early national period. Jefferson went further than Franklin: Socrates would be made safe for
American democracy by making Socrates into a good citizen.
Jefferson and The Rural Socrates
Jefferson’s thoughts were not far from Socrates in 1787. From Paris, he writes to John Trumbull,
with a description of his viewing of the originalDeath of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David.
Jefferson describes it as“superb,”^19 the best item in the collection, and cites it as one of the
treasures of Paris.
Not much is known, however, about Jefferson’s interest in Socrates, either as a philosopher, or as
a model teacher. Yet there is evidence that Jefferson was considering Socrates’legacy and thinking
about ways to incorporate Socrates into the educational system in the United States. In 1801, John
Vaughan sent Jefferson a copy ofThe Rural Socratesto review. The alternative title for the book
hinted at the way in which Socrates could be recovered for Jefferson’s America:“Philosophic
Farmer.”In the letter, Vaughan recommends that Jefferson read the book as an example of how
Socrates was being reintegrated into the European educational system. Vaughan tells Jefferson that
the book will not have seen“So full an acct. of [Socrates].”
TheRural Socratesbelongs to a specialized literature on agriculture, from the nineteenth
century.^20 Johnstone argues that the book, while largely neglected by intellectual historians, is
significant in American history because it contains the assumptions and“moral attitudes”of the
modern“back-to-nature”ideas in America. Vaughan had recommended it to Jefferson because it
captured nicely the modern enthusiasm for rural life, and agriculture, in modern times. It contained
all the“basic tenets of the agrarian tradition.”The agrarian life is good not because it promotes
leisure for the sake of seeking wisdom, but because it promotes a simple, wholesome, natural, and
even“divinely ordained”way of life.
It is worth dwelling on the image of Socrates that Jefferson encountered in the book. Socrates is
transformed from an urban philosopher to a rural hero. He is anti-court, anti-city, anti-commercial,
and he lives in accord with a divine purpose. Vaughan recommends this version of Socrates to
Jefferson because he represents a new possibility. Here is a figure who can stand astride two great
unbridgeable worlds, between the urban intellectual elite and the virtuous farmers of the new
republic.
What could Jefferson have seen or learned from such a possibility? As Johnstone has argued, this
rendition of Socrates intrigued thinkers in the agrarian school for three reasons. First, the enthu-
siastic and experimental curiosity of Socrates was easily (if crudely) adaptable to the modern
farmer, who needed to embrace technology and science to discover new agricultural techniques. In
this context, one needs only to think of the Aristophanic Socrates to see the connection. Second, and
more importantly, Socrates gave the American“gentry,”as it were, a dignified and dignifying
model for combining agricultural life with intellectual virtue. By taking Socrates out of the city, as
it were, the book made a case for a“philosophic farmer.”The intellectually curious farmer, with
Socrates as a role model, could not be decried by urban snobs as merely gardening for the wealthy.
Third, the“Rural Socrates”was an example of near perfect self-sufficiency. The combination of
philosophy and agriculture was both intellectually rewarding and economically viable. Unlike the
real philosopher, an Americanized Socrates could make a living out of philosophizing.
The Rural Socrates ideal was not new, of course. The idea was traceable to the Socrates of
Xenophon. Xenophon’s Socrates is quoted at length at the beginning of the book. Socrates is the
originator of the idea that agricultural is the mother of all arts, and therefore, worthy of study by
gentlemen. Agriculture produces good citizens and brave soldiers, people that love justice, revere
the gods, and appreciate simplicity. Jefferson, in short, did not have to reinvent or transform the
Platonic Socrates for a virtuous republic. The citizen-Socrates model was there, preexisting in the
works of Xenophon. John Vaughan’s copy ofThe Rural Socrateswas a reminder for Jefferson of
76 Andrew Bibby