Thomas Jefferson's Great Example

“To read Latin and Greek authors in their original, is a sublime luxury. I thank on my knees him who directed my early education for having put into my possession this rich source of delight; and I would not exchange it for anything which I could then have acquired, and have not since acquired.”– Thomas Jefferson

Dwane at Visual Latin posted this today on his Facebook and I love it!!!  I also love this quote from the book The Real Thomas Jefferson, "Young Tom was five when schooling began in Goochland.  He later recalled sneaking impatiently out of a classroom that first year and kneeling behind the building to repeat the Lord's Prayer, hoping thereby to hasten the hour of dismissal.”  Tom stayed in Goochland when his family moved, under the care of an Anglican minister who was his tutor and in 5 years he could read Latin, Greek and French and he later added Spanish, Italian and Anglo-Saxon.  (Real Thomas Jefferson pp. 14-15)  Thomas Jefferson didn’t always love school, but he had a wonderful tutor who required him to keep at it and it blessed his entire life.

I hear so many homeschoolers who think that children should never be unhappy or dislike their schoolwork, or that they should guide their own studies.  It is difficult to push children through learning curves when they are learning new things or to require things of them that we as their parents we know they need, but it is always worth the effort.  And children who were unhappy at being required to finish a math or Latin lesson or practice scales one more time are forever grateful to a mother or mentor who required them to stretch beyond what was fun and pleasing at the moment to the great luxury of a strong mind or a skill well learned.

One of the things I love about my kids getting older is the words of gratitude for making them do the hard things.  It is truly an amazing feeling to have an adult child send a college paper home to mom and see remarks from the professor about how good a writer they are and I smile at the thought of this same reluctant writer as a child telling me they would not write no matter what.  The time spent lovingly coaching a child through the difficult moments of learning is worth more than anything else I could have done with my life.