This week's show features President Thomas Jefferson answering pre-recorded questions sent to him from Columbus High in Cerro Gordo, North Carolina by Zachary Rudisin, a Social Studies teacher and his students (Austin, Ambre'Nasia, Alexandria, Adam, Ivana, Autumn, Madison, Mary Allen and Trey). Mister Jefferson has a bit of trouble accepting the technology of recorded sound, but does answer all of their questions.
#1118 Mister Rudisin
"How we educate our children is a sacred business."
— Clay S. Jenkinson portraying Thomas Jefferson
"He's never happier than when he can recommend a course of reading to somebody else."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
President Jefferson tells us what books he might recommend to juvenile readers, and it turns out to be a fairly limited list. He does, however, recommend Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe.
"You can have all the information in the world, but it doesn't mean anything unless you have a mental matrix with which to absorb it, evaluate it, analyze it, begin to synthesize it. That's why we go to college."
— Clay S. Jenkinson portraying Thomas Jefferson
We speak with President Jefferson about reading — one of his favorite pastimes. We also talk about the teachers who inspired his lifelong habit of reading, and Jefferson’s fascination with the Ossian, which was first published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson in 1760.