The authors seem to emphasize the importance of understanding government and a free society a little more than the other objectives for education. Not only in this quote, but later in the objectives they discuss people becoming legislators and judges, the students being able to "expound the principles and structure of government" and for them to be able to participate in that kind of society by understanding "duties to his neighbors and country". This emphasis makes a lot of sense considering how young of a country the U.S. was and so understanding a more experimental form of government, one that hadn't been proven to work yet, was probably seen as incredibly useful for students to the authors of the Rockfish Gap.

A recent article in the Cavalier Daily discusses how board of visitors get their seats. The governor of Virginia is able to appoint the members of the UVa board making the process of being appointed to the board potentially politically charged. According to the article, there are currently 10 out of 12 voting Board members from Virginia that have donated to democratic campaigns in the past few elections. One member is later cited saying that there is strain on their "ability to understand the university's key issues and factors influencing long-term financial and policy strategy" due to "party changes in the governor's mansion". The political nature of UVa's board appointment process makes me wonder if the way that it is carried out today is the way that Thomas Jefferson and other authors of the Rockfish Gap report intended when vesting important matters to the Board.

I think this particular phrasing is really interesting and telling of the importance of men, especially strong men that can fit into a certain gender role, in the culture of the U.S. in 1818. After explaining about teaching men military tactics during extracurriculars, there is an explanation that at a time in a young man's life when he is attempting to learn about manhood ("emulation of the practices of manhood"), they will have the best chance of creating men that are prepared for the military. While this was obviously written without women in mind as UVa was founded as an all men's university it's striking that one of these founding documents of the University not only supports stereotypical gender roles of its time through its rhetoric, but actually emphasizes the teaching of manhood itself and taking time out of the day to instruct manhood through "manual exercise, military manuevres, and tactics".

The commitment to accepting those of all religions within the proposed UVa community displays resounding support for the document, "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom", which was written in 1779. This bill states that: "our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy...unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right;". In that particular quote, constitutional rights and choice of religion are not tied together and have "no dependance" on one another. The Rockfish Gap report continues and demands religious freedom by having no professor of divinity and instead focusing on ethics. "The Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" can serve as a precedent for the Rockfish Gap report as it's purpose is to provide all citizens with their natural rights, which is an important example for the founding of a community at UVa.