This statement "cultivate their morals, & instil into them the precepts of virtue & order" stood out to me for a myriad of reasons. One of the reasons centered around the fact that at UVA's institutionalization, women and African Americans were denied admittance into the school. Thus when the authors put the statement "cultivate their morals, & instil into them the precepts of virtue & order", to me it sounds like they were trying to shape their students morals at the time into ones that believed their wasn't equal rights for all. In addition to this statement it also sounds like the authors are telling their students that women and African Americans are inferior to them.

This statement in particular has been prevalent for me during my time at UVA. During my time in the Engagements thus far, I have been exposed to different topics and ideas that have made me reflect on information that I thought was true in the past or had not thought about before. A great example of this would be in my Engagement "Telling the Truth" that I am taking this semester. Before taking the class, I never thought about how complex and in some cases impossible it is to discover and record total truth. With that being said, I also never thought of truth as an idea that was different than facts.

As I read the Rockfish gap report, I found this statement surprising. Why would agreeing on a location for the University of Virginia be the commissioners' first objective? To me, it would seem if you planned to establish an elite University that you had hoped would thrive, your first objective could've been what would be the University's values or future goals be. Second instead of focusing on the buildings to be featured on the grounds, the Commissioners should have focused on the steps needed to accomplish these aforementioned goals. Only after these two goals were addressed would the commissioners be able to determine the location of University of Virginia. Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, the University's location wouldn't play nearly as pivotal of a role as the University's values and goals would. As a result, when I read this statement, it just reinforced the fact that the Commissioners priorities were not in the right place. Instead of focusing on finding a way to create a institution that gave equal opportunity to all races and genders, they decided to focus on the location of the University instead. While this is heartbreaking, it is not surprising.

"To understand his duties to his neighbours, and country" is an extremely controversial quote by Jefferson here. If one of the duties expressed in the Constitution was to "establish justice", then why would it's leader and founder, Thomas Jefferson, not allow African American students into the University and be seen to some as a proponent of slavery. If he was trying to lead as an example and teach other UVA students to "understand their duties to his neighbors", than abolishing slavery and establishing equality would be one of those duties. To not fulfill this duty would ultimately be a disservice to America.