ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 17, 1997 TAG: 9702170068
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD T. La POINTE
ALTHOUGH George Washington lacked the formal education of a Thomas Jefferson or a John Adams, he turned the little schooling he had to good account, and thereby forged a brilliant career and a nation's destiny.
The earliest surviving papers of Washington are his school exercises. Only in mathematics was he trained beyond the elementary level, and the pride he took in these studies is still visible in his copybooks. One biographer notes, "his calligraphy and mathematical diagrams show conscious artistry as well as care."
He learned his craft well enough that while still a young man, he was a successful surveyor with enough experience of the frontier to pave the way to military service and more.
Although he achieved the nation's highest office, Washington was always a little conscious about what he himself called "a defective education." As the first president, he would take advantage of the office to speak forcefully of the new nation's need to foster educational opportunity.
In his very first address to Congress, in 1790, he urged its members to promote "Science and Literature." Returning to this theme in his farewell address of 1796, Washington advised the American people to "Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge ... for it is important that public opinion should be enlightened."
Many schools and colleges then in existence benefited from Washington's commitment to education. The same year he resigned the presidency, George Washington made the largest gift any private educational institution had ever received in America. In Lexington, Liberty Hall Academy was saved from the brink of bankruptcy by Washington's gift of stock valued at $50,000. The school was renamed Washington College out of gratitude (later changed to Washington and Lee), and the endowment he donated continues to generate income there today.
He also contributed "50 guineas" to the founding of Washington College in Chester, Md. (chartered in 1782), and served on its Board of Visitors and Governors. His donation was used to purchase "an Elegant Air-Pump and some optical Instruments" - the modest beginnings of a modern science department.
Washington demonstrated time and again his sincere hope that education would become accessible to ever-increasing numbers of Americans, including women, Native Americans and the poor. What education privileged young Virginians of his day managed to receive was usually through small private schools operating within one family or small neighborhood, or privately endowed parish schools. The poor and orphans without property were usually apprenticed out, generally with the understanding that they would learn some basic reading and writing along with their trade.
It was therefore both generous and fairly unusual for Washington to donate, as he did, $4,000 "towards the support of a Free school ... for the purpose of Educating such Orphan children, or the children of such other poor and indigent persons as are unable to accomplish it with their own means." On another occasion, he privately gave a modest amount to a charity school in New York City headed by one Reverend Livingston.
As president in 1791, he proposed in a letter to the Senecas the teaching of modern agricultural methods to that people, "if agreeable to the Nation at large to learn those arts." Two years later, he approved annual federal funding "for the support of a School among the Indians at Brother town [Philadelphia]."
Earlier, in 1788, Washington had written to the headmistress of an Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, wishing her success and agreeing to try to visit the school as a show of support, at "the first or some subsequent exhibition of the Pupils of your Institution."
Perhaps Washington's most moving display of generosity in the realm of education came in response to a letter from a revolutionary war veteran, the Rev. Hezekiah Balch. His congregation might be poor, the preacher wrote, but they were steadfast patriots. "It was my congregation, and their neighbors, who under providence, defeated Forgueson [sic], at King's Mountain. But if our children are to be brot up in ignorance, we cannot expect that they will understand the nature of true liberty."
Knowing the impact his name could have at the top of a donor list for an educational fund, Washington sent the then-generous amount of $100.
Like Thomas Jefferson after him, Washington made education a foremost priority. He devoted his time and resources to expanding educational opportunities for Americans. "Knowledge," Washington wrote, "is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." His presidential leadership in this realm went far toward establishing our democracy on solid educational foundations.
Today, Virginia continues building those solid foundations through the new, more rigorous academic standards recently adopted by the Board of Education. Judged by many to be among the strongest statewide standards in the United States, the new academic learning standards again place Virginia in the forefront of education in this country. Washington would be proud.
Richard T. La Pointe is Virginia's superintendent of public instruction.
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