha], or any other except Christ.
⁴⁷

Francis Bacon, Issac Newton, and John Locke—each an outspoken Christian thinker and philosopher—were described by Jefferson as “the three greatest men the world has ever produced.”
⁴⁸

So, to the question of whether Jefferson rejected his own personal educational experience because it had been so thoroughly infused with religion, the answer is a clear “No!” Jefferson was involved with many educational endeavors throughout his life, and he consistently took deliberate actions to include religious instruction in each.

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For example, when a grammar school was being established in Jefferson's area in 1783, he wrote to the Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon, the head of Princeton (a university that trained Presbyterians for Gospel ministry), to request one of Witherspoon's students as an instructor for the school.
⁴⁹
In 1792 Jefferson again wrote the Reverend Witherspoon about another local school “in hopes that your seminary . . . may furnish some person whom you could recommend” to be the assistant to “the head of a school of considerable reputation in Virginia.”
⁵⁰

What would Jefferson expect from students trained by the Reverend Dr. Witherspoon? Certainly not a secular approach to education. On the contrary, not only did Witherspoon teach the Scottish Common Sense philosophy, but he also specifically instructed his students:

That he is the best friend to American liberty who is the most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.
⁵¹

When Jefferson needed teachers for schools in his area, he called on a leading religious educator to send him religiously trained instructors.

In 1794, after Jefferson had returned home from serving as secretary of state for President George Washington, he contacted a member of the Virginia legislature about bringing the Geneva Academy from Europe to Virginia. The Geneva Academy was established in 1559 by Reformation theologian John Calvin.
⁵²
In this school, the Bible was an indispensable textbook and students from the school became missionaries all over Europe;
⁵³
and Jefferson wanted to bring this famous religious school to his state.

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In 1803, while serving as president, Jefferson met with Presbyterian minister Gideon Blackburn at the White House about opening a missionary school for Cherokees near Knoxville, Tennessee. The school was to include religious instruction as a primary part of its studies, and President Jefferson directed Secretary of War Henry Dearborn to give federal money to help the school achieve its objectives.
⁵⁴

In 1804 President Jefferson negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. With authority over that region transferring from the French to the Americans, those living there were uncertain as to what changes might result. Sister Therese Farjon, Mother Superior of a Catholic school and convent in New Orleans, therefore wrote President Jefferson asking what the status of their religious school would now be under American government. Jefferson responded:

Your institution . . . by training up its young members in the way they should go [Proverbs 22:6], cannot fail to ensure it
the patronage [support] of the government
it is under. Be assured that it will meet with all the protection my office can give it.
⁵⁵
(emphasis added)

In 1805 President Jefferson was elected head of the board of trustees for the brand new Washington, DC, public schools.
⁵⁶
He told the city council that he would “willingly undertake the duties proposed to me—so far as others of paramount obligation will permit my attention to them”;
⁵⁷
that is, he would do what he could for the city schools with the caveat that his presidential duties came first. Robert Brent, therefore, served as head of the trustees, instead of Jefferson, but as trustee, Jefferson did contribute much to the new school system and is credited with being “the chief author of the first plan of public education adopted for the city of Washington.”
⁵⁸
When the first report of the Washington public schools was released to demonstrate the progress of the students in the new schools, it noted:

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Fifty-five have learned to read in the Old and New Testaments and are all able to spell words of three, four, and five syllables; twenty-six are now learning to read Dr. Watts'
Hymns
and spell words of two syllables; ten are learning words of four and five letters. Of fifty-nine out of the whole number admitted [enrolled] that did not know a single letter, twenty can now read the Bible and spell words of three, four, and five syllables; twenty-nine read Dr. Watts'
Hymns
and spell words of two syllables; and ten, words of four and five letters.
⁵⁹

Additionally, during the same time that Jefferson was working with the DC public school system, the board on which he served approved two of the schools being run by ministers, the Reverend Robert Elliott and the Reverend Richard White.
⁶⁰
The Reverend Elliott was also allowed to use the school building concurrently as a meeting place for his church.
⁶¹

In short, Jefferson was involved with many educational endeavors prior to establishing the University of Virginia in 1819, and in none of them was there any attempt to exclude religious instruction. To the contrary—in each case he took intentional steps to include or preserve it. So with this background, what about the four oft-repeated claims about Jefferson excluding religion from the university he founded?

