|
Jefferson Was a Mama's Boy
North Miami Beach, FL March 20, 2001
Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
JEFFERSON WAS A MAMA'S BOY
I don't know if makes much difference in the cosmic order that Jefferson
was under the influence of his mother after his father's death. He was 14
at the time and his mother lived with him for most of the rest of her life.
These were gems I gleaned from the lecture on tape that I listened to this
morning on my way through the wet streets of North Miami Beach. The
lecturer who, from the rushed way he spoke and the rustling of papers, must
have been reading from a prepared speech was greeted by applause and
applause sent him on his way at the end. I don't remember having been given
this sign of approval but once in all my years of terrific teaching.
He also made Jefferson, from Jefferson's own words, seem like a tremendous
intellect, fantastic student and fearful of women. I won't make anything of
that until the Sally Hemings episode. He loved from afar and was infatuated
several times. Unlike his collaborator (this is mine) Ben Franklin who
loved the ladies while they lavished personal favors on him, Jefferson was
shy and given to pedantic outbursts of intellectual reasoning - not a bad
substitute and far from being rare.
Jefferson was a child of the rationalism that swept through the educated
classes of Europe and in America among that small group of giants who
crafted our nation. Jefferson's restless mind flew beyond the confines of
philosophy that restricted the universe of discourse to a dualistic model
separating mind and body. He could be an idealist and a pragmatist (a
philosophy yet to be articulated.)
Curiously, his formal education was couched in terms of an "English" school
and later in a Latin-Grammar school and he was lucky in having as a teacher
later in life, a very learned mathematician from Scotland. But, Jefferson
was a man of his times and his times educated him as well. Book learning
aside, he was in tune with the revolutionary themes permeating European
intellectual society and the American frontier. Not all of this came from my
half-hour spent with tape and bicycle.
Carol's Evaluation:10 out of 10.
|
 |
|