This week, President Thomas Jefferson (as portrayed by humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson) provides answers to questions received from listener Mitchell Reinhart about how he achieved such productivity in his life and why it is important to study history.
This week's 1776 Club broadcast is a companion show to this episode on which Clay & David discuss listener mail from Rick Kennerly.
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"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.