1. Was the University of Virginia Founded as a Secular University?

Three distinctive features characterized universities founded in America prior to Jefferson's University of Virginia. Those universities (1) were founded and controlled by one particular denomination, (2) housed theological seminaries for training ministers for that specific denomination, and (3) had prominent ministers from that denomination serving as president of the university.

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Reflective of this pattern, in 1636 Harvard was founded by and for
Congregationalists
to train Congregationalist ministers (so, too, with Yale in 1701 and Dartmouth in 1769). In 1692 the College of William and Mary was founded by and for the
Anglicans
to train Anglican ministers (as was the University of Pennsylvania in 1740, Kings College in 1754, and the College of Charleston in 1770). In 1746 Princeton was founded by and for
Presbyterians
(as was Dickinson in 1773 and Hampden-Sydney in 1775). In 1764 the College of Rhode Island (now Brown University) was founded by and for the
Baptists
. In 1766 Queens College (now Rutgers) was founded by and for the
Dutch Reformed
. In 1780 Transylvania University was founded by and for the
Disciples of Christ
, and so on.

Departing from this pattern, Jefferson and his Board of Visitors (or regents) specifically founded the University of Virginia to be America's first transdenominational school—a school not affiliated with one specific denomination but rather one that would train students from all denominations. By so doing, Jefferson was actually implementing the plan advocated by evangelical Presbyterian clergyman Samuel Knox of Baltimore.

In 1799 the Reverend Knox penned a policy paper proposing the formation of a state university that would invite many denominations to establish multiple theological schools rather than just one, so they would work together in mutual Christian cooperation rather than competition.
⁶²
Jefferson agreed with Knox's philosophy, and it was this model that he employed at his University of Virginia. (In fact, Jefferson invited the Reverend Knox to be the very
first
professor at the university,
⁶³
but because of a miscommunication, Knox did not respond to the offer in a timely fashion, so his teaching slot was finally offered to someone else.
⁶⁴
)

With its transdenominational model, the University of Virginia did not incorporate the three features so commonly associated with other universities at that time. This has caused modern critics to claim that it was founded as a secular university—a claim that will be shown to be completely false. Nearly forty years earlier in 1779, Jefferson had already demonstrated his affinity for this type of interdenominational cooperation and Christian nonpreferentialism in his famous Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which disestablished the Anglican Church as the official denomination of Virginia and instead welcomed all denominations with equal legal standing.

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The charter for the new university had been issued by the state legislature, so the school was required to conform to the denominational nonpreferentialism set forth not only in the Virginia Statute but also in the Virginia Constitution—another document that Jefferson had helped author. But many today wrongly misinterpret Jefferson's denominational nonpreferentialism to be secularism, and they also erroneously point to what Jefferson did with his own alma mater's Professor of Divinity as another alleged “proof” of his commitment to religion-free education.

In 1779, when Jefferson became governor of Virginia, he was placed on the board of William and Mary. At that time he introduced legislation to recast the school—an accomplishment known as the Jefferson Reorganization. According to Professor Leonard Levy of Oregon State University:

Jefferson's first proposal on higher education came in 1779. His Bill for the Amending of the Constitution of the College of William and Mary stated that the college consisted of “one school of sacred theology, with two professorships therein, to wit, one for teaching the Hebrew tongue, and expounding the Holy Scriptures; and the other for explaining the commonplaces of Divinity and controversies with heretics.” . . . Jefferson proposed to abolish . . . the school of theology with its professorships of religion.
⁶⁵

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Did Jefferson indeed propose to abolish “the school of theology with its professorships of religion”? Apparently so, for Jefferson himself acknowledged:

I effected, during my residence in Williamsburg that year, a change in the organization of that institution by abolishing . . . the two professorships of Divinity.
⁶⁶

So it appears that Professor Levy was right—that Jefferson did seek to secularize higher education. At least it appears that way until one reads the rest of Jefferson's explanation, and then it becomes evident that his intention was exactly the opposite. Jefferson explained:

The College of William and Mary was an establishment purely of the Church of England; the Visitors [i.e., Regents] were required to be all of that Church; the professors to subscribe its thirty-nine [doctrinal] Articles; its students to learn its [Anglican] Catechism; and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be to raise up ministers for that church [i.e., the Anglican Church]. The religious jealousies, therefore, of all the Dissenters [those from other denominations] took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy to the Anglican sect.
⁶⁷