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The Best Laid Plans

The plan by Benjamin Rush to establish free schools where public support would be
provided first to Pennsylvania and then later it would be rolled out to the entire nation. The plan
did not come to fruition because the changes needed could not be adopted at the time. “Rush’s
education plan, which, like Jefferson’s, was too revolutionary to be accepted in its day, was
intended to tie together the whole education system” (Webb, 2014). The idea to have a free
school in every town compromising of 100 or more families was too demanding back in the day.
The resources were scarce, and also there was no goodwill from the leaders, which was very
necessary to implement the plan.
Thomas Jefferson proposed a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge. The
plan reflected Jefferson’s commitment to education as well as his philanthropic nature (Webb,
2014). However, just like Rush’s plan, his plan did not come to fruition. “Its defeat can be
attributed in large part to the unwillingness of the wealthy landowners to pay property taxes for
the education of the poor” (Webb, 2014). It did not get the support of the wealthy in society back
then, whose contributions were to go into funding the implementation of the plan. The bill was
opposed, and this implied that there were no adequate finances to implement the plan. Most
people were not willing to embrace a plan that would see the poor receive an education at the
expense of the wealthy in society. Jefferson received a response from Madison saying that his
proposal had been rejected because the county was unable to bear the expenses that would be
incurred (Carpenter, 2013). From the onset, the bill would have failed due to lack of adequate
support. People were ignorant of the impact that education would have in the lives of the poor
who could not afford it without support. Also, Jefferson’s bill was met with egoism and malice.

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Even though it was created with admirable intention, it was opposed because people deemed it
unworkable or impractical.
I think that through studying history, the current generation has gotten some lessons from
the obstacles that our founding fathers faced. First, we know that it is possible to learn while on
the job and be good at something. Our founding fathers did that, and although they lost
sometimes, they achieved to make a great foundation for our nation. The obstacles that our
founding fathers encountered are in a way related and similar to the ones that we have to
encounter today. This is so because, just like them, we are also faced with certain strange
situations that have not been experienced in the past. For example, we have to deal with
problems relating to terrorism with little to no experience. In some situations, terror groups strike
in the most unexpected ways and places, thus creating problems that never existed during the
time of our founding fathers. Just like they faced certain obstacles with no experience of how to
solve them, we too come across strange situations. Overall, although obstacles are encountered
today just like they were encountered in the past, they differ in their nature. The obstacles
encountered two centuries ago are not seen as obstacles any more because solutions have been
sought. Today’s obstacles are of a higher magnitude and difficult to overcome.

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References

Carpenter, J. (2013). Thomas Jefferson and the ideology of democratic schooling. Democracy
and Education, 21(2), 5.
Webb, L. D. (2014). History of American education: Voices and perspectives [Electronic
version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/