Thomas Jefferson Foresaw The Dangers Of America Having An Uneducated Citizenry

The Friday just past was one of the most important dates on the calendar of the Christian religion. This year, the same date marked the birthday of a man who more than any other defined America's secular religion of political democracy and social equality. Thomas Jefferson was born 247 years ago on April 13.

Jefferson's gift in giving our root values clear and eloquent expression has been celebrated throughout the history of the republic. But among social philosophers and political scientists, his reputation has waxed and waned in relation to that of John Adams. The two carried on a profound debate that spanned the decades. Adams argued the essentially fallen nature of man and thus the need for safeguards. Jefferson pleaded the cause of human potential, unfettered by restraints imposed by autocrats - or aristocrats.

As American democracy fell on hard times in the era of Vietnam and Watergate, it seemed that Adams was right after all, that Jefferson's optimism was unjustified. Today, without denigrating Adams, whose argument can never be demolished in any final sense, it can be said that a new case exists for the Jeffersonian point of view.

Vietnam and Watergate were abuses of executive power, the very perils that made Jefferson insist on adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. Equally crucial, the decline in voting and the manipulation of voters by slick media campaigns in the last 15 years are the very dangers Jefferson would have predicted for us at this time.

Jefferson placed supreme value on education. A ``republic of virtue'' was only possible with an educated citizenry, he believed. Lacking that, the republic would drift, its populace sunken in long periods of apathy punctuated by bursts of uninformed sentiment.

By contrast, an educated citizenry would invigorate democracy and in turn would be invigorated by it. Participation in civic and political affairs would become a kind of continuing education in human relations, decision making and social responsibility. The links between education and democracy would form a self-reinforcing circle of personal growth and national benefit.

Jefferson's stature grows today because of the emphasis he placed on education. It is clear to anyone concerned about the future of the republic that the crisis in learning has become our most serious problem. Education is the issue that keeps coming up at conferences focused on economic development, urban growth, world affairs, environmental protection.

The phrase ``crisis in our schools'' is too narrow. The issue is learning itself. What portion of our people have discovered the fulfillment of learning, regardless of one's stage of life, regardless of whether it is a skill, pure knowledge, or artistic, philosophic or religious insight, truth or expression that is the focus of the learning experience?

Learning spans an immense spectrum. In our time, to the traditional distinction between the educated and the uneducated must be added the technologically educated, those who know how to use the new tools of an information society and those who understand the process of scientific discovery and technical innovation.

Concern exists that the technologically educated will pull ahead, becoming the new elite, leaving others hopelessly behind, mired by lack of understanding of a strange language. Fears arise that the new tools carry powers of manipulation and the capacity for quantum leaps in applied knowledge. If everyone was literate in computer languages, such fears would vanish.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is a matter of equal importance. Perhaps the most touching moment in the film ``Driving Miss Daisy'' is when Hoke, the driver, is forced to admit to Miss Daisy that he does not know how to read. It is poignant in conveying what life would be like if words were vague symbols whose meaning could only be guessed at.

Schools cannot bear the entire burden of educational reform. What is at stake is our attitude toward learning itself and the crucial guarantees it alone provides for democracy and self-reliance.

Jefferson's birthday reminds us of one who went to the heart of the matter in a way prophetic for the fortunes of this nation.

Glenn Pascall's column appears Sundays in the Business section.