Education of the Founding Fathers of the USA
I read Obama’s speech to the schoolchildren – and this line caught my immediate attention.
“It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation.”
I thought, “Really? The founding fathers sit where our schoolchildren sit today? I highly doubt it.” So, I researched some biographies of the men, considered to be the founders of the United States. I thought I’d share my information – gathered mostly from government resources, such as library of congress and such.
Benjamin Franklin attended school for a whole 2 years. That’s it.
George Washington’s education was rudimentary, probably being obtained from tutors.
Patrick Henry’s father, John Henry, educated young Patrick at home, Including teaching him to read Latin, but Patrick studied law on his own.
Thomas Jefferson began school at age 9, graduated 10 years later and studied law under a mentor, George Wythe until he began practicing himself.
John Adams, In his autobiography, wrote that he cared little for school, putting only minor effort into schoolwork and enjoyed all types of outdoor activities. He attended Harvard to later become a lawyer.
James Madison did not attend school, there were no public schools in Virginia at the time. Instead, his father secured the services of a Scottish tutor. Attended later, College of New Jersey.
Alexander Hamilton was denied education in the church school, because his parents were not legally married. he had self-educated himself. However, in 1772, Hamilton received education from a grammar school at the age of 12-14 yrs old. 1773, He decided to attend King’s College.
John Hancock received a privileged childhood education and was admitted to Harvard, graduating in 1754 (which would indicate that he was 17 yrs old at graduation from Harvard.)
So, with that in mind, the children of today do not sit anywhere NEAR the founding fathers of USA, when it comes to education. They start younger, they end later and most of them are lost faces in a crowd – not individually tutored or mentored – and rarely left with enough time to “self educate,” or find lasting mentors for lasting interests.
Why do people need to lie to kids? Do they think kids are so stupid or so lazy that they can’t go on the internet or into their school libraries and read about the childhood these men led, to discover that the President just made that up… re-wrote history so his speech would make sense?
Wonder about the other folks he mentions? The founders of Google? Did school inspire them? Did school provide the foundation for this great success?
Larry Page & Sergey Brin. “Page said that “their house was usually a mess, with computers and Popular Science magazines all over the place.” His attraction to computers started when he was six years old when he got to “play with the stuff lying around.” He became the “first kid in his *(private)* elementary school to turn in an assignment from a word processor.” [5] His older brother also taught him to take things apart, and before long he was taking “everything in his house apart to see how it worked.” He said,”From a very early age, I also realized I wanted to invent things. So I became really interested in technology…and business. So probably from when I was 12 I knew I was going to start a company eventually.”
Brin attended grade school at Paint Branch Montessori School *(Private)* in Adelphi, Maryland, but he received further education at home; his father, a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of Maryland, nurtured his interest in mathematics and his family helped him retain his Russian-language skills.
Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg He started programming when he was in middle school. Early on, Zuckerberg enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. **I am only 4 yrs older than Zuckerberg, and my brother is exactly his age.. there were no “Computer Programming Classes” for us, not in middle school or high school, so I must assume this was extra-curricular, most likely not school related at all.. THEN, While attending Phillips Exeter Academy.. which is a private school…. he did awesome things and then decided to attend Harvard.
So, where does public schooling fit into this picture and how do these success stories of people who are mentored, tutored individually, privately educated, or self educated folks relate to the children he is addressing? As usual, they don’t relate. Irrelevancy seems to be the primary focus of anything about public school, or taught by public school.
September 9th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Very cool info to have! I knew the Founding Fathers weren’t public school educated, since there were no public schools in the colonies in the mid-1700’s. I figured any education they got was with tutors at home or in church-run schools. I didn’t hear Obama’s speech, so I’d missed this reference.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Interesting stuff! Great research. I’m about to start reading The History of Education in America by John Taylor Gatto (which is free to read online) I blogged about it here: http://wp.me/pBcFQ-6Q
September 10th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Always a great idea to go against the grain and be negative! What great research! I think pulling out kids out of school and sending them out into the woods would be a far better idea than encouraging them with positive thought! In fact, why bother educating our kids at all since they’ll just be a face in the crowd? I can only hope you share this article with your children and encourage them to…go out and Google everything.
I’m going to go blog about this right now! OMG!
September 10th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Great commentary. I sent it to my dad, who said that it’s something you don’t think about, but should! Most people will never notice the discrepancy between the President’s words and the reality you discovered. I have two of Gatto’s books requested through the library–it’s amazing to me that the information is out there, but so many choose to ignore it.
September 10th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Excellent call! As a Canadian unschooler, I wasn’t really interested in the speech and your post points to exactly why. Good on you for pointing out the obvious fallacy.