Who would ever think of the word “Gentleman” as being one of the finest words in the English language?

To most of us it’s out dated. It conjures up snooty, Eastern Establishment types who speak with locked jaws. For others it smacks of New Yorker Cartoons, featuring wizened old white guys in leather backed chairs, surrounded by mahogany walls-- holed up in their exclusive men’s clubs.

Often it is a term of sarcasm, as when the warden in Cool Hand Luke speaks down to the convicts, “Gentlemen. What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Street kids despise gentlemen, and I doubt it is a word worthy of respect in the Hip Hop culture.

Of course, women libbers loath the word. It summons up images of supercilious, condescending males lording it over “the little ladies.”

Even today’s Webster defines it in pejorative terms: a man born into a family of high social standing. Any man of independent means who does not work for a living.

It smacks of the sine quo non of “The Old Boys Club.”

Alas, once it had a different connotation—perhaps the greatest meaning in the English language.

According to Gordon Wood’s book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, what separated our Founders from other men was from the fact that they aspired to be “Gentlemen.”

Duh. “They were mostly slave holders,” you say. Why wouldn’t they strive to fit one of the definitions above?
Not so fast Kowalski.

Yes, they believed that they belonged to an elite. But these elite differed from any that had passed before. They felt they constituted “a natural aristocracy”, but one based on talent and merit, not accident of birth.
Unlike English and European aristocrats, this new category of “Gentlemen” would not be defined by lineage or inheritance. It was character that they cultivated.

As Hoover Fellow Peter Berkowitze wrote in his review, “Civility and refinement were of the essence. The gentleman was also expected to be "reasonable, tolerant, honest, virtuous, and candid.”

(This new gentleman) believed in natural rights and that under a government that protected them one could attain a wider, freer, more generous vantage point. Wood’s idea was "grace without foppishness, refinement without ostentation, virtue without affectation, independence without arrogance."

What’s not to like?

Wood argues that Adams had it right—that the creating of a “gentleman” was liberal education’s highest aim: Adams wrote,


(Gentlemen) are not meant the rich or the poor; the high-born or the low-born, the industrious or the idle: but all those who have received a liberal education, an ordinary degree of erudition in liberal arts and sciences. Whether by birth they be descended from magistrates and officers of government, or from husbandmen, merchants and mechanics, or laborers; or whether they be rich or poor.

Berkowitze notes that by placing the attainment of aristocratic status, at least in pricnciple, within the reach of all, the founders sought to harmonize the need for excellence with the claims of equality.

Interestingly, the founders wanted to create a class of men which weren’t beholden to everyday jobs. In order to be true public servants, they had to attain a certain amount of wealth, so that their work day lives, did not prejudice their attitudes towards attaining the most for the most amount of people.

“Disinterest” (read: nothing in it for me) was paramount to achieving the most amount of social good.
Our founders were obsessed with attaining a reputation for public virtue. Honor was everything (Need we bring up Hamilton and Burr?)

Speaking of Hamilton, he wrote: "love of fame is the ruling passion of the noblest minds:" Of course, he wasn’t referring to the fame T.O. and Madonna seek.

Being famous for wealth or power meant nothing to these men. It was a reputation for honor, or a reputation for public virtue which was the highest calling a man could seek. Incredibly, though they were descended from Europeans, where birth was destiny, they placed the attainment of “aristocratic status” in the reach of all.

Meritocracy was attainable. They believed in virtuous government. Wood says, “…public offices are what they should be… burthens (Yeah. I had to look it up too.) to those appointed to them, which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring with them intense labor, and great private loss.”

Today, we think of politicians as contemptible. At one time in our history, they were the noblest men with the most noble minds. What went wrong?

Woods suggests that it is that these men took character—as a lived reality--very seriously. As the first generation in history that was truly self-made (with the exception Burr) --character mattered immensely. One’s reputation was to be defended to death. Washington is his best example. Though he may have not been the sharpest tool in the shed—he knocked every one dead by his refusal to give into temptation.

As the victor, like Caesar or Napoleon, he was entitled to crown himself emperor. All of Europe expected it. Instead he retired (a la Cincinnatus) back to his farm. Then, when elected by the people as President, he could have been monarch for life—but after a second term—he stepped down—not for self interest--but to carry out the democratic ideals his men had bled and died for.

Such character, the world had seldom seen.

Would that the Republican candidates vying for the Presidency (and of course our current President) could take a page from Washington's fabulous notebook.

If our schools don’t exist to teach character, what are they for? To teach math? We get the candidates we deserve. Just like those humble colonial farmers did.