4 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2017
    1. As well might it be urged that the wild & uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour & bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better: yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable both in kind & degree

      I love this sentence because of how it's formed and narrated. At the same time, there's reflection for the incidents caused by white supremacy in nowadays society. We may think that the discrimination between race is deeply rooted in the earth that we may never eradicate it, however, as it's said in this sentence, some trees are so uncultivated that people think there will never be sweet fruits being yielded, but we ignored that the most elegant and persevered spirit is generated from the most savage earth, because the spirit of fighting back. That's exactly how America was born, through the voice against tyranny and the gun toward invasion, by which a colony was transformed into a nation through nirvana.

    2. To understand his duties to his neighbours, & country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either.

      I like this part especially because I think that's the ultimate goal of my study and I think it should also be a very important part in all student's purpose of study. Especially as an international student, I sometimes find myself in an awkward position in the new college curriculum because most of the topics we discussed in my class are domestic issues. Sometimes I will think they're irrelevant to my purpose of study here because what I want to do is to utilize what I learn hear to make my community and country a better place. However after almost a semester of learning, I found that to engage in discussing and thinking about domestic issues in the U.S. and also help me reflect on and inspire me of the problems that my country is facing. They're not conflicting, instead they're inseparable. Integrity is also a concept that we talk about a lot, and I found out integrity not only means the globalization between different cultures and races, but also means a unification between ourselves and our country.

  2. Oct 2017
    1. The objects of this primary education determine its character & limits. These objects would be, To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express & preserve his ideas, his contracts & accounts in writing. To improve by reading, his morals and faculties. To understand his duties to his neighbours, & country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either. To know his rights; to exercise with order & justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciaries of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence with candor & judgment. And, in general, to observe with intelligence & faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. To instruct the mass of our citizens in these their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether private or public, in them should be taught reading, writing & numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration (useful in so many callings) and the outlines of geography and history, and this brings us to the point at which are to commence the higher branches of education, of which the legislature require the development: those for example which are to form the statesmen, legislators & judges, on whom public prosperity, & individual happiness are so much to depend. To expound the principles & structure of government, the laws which regulate the intercourse of nations, those formed municipally for our own government, and a sound spirit of legislation, which banishing all arbitrary & unnecessary restraint on individual action shall leave us free to do whatever does not violate the equal rights of another. To harmonize & promote the interests of agriculture, manufactures & commerce and by well informed views of political economy to give a free scope to the public industry. To develope the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds cultivate their morals, & instil into them the precepts of virtue & order. To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences which advance the arts & administer to the health, the subsistence & comforts of human life: And generally to form them to habits of reflection, and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others & of happiness within themselves.

      I think we can reflect a lot on these points. The education of thinking critically, understanding points of views from different perspectives and analyzing situation multilaterally is developed in class and under other academic atmosphere, but to accept people/opinions that are different from us is something people rarely accomplish. We tend to stay in our comfortable zone and keep the way we perceive the world as we were while there're diversities that waiting for us to uncover, but we failed to seize the opportunity because we don't think it's necessary to accept the difference. It's no something that can be changed through education or exercise, but something that is rooted deeply in the education system, under which the teaching of accepting racial differences and embracing different cultures is almost absent.

    2. that these pavilions should be united by a range of Dormitories, sufficient each for the accommodation of two students only, this provision being deemed advantageous to morals, to order, & to uninterrupted study; and that a passage of some kind under cover from the weather should give a communication along the whole range.

      I think this part of the article gives us confidence back that University of Virginia is built in fully consideration of the safety of its students and is built for students to gain academic success. During this period that so many students protests and riots about race are taking place, the calling for more care and attention to students life and the condemnation of the lack of student's safety is getting more prevalent, however this part of the university legislature shed a light on regaining student's trust to this university, whose architecture was built on the emphasis of student's safety and academic progress.