Samuel Knox (1756-1832)

Sources

Educator

Second Prize . In 1796 the American Philosophical Society held a contest to design the best system of education for the United States. Samuel Knox entered, proposing a system of national instruction particularly designed for this “wide extent of territory, inhabited by citizens blending together almost all the various manners and customs of every country in Europe.” Providing elementary education for both girls and boys, uniform training and salaries for teachers, standard textbooks produced by a national university press, with a college in every state each charging the same fees and tuition, and at “the fountain head of science” a national university, Knox’s ambitious plan won second prize.

Career and Ministry . First prize had gone to Samuel Harrison Smith, who would go on to a career as a journalist and politician during the Jefferson years. Knox, on the other hand, never strayed too far from education. Born in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1756 and descended from Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Knox first arrived in America in 1786 and stayed in Maryland for three years. He then crossed the Atlantic again to attend the University of Glasgow, winning prizes there for Greek and Latin scholarship and a master’s degree in 1792. He studied for the ministry, was licensed by the Presbytery of Belfast, and returned to America in 1795 as a Presbyterian minister.

Religion, Education, Politics . Knox served as a pastor at Bladensburg (1795–1797) and Frederick, Maryland (1797–1803), and also as a schoolteacher, beginning his teaching career at Bladensburg Grammar School in 1788. From 1797 to 1803 he served as principal of the Frederick Academy, and from 1808 to 1820 he was principal of Baltimore College. In addition to his religious and educational duties, Knox engaged in the political debates of the day, writing pamphlets in 1798 on Joseph Priestley’s “avowed Religious Principles” and in 1800 A Vindication of the Religion of Mr. Jefferson and a Statement of his Services in the Cause of Religious Liberty. Knox approved of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and also of Jefferson’s proposed system of education for Virginia. Knox proposed a similar system for Maryland, with the same lack of success Jefferson had across the Potomac. Jefferson may have been influenced by Knox’s essay when he designed the University of Virginia in 1816. One year later Knox was offered a professorship in languages and belles lettres at the University of Virginia, but the plans fell through. A dedicated reformer with visionary plans for America’s future, Knox was also a despotic teacher and unable to bring his grandest schemes to fruition. He died on 31 August 1832 in Frederick.

Sources

Sol Cohen, ed., Education in the United States: A Documentary History (New York: Random House, 1974);

Wilson Smith, ed., Theories of Education in Early America 1655–1819 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973).