“Liberty is the nice guardian of science and advantage,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a 1789 letter to the President of Harvard. “A nation can be nice in each all the time in proportion as it’s free.”
Jefferson taught our nation to treasure freedom.
Some historians name him the president who most beloved liberty — and it’s no coincidence he was additionally the president with the best ardour for books.
Jefferson’s private library — hundreds of volumes — grew to become the premise of our modern-day Library of Congress.
Hulton Archive/Getty Photos/TNS
Thomas Jefferson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Photos/TNS)
Our third president was a person of each science and advantage. He was deeply discovered in fields as various as structure, botany, legislation, arithmetic and music. His legacy was the custom of restricted authorities and particular person accountability that guides us again to our true north when America will get off observe.
I’d wish to recall the motivations of males like Jefferson, who produced the textual coronary heart of America’s political custom: the Declaration of Independence.
I’d like to think about why the boys whom we honor as founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in the reason for liberty.
There can solely be one motive — one drive that would compel such threat and sacrifice for a legacy lasting 250 years. And that motive is … love.
That’s proper — it wasn’t simply adherence to their concepts, measurement of their egos, or some hope of revenue that drove them. It was their love that might convey forth a brand new nation — love that they hoped would carry her via the centuries.
Many People in our time, particularly of the youngest generations, would hear the phrase “love of nation” and discover it unusual or awkward. A latest ballot discovered that solely 41% of Era Z (born 1997‑2012) are “very proud” or “extraordinarily proud” to be American. And that’s simply delight in America. Not to mention love of America.
Real love for this nation has grow to be rarer at this time, and actually, radical hatred has grow to be extra widespread.
The love of freedom is the muse of studying.
Because of this the Roman philosophers named the “liberal arts” for the Latin phrase which means “free.” The civic function of schooling is to show college students learn how to be residents of a free nation.
When college students don’t consider in freedom — don’t share in it, don’t worth it — there’s little to like concerning the Land of the Free. Little to like about America.
Freedom is the valuable reward our nation offers us, and love is what we owe in return.
Of all of the targets we have now for our schooling system, studying to breathe the recent air of freedom — to savor it in each poem, athletic competitors, and historical past e book — is maybe crucial.
Sure, much more essential than excellence in math and science. Much more essential than marketable abilities. When college students study to like freedom, they’ll study to like America.
The best scientists of any age have all the time been these most enthusiastic about their discipline — most drawn to the transcendence mirrored of their research — these whose lives had been as nice as their work.
The identical is true for the statesmen, philosophers, heroes and judges we admire all through historical past. Which brings us again to the founders who had been devoted to the aim of patriotic civics schooling on this nation.
Those that have devoted their lives to patriotic schooling know that there’s a golden thread working via the historical past of Western civilization, that we should educate our college students to acknowledge and observe. Irrespective of how difficult the labyrinth of contemporary politics turns into, that thread will lead us via.
We should cherish the ideas that outline America. We should share with our founders their love of freedom.
Behind the studying of outdated paperwork, the memorizing of poetry, and the charting of constitutional processes, is the aim and purpose of appreciating and making use of this love of America to our lives from an early age.
It’s one factor to study cursive and skim the Declaration of Independence (as each pupil ought to!). It’s one other to understand why 56 males risked the whole lot for what it stated, and to like as they did, in a method that conjures up sacrifice.
Patriotic schooling doesn’t imply propaganda to provide blind allegiance to the federal government. The patriotism of the Revolution was the other of blind allegiance.
Actual patriotic schooling signifies that simply as our founders beloved and honored America, so we must always honor them, whereas deeply studying and earnestly debating their concepts.
Linda McMahon is the U.S. Secretary of Training. This column, tailored from remarks on the opening of the PragerU Founders Museum exhibit final month, was initially revealed by RealClearEducation and made accessible through RealClearWire.
