Benjamin Rush: An Educated Youth

In July of 1776, several key American political figures came together to declare independence from what they had perceived to be an oppressive government. Amassing a force of continental soldiers and militiamen coupled with French troops and munitions, these brave patriots won their struggle to form their own representative government. When the musket fire stopped and the American flag was hoisted above in every colony the new blossoming republic, unfortunately, found itself in the most precarious situation. The many diverse, multiethnic, multi-religious, and multi-factional peoples throughout the colonies were held together because they shared a common theme, the British Empire. With the war over and the presence of the British Empire virtually gone, however, the United States was quickly placed into a position where it could not accommodate these vastly dissimilar peoples. To …show more content…
Of the intellectuals, no one would exemplify this philosophy more than Benjamin Rush. Similar to many of the American intellectuals, Rush wanted to produce a new generation of highly educated and politically active young men with formal republican education; “republican machines” as he would come to call them. He truly believed that educating the youth through a uniform system of public schools would be crucial for the birth a new American culture, “This must be done if we expect them to perform their parts properly in the great machine of the government of the state” (115). Rush would compile these thoughts into an incredible and revolutionary essay, “Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic”. The obstacles Rush faced dealt primarily with how to assess what personal liberties students should have. Although brilliant in many respects, if one were to read carefully they would begin to see several issues in Rushes