cess to policy formation and execution, except the children themselves. That is, the interest groups are very clear that they have an agenda for the children that will satisfy their interests. It is not so clear that their interests and those of the children are identified, nor that they have engaged in critical thinking about how, why, or whether their interests, those of the children, and those of the society intersect in optimal way.
Philosophical responses of education formulators of earlier periods to this seemingly insoluble modern problem are purely speculative, of course, but clues can be discerned from the outlines of their writings and lives. What has to be understood about Jefferson, despite his presumption of a slaveholding, patriarchal aristocracy as basic to the future of the U.S., is that he appears to have appreciated the long-term significance of virtually any policy positions that he took. He appears to have realized that the decisions about educational institutionalization made in the earliest days of the republic would not only be typical of the intellectual climate of the 18th century but also shape in decisive ways how Americans thought about education for many years. To that degree, the U.S. was an instrumental political experiment. Thus the general concept of tax-supported elementary schools (Rippa, 56) had the germ of tax-funded public education more generally.
The content of Jefferson's theory of public education, at least in 18th-century terms, seems perfectly congenial to Graham's, to the degree that the classical curriculum (i.e., English grammar, Greek, Latin, etc.) was geared toward establishing an ethos of lifelong learning. The detailed plan for continued education is more problematic. From the 20th century perspective it can be seen as interest-group elitism masquerading as beneficent meritocracy offering educational opportunity to a poor but happy few, or alternatively as the 18th-century versi...