his criticism, even of the best men of Athens. Socrates will accost the worthiest citizens, even those
whodonotwanttotalktohim.TheSocraticmethod,inotherwords,hasnocity.Hewillexamine,test,
and“rebuke,”boththeyoungandold,citizenandstranger,whoever hehappens tomeet(30a–c).Inits
purestform, the Socratic methoddoesnoservice tothe city, exceptinsofar asitisa service tothe truth.
Socrates will die for this way of living, even if he is to“die for it many times over”(30c).
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that the Socratic method underwent subtle transformations during the early
national period of American education (1776–1840). The above summary is not meant to dem-
onstrate causation or influence. It is meant only to raise a few questions about the role played by the
touchstone Socratic method in leading students to self-knowledge in the colleges and universities
today. Franklin found the Socratic method to be valuable, but with two important qualifications:
that it be tempered by politeness and sociability, especially in the context of theological or religious
debate. Second, that the goal or aim of questioning not interfere with the larger commercial or
economic self-sufficiency of the developing colonies. Democratic republicans like Jefferson went
further and suggested a deeper transformation. Socrates, in Jefferson’s view, had been ruined by
Plato. The true Socrates was closer to the“Rural Socrates,”whose way of life was better understood
through a careful reading of Xenophon. Through Xenophon, Socrates’strange manner of teaching
could be made safe for democracy by making Socrates into a good citizen.
The examples of Franklin and Jefferson are illustrative, insofar as they underline or deepen the
problem of using Socrates’method in the classroom. In the long view, Franklin’s and Jefferson’s
attempts at revising the legacy of Socrates’teaching method can be considered relatively minor.
But these early attempts at alteration prefigure a more profound change to the Socratic method in
the twentieth century. Today, pedagogic debate regarding the value of the Socratic method for
the classroom tends to focus less on the problem of sociability (Franklin) or democratic virtue
(Jefferson). Increasingly, the discussion centers on the compatibility of the Socratic method with
personal comfort and classroom engagement. Perhaps this is not a bad thing. But it is worth talking
about what is lost when the original Socratic quest for self-knowledge is replaced with a classroom
“technique”for encouraging creative thinking and individual self-expression.
Notes
1 According to Schneider, these discussions were often of a superficial and casual nature. See Jack
Schneider,“Remembrance of Things Past: A History of the Socratic Method in the United States,”
Curriculum Inquiry43/5 (2013): 616.
2 In Schneider,“Remembrance,”616.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 He added that the average American intellectual was (unlike the European intellectual elite) not philo-
sophically minded. Or more accurately, she was not indoctrinated in to any one particular philosophical
school. Americans, Tocqueville noted,“have no philosophical school of their own, and they worry very
little about all those that divide Europe; they hardly know their names.”Alexis de Tocqueville,Democracy
in America, Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000): II 1.3, 403.
6 Tocqueville,Democracy in America, II, 525–6.
7 Quoted in Schneider,“Remembrance,”616.
8 See Ralph Ketchum, ed.The Political Thought of Benjamin Franklin(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing,
2003), 54–57.
9 History, likewise, should not focus on the utility and beauty of“Virtue of all Kinds.”It should encourage
oratory, political leadership, and it should instill in Americans an appreciation for the“Necessity of a
Publick Religion”and the“Excellency of the Christian Religion above all other ancient or modern.”
10 This led to a study of Xenophon’sMemorable Thoughts of Socrates.
78 Andrew Bibby