What is the Purpose of Education ?

What is the Purpose of Education ?

August 14, 1999

THE CONSERVATIVE FORUM

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION?

D. Michael North

SEGMENT ONE:

WHY DO SOCIETIES EDUCATE CHILDREN?

All societies and cultures, whether tribal, monarchical, dictatorial, democratic, or republican undertake the education of children as a primary function. Why do societies educate children? The answer is both complex and simple. At first glance, it appears that such education is to prepare a child for life as an adult. Hence, education in tribal cultures focuses on agriculture, hunting skills, food preparation, defense, and other such concepts necessary to survival. In more diverse economies, such as pre-industrial Europe, trade and craft apprenticeships, professions such as the sciences, medicine, and law were the fundamental survival skills taught, in keeping with a more specialized economy. As technology has advanced, so have the specialty fields of study, so that education in America today consists of a blend of basic concepts, upon which are built the advanced studies needed for highly specialized trades and professions. But whether we look at education of a Doctor, or a Tribal Shaman, history has always shown one similarity. The education of children has also included as a fundamental part, especially in the early ages, the values and precepts upon which that society is based. Education exists in order to preserve that preferred societal way of life, and ensure that the values of that culture are then passed to the next generation of children.

This is a fundamental fact of history. It is a fact that fully understood by those who would like not to preserve our way of life, but to undermine it. The power to change the future for better or worse does not lie with the lobbyist, or the legislator, but with the teacher. Did our founders then also envision education as a tool for the preservation of all that they fought to establish? The answer is found in the writings of the founders themselves.

SEGMENT TWO:

AMERICA'S FOUNDING AND GODLY HERITAGE

If so, it then is incumbent upon us to teach in History and Government classes the facts upon which the nation was founded. The problem is that those facts come into conflict with the modern establishments view of what education should teach. Let's begin our review of our nation's founding with this statement:

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers" 1

Who made such a statement? Was it Jesse Helms? Pat Robertson? A radical member of the "religious right"? That statement was made in 1777 by John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The first Chief Justice of the same body that now declare the Bible unsuitable for use in schools, and God out of place in our public institutions.

Where did the phrase "separation of church and state" originate, and how did it come to be used as a cudgel against Christians and moralists in all aspects of life in our nation? The expression was first used by Thomas Jefferson, in reply to a letter addressed to him from the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut. The Danbury Baptists were fearful that religious freedoms were enjoyed only as privileges, granted by the State, and not as inalienable rights. They expressed to Jefferson a fear that the Constitution was not specific in protecting the Church from federal interference. They told Jefferson that government "dares not , assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ." 2 In his response, Jefferson wrote "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus erecting a wall of separation between Church and State." 3 The context of the conversation makes clear that the intent of the First Amendment was to prohibit government interference in the church, not prohibit Christian participation in governmental bodies or institutions.

Congress vigorously debated the exact wording of the First Amendment carefully for fear that an establishment clause (in the words of one delegate to the Constitutional Convention) might "be thought to abolish religion altogether". 4 Congressman Benjamin Huntington, of Connecticut added that the "words might be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion". 5 Congressman Huntington's prediction came true in 1947. In the case of Everson v. Board of Education, Jefferson's "wall of separation" was twisted and forged into a weapon to shear the moral fabric of our nation. Everson represented a 180 degree turn in Supreme Court opinion. 6 Never before in our nations history had the original intent of the founders been so blatantly ignored by the Court, and their words taken so completely out of context.

The scope of this decision continues to be debated in the courts as opponents try to further erode the free exercise clause. Alabama U.S. District Court Judge Ira Dement issued a ruling restricting students' rights to voluntarily pray and lead prayer in school. However, on appeal, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court overturned Judge Dement's ruling unanimously that "The discriminatory suppression of student-initiated religious speech demonstrates not neutrality, but hostility toward religion. ...'Cleansing' our public schools of all religious expression inevitably results in the 'establishment' of disbelief - atheism - as the State's religion...Because genuinely student-initiated religious speech is private speech endorsing religion, it is fully protected by both the Free Exercise and the Free Speech Clauses of the Constitution." 7

They got it right this time. Based on the philosophy put into law by Congress and signed by President George Washington in 1789, Schools were intended to promote morality and religion. Article Three of the Northwest Ordinance states "Religion, Morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged."8 What did Congress intend for schools to promote? Religion, morality, and knowledge.

The debate now has become "whose religion?" "Whose morality?" The Supreme Court answered that question many years ago. In 1892 the Supreme Court undertook a study of the relationship of Christianity and the government. After examining volumes of historical information, the Court wrote: "these references add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people, a Christian nation". 9

Patrick Henry said "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."10 So the question of what code of morals to promote is easily answered.

