4 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2017
    1. Also the whole of his Slaves amounting to 57 in num

      I have to agree that mentioning slaves in this report is hard to ignore. However, it is worth noting that non-white people is hardly depicted in 19th century writings and artworks. For examples, thousands of Chinese railroad workers labored and died building the first trans-continental railroad. However, shockingly, when the railroad was finally finished, and people were going to lay the last golden spike, they drove away all the Chinese workers. Therefore, in the famous picture celebrating the complete of the first pacific railroad, those who worked the hardest is not depicted purely because of their ethnicity. The point I try to make that is it is worth study the topic of non-white depiction in 19th writings and art.

    2. The objects of this primary education determine its character & limits. These objects would be,

      These objects listed here are tools towards the goal of granting those who receive an education at UVA the capabilities to pursue happiness and well-being. This is actually a perfect example for Amartya Sen's capability approach with well-being. Sen argued that it is the capability not the result for people to achieve personal and agency achievement that matters as the ultimate goal. By improving morals and faculties, students are better equipped with the toolset to decide what's right and what's wrong. By have the information for the transaction of his own businesses, the students have the ability to provide for himself and his family in terms of materialistic gains. We can clearly see that the objectives are conceived in regard to capabilities but not simple outcomes.

  2. Oct 2017
    1. Hebrew

      I believe that Hebrew is included in the corse provided to show 'the equal footing' provided for all sects. In the 19th century Jewish people were discriminated against in Europe. Hebrew is central to Jewish society and their religion. By teaching Hebrew, the university shows its inclusiveness towards the Jewish community. And the notion of equal footing is a result of the permeating belief of equality. Another reason is that Hebrew can be used to study the connection between Judaism, Christianity and Abrahamic Religions.

    2. Education generates habits of application, order and the love of virtue; and controuls, by the force of habit, any innate obliquities in our moral organization. We should be far too from the discouraging persuasion, that man is fixed, by the law of his nature, at a given point: that his improvement is a chimæra, and the hope delusive of rendering ourselves wiser, happier or better than our forefathers were.

      These sentences really reminds me of the beginning of the book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle states that moral virtues are acquired by repetition of the coresponding acts. And the second sentence, I believe, is used to combat the belief that a man is fixed, that a good deed is done because there is a good man, and that there is just man first and then just deeds second. It is through the formation of habits, the habits that brings good and utils to people, that people start to do good deeds and just deeds. And through doing good deeds and just deeds, people become good and just, but not the other way round. So in a sort-of Aristotle way, UVA is devoted to the development of moral virtues and finally human happiness that originates from moral virtues.