ABSTRACT
Traditional assumptions regarding religion and philosophy—the latter then encompassing the domains of the natural and physical sciences, politics, economics, psychology, educational theory, and more—were altered in dramatic and profound ways by Enlightenment doctrines. American Education middle of the eighteenth century Franklin had encouraged his fellow citizens in Philadelphia to create a new type of school, an academy that would offer practical as well as classical studies. Thomas Jefferson's commitment to the idea of a system of education based on public support grew directly out of his concept of classical democracy and his vision of America as a virtuous and enlightened republic. The extension of a basic degree of education to the citizenry was necessary, wrote Jefferson to John Adams, in order "to raise the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government." American Education to the well-meaning charity of a concerned citizen benefactor.