It then would be in keeping with the intentions of our founders to promote religion and morality in addition to knowledge, but in order to do so we must first in history and government teach the fact that our nation is founded on the principles of religion and morality. We must teach that our founders intended for those of moral fiber to be chosen to govern. Noah Webster, in his 1823 textbook wrote: " It is alleged by men of loose principles, or defective views of the subject, that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political stations. But the scriptures teach a different doctrine. They direct that rulers should be men who rule in fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. If the citizens neglect their duty, and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes ; Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws, the public revenues will be squandered, and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a Republican form of government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws". 11

You may then ask, "Are you proposing that we teach Christian doctrine in our schools?" We do not have to teach the doctrines of Christianity in our schools to recognize and teach the moral principles that are based on the Old and New Testaments. Those principles are echoed in every major world religion, throughout the words of the founders, and are the foundation of any great civilization.

SEGMENT THREE:

DEMOCRACY VS. REPUBLIC:

Another area of concern is the teaching of our form of government. Ours is not a nation founded on a belief in the ability and goodwill of government. Quite the contrary. Our nation was founded with laws intended to restrict government as much as possible, while freeing individuals. Our founders understood the tendency for government to become more and more restrictive, often motivated by the best of intentions.

Expressing his belief in the need for a Bill of Rights, Patrick Henry said, during the debate on ratification of the Constitution: " The officers of Congress may come upon you now, fortified with all the terrors of paramount federal authority. Excisemen (taxmen) may come upon you in multitudes; for the limitation of their numbers no man knows. They may, unless they be restrained... go into your cellars and rooms, and search, and measure everything you eat, drink, and wear". 12 Does this sound like a man who believes government to be capable of looking out for his best interest? If the founders believed government to be magnanimous, why did Jefferson write "The most important reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, if necessary, at last resort, to protect themselves from tyranny in government". 13

But what form of government did the founders establish to restrict government and secure our liberties? If you listen to the news media, and even sit in many contemporary classes on civics, you would believe that we live in a Democracy.

Professor Alexander Tyler, while the colonies were still under English rule, wrote "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, and from dependency back to bondage." 14 This statement should be required public reading in every civics class in the United States of America. And yet, as we evaluate the preceding statement, we see that as a society we have discovered that we can vote ourselves public money, and are well down the path that Professor Tyler describes. If this disturbing trend is to be reversed, we must teach accurately in our civics classes that we are in actuality a representative, or democratic Republic, wherein no referendum, no executive order, and no statute law can supersede the Constitution.

SUMMARY:

Those who would change our way of life have recognized that the classroom is the most effective place to bring about change. Since the 1960's, radical changes in both methods and curriculum have yielded a generation that has little or no knowledge of the fundamental truths that form the foundation of our way of life. While reading and mathematics are critical to the future of the children of this great nation, The true battleground that will determine our outcome is in the History classroom, and the Civics and Government classrooms. It is there that we cannot afford to give more ground. It is there that we must begin immediately to reclaim the ground that we have lost to liberalism, socialism, atheism, and hedonism.

Why do societies educate their children? To protect and preserve their way of life, and to assure that the values they cherish are past to each succeeding generation. Let us fight to see that the values we leave our children with are the values of those who gave us this nation, not the values of those who wish to make it one more in long and growing line of lukewarm socialist democracies.

I would like to leave you with the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian who desired America's greatness for France:

"I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests, and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning, and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into her churches, and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great". 15

AUTHORS NOTE: All emphasis, whether italic or boldface, is mine.

References:

1 Morris, Christian Life, p. 154

2 Transcript of the Danbury Baptist Letter, as posted to Thomas Jefferson.

3 Bergh, Albert Elley, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition, Vol. XVI, 1904.

4 Bradford, M.E., Original Intentions, p.p. 93 and 94.

5 ibid, p. 94.

6 ibid, p. 87.

7 Capitol Watch, Votenet Newsletter.

8 Hoeft, Kevin, Removing Religious Restraints From Public Schools (Education Policy Papers, Family Research Council).

9 Marshall, Peter, and Manuel, David, The Glory of America, p. 303.

10 Christian Coalition Press, One Nation Under God, America' Christian

Heritage, p. 26.

11 Federer, Ed., America, God and Country, p. 676.

12 Henry, William Wirt, Patrick Henry, Life, Correspondence, and Speeches,

Vol. III, p. 548

13 Boyd, C.J., Ed., Thomas Jefferson Papers, p. 334.

14 Tyler, Alexander F., The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, as attributed by Ralph Epperson, The Unseen Hand.

15 Christian Coalition Press, One Nation Under God, America' Christian Heritage, p. 26.