Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it

Dear Editor:
Previously, I cited best-selling author David Horowitz’s conclusion that schools are responsible for the life-and-death struggle between Marxism and God-given inalienable rights America is facing today. I found it illustrative of the point that in the same issue ANR co-publisher wrote about concerns regarding the Nebraska Department of Education’s proposed “health” standards: 1st grade -- gender identity, 2nd grade -- discussing genitalia differences, 4th grade -- gender identity and sexual orientation, and 5th grade -- discussing sexual intercourse.
The latest national “report card” from the 2019 NAEP science assessment is out, and it shows American schools are failing miserably. Just 36 percent of 4th graders were proficient in science, 35 percent of 8th graders were proficient, and 22 percent of 12th graders. For many years America has ranked last or nearly last, compared to the rest of the industrialized world, in math and science.  Our literacy rate has been under 50 percent for years.
America’s academic acumen was not always so deplorable. In fact, history demonstrates our literacy and educational descent commenced with the advent of government schools, aka “public schools.”  For approximately the first 250 years of our history, “parents did not even consider that the civil government in any way had the responsibility or should assume the responsibility of providing for the education of children.” A study conducted in 1800 by DuPont de Nemours revealed that only four in 1,000 Americans were unable to read and write legibly.” The Federalist Papers are a collection of 85 pamphlets written by Madison, Jay and Hamilton to persuade the citizens to ratify the Constitution. These pamphlets were written to be read by citizens with an average education of 8th grade. Today they are seldom read or understood even at the university level. According to Stephen Mansfield, “It was nothing for a man -- or in some cases a woman -- to learn algebra, geometry, navigation, science, logic, grammar, and history entirely through self-education. A seminarian was usually required to know Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French and German just to begin his studies...”
Since the early 80s, when I entered the teaching profession, I have ardently and passionately researched and studied the history and philosophy of education in America. As a result, I can confirm the validity of Lincoln’s statement: “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
So, what was the philosophy of the schoolrooms which produced our Declaration and Constitution that declared all men were endowed by God with inalienable rights, and government’s sole responsibility was to protect those rights.
It may come as a surprise to those historically under educated that all but one of our first institutions of higher learning were created for the express purpose of training preachers to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Rev. John Harvard gave half of his property and his entire library to establish a college that was “to open and explain the Scriptures to his pupils with integrity and faithfulness ... so that, through the blessing of God it may be conducive to the establishment in the principles of the Christian Protestant religion.”
The College of William and Mary received its charter: “to the end that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the Gospel, and that the Christian faith may be propagated...to the glory of God...”
Yale University received its charter in 1701: “...for the liberal and religious education of suitable youth...to propagate in this wilderness, the blessed reformed Protestant religion...”
Similar statements are true of all the Ivy League schools.
Contrast these with the philosophy of John Dewey (the Father of public schools) and his cohorts.  They viewed education primarily as a socialization process, an instrument for social change.
John Dewey, 1898: “My proposition is, that conditions -- social, industrial, and intellectual have undergone such a radical change, that the time has come for a thoroughgoing examination of the emphasis upon linguistic work in elementary instruction.... “The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school-life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to me a perversion.”
Paul Blanchard: “I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends toward the elimination of religious superstition.”
As Santayana said, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
Irl Gilliland,
Henderson