Jefferson, education, architecture and the separation of church & state (updated)
Some of the recent posts here about Dominionist wingnuts brought to mind a documentary on Thomas Jefferson I watched a while back. Not only was Jefferson crystal clear in his writings regarding his thoughts on the separation of church & state, but he seems to have carried the same message right into his architecture as well.
I never realized that… maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. I think I need to watch that documentary again.
Father of a university
After leaving the Presidency, Jefferson continued to be active in public affairs. He also became increasingly concerned with founding a new institution of higher learning, specifically one free of church influences where students could specialize in many new areas not offered at other universities. Jefferson believed educating people was a good way to establish an organized society, and felt schools should be paid for by the general public, so less wealthy people could obtain student membership as well. A letter to Joseph Priestley, in January 1800, indicated that he had been planning the University for decades before its establishment.
His dream was realized in 1819 with the founding of the University of Virginia. Upon its opening in 1825, it was then the first university to offer a full slate of elective courses to its students. One of the largest construction projects to that time in North America, it was notable for being centered about a library rather than a church. No campus chapel was included in his original plans. Until his death, Jefferson invited students and faculty of the school to his home.
Jefferson is widely recognized for his architectural planning of the University of Virginia grounds, an innovative design that is a powerful representation of his aspirations for both state sponsored education and an agrarian democracy in the new Republic. His educational idea of creating specialized units of learning is physically expressed in the configuration of his campus plan, which he called the “Academical Village.” Individual academic units are expressed visually as distinct structures, represented by Pavilions, facing a grassy quadrangle, with each Pavilion housing classroom, faculty office, and homes. Though unique, each is visually equal in importance, and they are linked with a series of open air arcades that are the front facades of student accommodations. Gardens and vegetable plots are placed behind and surrounded by serpentine walls, affirming the importance of the agrarian lifestyle.
His highly ordered site plan establishes an ensemble of buildings surrounding a central rectangular quadrangle, named The Lawn, which is lined on either side with the academic teaching units and their linking arcades. The quad is enclosed at one end with the library, the repository of knowledge, at the head of the table. The remaining side opposite the library remained open-ended for future growth. The lawn rises gradually as a series of stepped terraces, each a few feet higher than the last, rising up to the library set in the most prominent position at the top, while also suggesting that the Academical Village facilitates easier movement to the future.
Stylistically, Jefferson was a proponent of the Greek and Roman styles, which he believed to be most representative of American democracy by historical association. Each academic unit is designed with a two story temple front facing the quadrangle, while the library is modeled on the Roman Pantheon. The ensemble of buildings surrounding the quad is an unmistakable architectural statement of the importance of secular public education, while the exclusion of religious structures reinforces the principle of separation of church and state. The campus planning and architectural treatment remains today as a paradigm of building of structures to express intellectual ideas and aspirations. A survey of members of the American Institute of Architects identified Jefferson’s campus as the most significant work of architecture in America.
It’s no wonder the wingnuts on the Texas Board of Ed cut him out of their textbooks and Sharron Angle claims he was misquoted—opposing points of view can’t be tolerated. Sounds familiar…
Update: Upon doing a little more online research, I came across the book Early history of the University of Virginia (as contained in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell). Searching the contents of the book for “religion” turns up additional interesting passages on Jefferson’s intent with regard to religious freedom in relation to the university.
The U of V also has a page of quotes by Jefferson regarding the importance of publicly supported education for maintaining liberty and an orderly, healthy society. Regarding religion in schools:
“The want of instruction in the various creeds of religious faith existing among our citizens presents… a chasm in a general institution of the useful sciences. But it was thought that this want, and the entrustment to each society of instruction in its own doctrine, were evils of less danger than a permission to the public authorities to dictate modes or principles of religious instruction, or than opportunities furnished them by giving countenance or ascendancy to any one sect over another.” —Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1822. ME 19:414
“After stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there and have the free use of our library and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences… And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.” —Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1822. ME 15:405
Last but not least, the American Institute of Architects has a page about the restoration of the U of V. Out of a total of 890 properties, it is one of only three universities to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university says the restorations—to be performed by their own tradespeople—are sure to spark some debate, but that’s part of what Jefferson intended:
While the President and the Board of Visitors have supported this restoration as a tribute to Jefferson’s design, it is with the knowledge that Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the University of Virginia, as well as its original architect and planner; and that he intended his designs to be didactic and to support discussions about architecture among future generations of students and faculty.
I know the man had his faults—who doesn’t?—but the more I learn about him, the more I appreciate his vision and the more annoyed I am with the knuckle-dragging morons who would twist his words and deny students the opportunity to study his ideas.