4 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2017
    1. , would weigh heavily with parents in sending their sons to a school so distant as the Central establishment would be from most of them. Districts of such extent as that every parent should be within a days journey of his son at school, would be desirable in cases of sickness, and convenient for supplying their Ordinary wants and might be made to lessen sensibly the expense of this part of their education.

      I thought this part was interesting because it differs heavily from today. One of the things that concerned me most about going to college was the distance from my parents. I am extremely close to my family and moving away from them for the first time was so terrifying. However, many kids nowadays make the decision to go to school out of state because they want independence. Perhaps this shows that children today are growing up faster than back then. Nonetheless, I relate more to the document because I would have loved it if UVA was in my hometown. I still feel the effects of homesickness and can definitely understand why the founders would want the school to be in Charlottesville (this is where most of the white population was and had the "best" resources landwise/moneywise).

    2. he commissioners were first to consider at what point it was understood that university education should commence?

      Since university education was a relatively new phenomena, it is natural that the makers would question how to begin. Listed in the document are about ten reasons for primary education. What really interested me was that all of those reasons are still applicable to today's society but back then they were only pertinent to men. Although women stopped their education much earlier than men, it has always been a bit unsettling to me as to how society could exclude women from this privilege so blatantly. The expression of "his" and "himself" and "he" make it obvious who the audience is. My class is about Making the Invisible Visible and the language used in this section makes people's "hidden" prejudices quite clear. After reading the article, I felt so appreciative that I am given the chance to go to school; something that everyone should have.

  2. Oct 2017
    1. What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbours? and what chains them to their present state of barbarism & wretchedness, but a besotted veneration for the supposed supe[r]lative wisdom of their fathers and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization.

      While I was reading the paper, I was quite disgusted by the diction utilized. For example, the labeling of Native Americans as “indigenous,” and living in “barbarism and wretchedness” are just plain racist. What makes the white population any better? The paper goes on to say that the Native Americans should “indulge in the degeneracies of civilization” but what exactly do the authors of the report believe civilization is? To me, it is a community of people fostering each other’s growth and doing everything to support one another. However, the civilization in the 19th century stifled the growth of many, only to support the wealthy and white. That’s barbaric, not eating acorns. The paper explains that education is the main difference between the Native Americans and the civilized. Nonetheless, the education that the students received was the source of the divisions. It flooded their minds with racist notions and a feeling of superiority. Funnily enough, even if the Native Americans tried to become part of their civilization, they would simply be categorized as the lowest of the low and isolated.

    2. Education generates habits of application, order and the love of virtue; and controuls,

      This portion of the report is extremely interesting because it is both ironic and puzzling. Throughout the paper, ideas of bettering mankind, as well as furthering society are key points. However, we must ask, “who is included in this society?”. The most obvious answer being rich white men. The paper goes on to say that education will instill order and virtue in its subjects. This is such a paradox because although white men were the most educated at the time of UVA’s founding, they were also the most brutal. Most owned slaves and although they were not allowed to bring their own slaves to university, they treated the school’s slaves terribly, exhibiting their complete lack of morals. However, the education they received may have been complementary to the way they treated the slaves. The paper praises education as being “handed down for successive and constant accumulation”. Perhaps the university instructed its students in a way to keep racism and the social hierarchy alive. The idea of education gifting “a new man on the native stock” is a blatant lie. In truth, each one of the students were bred to disregard blacks and to treat them mercilessly. The social order and division of classes would continue, and the virtue of the day was to remember one’s role in society. Reading the paper in our times makes the invisible visible. By analyzing the past and knowing what went wrong allows us to see all of the hidden agendas within the report and bring them to life, namely that of disguising racism so much that it became a natural component of institutions.