Progress of mankind

A life spent horse-racing, gaming, and lording in a slave plantation did not prepare a Virginian son for higher education. Disciplined study was shunned and raised eyebrows. In Thomas Jefferson’s Education, Alan Taylor uncovers the hostility between two classes of men: the learned teachers who demanded seriousness vs. the fathers who indulged their sons. Preserving the habits of man has a longer history than furthering the progress of mankind.