The first part of this clause outlines that UVA is not going to be a place of meritocracy; it is for those that wish to become distinguished in their future as a scholar. It follows with a suggestion, that these people may also come from backgrounds not traditionally fit for academia. In this age, there was no public school and only the wealthy children were put into schools. But here, Jefferson and the other founders are suggesting that these kids may also be the future scholars and they should make specific accommodations in their curriculum for these children. I think this is realized to this day with programs such as "Access UVA" which give financial aid to all those that need it to come to UVA.

Such topics are interesting to be included in a general curriculum. I believe it supports the idea that when the school was being founded, the goal was to create scholars instead of specialists. We coin this today as a "liberal arts" education. However, today we do not study things such as optics because they are no longer needed for the average person - no longer are telescopes, looking glasses, and glasses something that people use, develop, repair, etc. Instead, people specialize in such fields. This is required because the knowledge barrier to get into such fields is so much higher today due to the massive buildup of knowledge.

In my engagement, we have been analyzing the New Testament and whether it should be used in making ethical decisions. I think it's very important that UVA is not a religiously affiliated school. It allows for a more diverse group of people and therefore a better learning experience. If my engagement was filled with students who all supported and fully followed the New Testament, there wouldn't be much to discuss. Because we all come from different religious backgrounds and can contribute to conversations in different ways, we learn more about the world around us then if we were stuck in an institution with one religion.

I think this passage is extremely significant. The University was hoping to train and educated young people so that they could then go on to lead and run our country. They wanted the most educated people to help shape society because they hoped this University would give them good morals and teach them valuable lessons. I think this is ironic due to the fact that the majority of politicians working in the government have very corrupt morals. A lot of the people working in these offices lied their way to the top in an attempt to gain power. It's no surprise that our government has corruption in it. I think that if all Universities strove to really educate their students on good moral and values, we may try to prevent this corruption and obviously the authors of this document agree and tried to help create a government that would be beneficial to the country as a whole. Maybe we will be the generation to follow out their desires.

The idea of improving morals for the incoming students is a good step toward broadening the ideals of the new generation. However at the point that they come to the university they have already been trained in the thought of slave holder entitlement. These people will have the point of view of superiority and will block out opposing ideals and cover it with there own reasoning. There is also the issue of framing when it comes to information. The university obviously won't have access to a plethora of books right of the bat. But the information that is accessible will always be limited in that authors with perspectives that are too challenging won't be accepted into the university.

The emphasis of education is laid out in the form of the preparatory phases of higher learning. The foundation of the University would mean nothing without students who had a strong enough background to survive within it. Therefore the writers of the Rockfish Gap Report found it ideal that prerequisites be met before coming to the University. There is a deep resemblance between these ideals and the modern education system. If the values of education were taught at a younger age then we would eventually arrive at the point that we are at today. Where parents encourage the acquisition of a quality education which will advance society, rather than to stay home and work on a farm or join the army.

Putting aside the fact that it is absurd that the main necessity in a location for the university was to be in the middle of the white population, it surprised me that they'd even want the University to be so close to the white population. In my mind, college is a time to get away from what you know and to experience life on your own. Many students want to go as far from home as possible when attending college or at least far enough to have a fresh start and figure out their own path in life. So why then did the authors of this document wish to be in the center of the population they desired to attend their school? I'm not trying to draw away from the fact that they were only focused on white students and how racist that recruitment is, but if I were establishing the University, I would put the location away from the population I was trying to get to attend; this would draw them in and offer new experiences that they otherwise did not have in their hometowns. The probable reason they made this mistake is because they were too focused on race. It's sad that they were so focused on recruiting white people that they may have actually hurt their chances of recruiting that population or hindered the possibility of the students experiencing new environments. It just shows that their obsession with providing higher education to white students and not people of color is extremely problematic and ethically immoral even if the times were different than they are now. There were people back then who weren't racist so I think it is unfair to give people an excuse because of the time period.