Listening to the Land: Education for Pioneers of the Future

Abstract

Education for the first colonists to become Americans did not exist in Europe. New skills had to be developed for living off the land—and sharing that land with, or taking it from, a people who occupied it. Survival was the prime objective. Just staying alive depended on understanding and adapting to a new environment. Those who wrote our Constitution and installed our new Republic had few books and fewer rules. They read Greek, Roman, French, and English classics containing concepts and philosophy of democracy, freedom, and what it means to be human. Thomas Jefferson’s personal library became our national Library of Congress.