Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
“Madison, it seems, wanted us to be educated, so that we would not be so easily fooled. In 1810, in the annual message to Congress, he proposed what he called a national Seminary of Learning. “Whilst it is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people,” he told them, “… the additional instruction emanating from [the seminary] would contribute not less to strengthen the foundations, than to adorn the structure, of our free and happy system of government....” Later, not long before his death, he wrote to the Kentucky legislator William Barry that “learned institutions … throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty…. They multiply the educated individuals from among whom the people may elect a due portion of their public agents of every description.”
An educated people is a self-governing people, Madison believed. That was why he and Thomas Jefferson spent so much time developing the University of Virginia, Madison organizing the project after Jefferson’s death.MoreLess
An educated people is a self-governing people, Madison believed. That was why he and Thomas Jefferson spent so much time developing the University of Virginia, Madison organizing the project after Jefferson’s death.MoreLess
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