1964. Review of The Messianic Character of American Education by R.J. Rushdoony. The Presbyterian Journal. 11 Mar: pgs. 22-23.
THE MESSIANIC CHARACTER OF AMERICAN EDUCATION, by Rousas J. Rushdoony.
Presbyterian and Reformed Publ. Co., Philadelphia, Penna. 410 pp. $6.50.
The thesis of this book is that public education in America is
essentially statist in theory and in practice. The prerogatives of the home and
of the church are being curtailed by the "principle" that children belong
to the state.
The author offers a great deal of documentation. William Torry
Harris is quoted as saying, "The state always asBumes control of the individual
for the benefit of the social unit. Against this social unit he has no substantial
existence." Notice that the aim of education here is the benefit of the state,
not the benefit of the pupil.
John Swett referred to the property of the state and the children
of the state: not property in the state and children in the state. Dean Russell
of Columbia Teachers College asserted that "teachers are the servants of the
state."
This political totalitarianism makes social conformity the aim
of education. Even literacy at times has been regarded as undemocratic. Certainly
this theory lowers intellectual requirements to a depressed and depressing minimum.
George S. Counts attacked intellectualism as anti-democratic and socially divisive;
his aims for elementary education included health, civic life, and recreation, but
not reading.
Conant is pictured as condemning the family as undemocratic because
it is in conflict with equality of opportunity — parents often want their children
to have some advantages! The New Republic asserts that it is the mission of the
state to discourage (and eventually prohibit) all parochial and private schools.
And the U. N. and UNESCO plan to control all education with no independent schools
permitted.
Such attempts have been and are being made. In 1874 California
made it a penal offense to send children to a private school without the consent
of the state trustees. Recently the University of California forbade students
to be members of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.
The National Education Association, the most powerful educational
body today, withdrew accreditation from the Holland (Mich.) Christian High School
because they refused to include cooking and shop in their curriculum. Then when
the Saturday Evening Post and Life published articles on the matter, the National
Association of Secondary School Principals tried to ban the magazines from the high
schools.
In the light of the immense amount of documentation that Rousas
J. Rushdoony has collected, the recent actions of the U. S. Supreme Court in trying
to eradicate Christian practices and ideas from the schools are more clearly
understood. The important thing is not the
single decision which outlaws a state-composed and state-imposed prayer. The important
thing is the continuing effort to secularize America. Rushdoony makes it quite clear
that the present principles guiding American education, while they differ in degree,
are essentially the Fascist-Communist principles of a totalitarian state.
The careful reader may conclude that the author raises more problems
than he can solve. So be it. These problems need to be raised.
—Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
Indianapolis, Ind.
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