Gordon Clark: Review of The Messianic Character of American Education by R.J. Rushdoony (The Presbyterian Journal)

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.