Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

STUDIES - András Tarnóc: "Jefferson Still Survives".

creation of a university, a "future bulwark of the human mind in the Western Hemisphere".

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1 Jefferson was involved in all phases of the building process including planning, fund-raising, organizing and as Whitehill asserted: the University of Virginia represented the pinnacle of his career as an architect.

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2 He was the school's first rector as well enabling him to control all aspects of academic life at Charlottesville. The university was part of a two stage educational system where primary schools taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and history to provide a foundation for entry to higher education. The University offered instruction in ten fields: Ancient and Modern Languages, Mathematics, Physico-Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Botany, Medicine, Government, Law and Ideology. Jefferson viewed education as a means of self-improvement not only for the individual but society as well as he wrote: "Nothing more than education advances the power, the prosperity and the happiness of a nation."

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3 Whereas the Declaration of Independence, the Statute for Virginia of Religious Freedom and the University of Virginia are arguably among the greatest achievements of humanity, a complete picture of the man must include his inconsistencies as well. Historians found Jefferson's achilles heel in his ownership of slaves. Douglas L. Wilson tackles the paradox of Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence and a slave holder arguing that such criticism is a result of a faulty view of history called presentism, or judging the past through the standards of the present.

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4 It is beyond doubt that some of Jefferson's writings might appear racist to today's observer. In his "Notes on Virginia" Jefferson argued that 1

1 Walter Muir Whitehill, "Thomas Jefferson. Architect," in Thomas Jefferson. The Man. His World. His Influence ed. Lally Weymouth (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1973), p. 176. 1

2 Ibid., p. 177. 1

3 Thomas Jefferson, Writings (The Library of America, 1984), p. 462. 1

4 Douglas L.Wilson, "Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue," in Jefferson Anniversary Series (United States Information Service, 1993) 123