One of the most vile institutions ever cast upon these great United States was the public school system, and forcing any American to do something never sits well with us as a people, no matter how illiterate school has made our society over the past 120 years.
I can't think of a more anti-American system of ideas than the schooling model that we've been subjected to over these past 6 generations for the greater US, and since 1837 in Massachusetts. Horace Mann adopted institutional models that were meant for Prussia at the time, as the Prussians were tired of getting defeated by the French repeatedly. The Prussian schooling system that was devised was intended to help unify the Germanic people of Prussia against the French in order to take advantage of new developments in industry, while also immunizing Prussia from the trend of people's revolutions that had already overthrown the British in the Americas, and the French King and nobility in France. This was a world where empires still ruled the globe, but cracks had formed in the dams of two of the most powerful civilizations known to man, and the Prussian government innovated a way to help hedge their control against such populist risings.
If you go down the primary objectives of the Prussian school reform movement, each of them is directly antithetical to the core foundational values that the United States was built upon:
1. Obedient workers for the mines. In the United States of the 1800s, mercantilism, decentralized entrepreneurship, and independent farming were the primary models of industry.
2. Obedient soldiers for the army. The United States did not have a standing Army in the 1800s, but relied on calling them into service when needed as with the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Interestingly, the US Army War College and West Point were heavily influenced by the Prussian Military Academy, especially after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, where Germany was unified against the French and wrecked the French Army for sport, leveled Paris, and occupied most of Northeastern France after defeating them in a period of a few months over that winter.
3. Well-subordinated civil servants to government. The United States was not founded on vast bureaucracies interfering with the means and modes of commerce. Along with the adoption of public schooling, this changed horribly to our detriment in the 1900s.
4. Well-subordinated clerks to industry. The US didn't have an integrated clerical network driven by a centralized military-industrial-economic capital city like the regions of Europe from which we came. Instead, we had independent States with a very limited Federal government with few, specific enumerated powers focused primarily on defense and a more perfect union, where States were basically left to their own to run their business as they saw fit, as long as they did not violate certain basic rights as called-out in the Bill of Rights. These rights were seen as natural and inherent to human beings, not something a government could impose on, which was a radical departure from legal frameworks throughout time.
5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues. This is the most offensive to any American, where even among the Founders, a great deal of gentlemanly and heated disagreement existed on pretty much every subject other than the fact that England was not respecting them as they would have been if they were living in England. They disagreed on religion, Federalism vs Anti-Federalism, States rights, the status of slaves, central banking vs State banks, standing armies, societal factions that led to civil wars, political parties, inoculations, trade, tariffs....
It may have made sense for the Prussians to use schooling as a means of unifying the populace under the control of their kingdom, but it's clear this is about as opposite an institutional approach as you can imagine for the United States.
What Horace Mann was able to accomplish in Massachusetts, John Dewey and other school reformers was able to spread to the United States. If you read John Dewey's treatises on what school should be, you might be shocked to learn that he didn't want school to be a place where children learn skills and classical curriculum, but where the new social order is trained into them by teachers, who are "social servants ushering in the true kingdom of God". He was an atheist quasi-psychoanalyst philosopher more than anything, and very instrumental in the lives we have all lived since that time, even to the founding of Manu universities and influencing the APA standards you use when sourcing and citing references in your college-level papers.
My Pedagogic Creed - John Dewey
I can't think of a more anti-American system of ideas than the schooling model that we've been subjected to over these past 6 generations for the greater US, and since 1837 in Massachusetts. Horace Mann adopted institutional models that were meant for Prussia at the time, as the Prussians were tired of getting defeated by the French repeatedly. The Prussian schooling system that was devised was intended to help unify the Germanic people of Prussia against the French in order to take advantage of new developments in industry, while also immunizing Prussia from the trend of people's revolutions that had already overthrown the British in the Americas, and the French King and nobility in France. This was a world where empires still ruled the globe, but cracks had formed in the dams of two of the most powerful civilizations known to man, and the Prussian government innovated a way to help hedge their control against such populist risings.
Quote:State-directed schools find their roots in the Prussian schools of the early 19th Century. In the 1840s, Horace Mann, then secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, traveled to Europe to study the Prussian model of public education. He was seeking a way to change what he deemed the ?unruly? (meaning independent) children into disciplined citizens.
To that end, the Prussian educational system sought to take education out of the hands of family and church with five key goals in mind. It was to create:
1. Obedient workers for the mines.
2. Obedient soldiers for the army.
3. Well-subordinated civil servants to government.
4. Well-subordinated clerks to industry.
5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues.
The reasoning behind such a system is easy to understand, since independently educated masses could not be always counted on to submit to their government?s objectives. Tyrants like Prussia?s Frederick William I and France?s Napoleon each used this system to build a powerful, controlling state apparatus. Other despots followed in their footsteps.
Educator John Taylor Gatto's book, "The Underground History of American Education," describes how the system came to America:
"A small number of passionate ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the 19th Century, fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its educational system and campaigned relentlessly thereafter to bring the Prussian vision to our shores. To do that, children would have to be removed from their parents and inappropriate cultural influences."
The next step was to sell the new system to the American public in the name of equality by convincing each respective state to adopt a compulsory government school system to ensure a uniform education for the masses. The primary goals of this system were not intellectual training but rather conditioning the students for obedience, subordination and collective life.
With this bit of historical perspective regarding the origins and stated intentions of public education, it's much easier to understand why a "free education for all children in public schools" was a key plank of Marx's Communist Manifesto.
If you go down the primary objectives of the Prussian school reform movement, each of them is directly antithetical to the core foundational values that the United States was built upon:
1. Obedient workers for the mines. In the United States of the 1800s, mercantilism, decentralized entrepreneurship, and independent farming were the primary models of industry.
2. Obedient soldiers for the army. The United States did not have a standing Army in the 1800s, but relied on calling them into service when needed as with the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Interestingly, the US Army War College and West Point were heavily influenced by the Prussian Military Academy, especially after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, where Germany was unified against the French and wrecked the French Army for sport, leveled Paris, and occupied most of Northeastern France after defeating them in a period of a few months over that winter.
3. Well-subordinated civil servants to government. The United States was not founded on vast bureaucracies interfering with the means and modes of commerce. Along with the adoption of public schooling, this changed horribly to our detriment in the 1900s.
4. Well-subordinated clerks to industry. The US didn't have an integrated clerical network driven by a centralized military-industrial-economic capital city like the regions of Europe from which we came. Instead, we had independent States with a very limited Federal government with few, specific enumerated powers focused primarily on defense and a more perfect union, where States were basically left to their own to run their business as they saw fit, as long as they did not violate certain basic rights as called-out in the Bill of Rights. These rights were seen as natural and inherent to human beings, not something a government could impose on, which was a radical departure from legal frameworks throughout time.
5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues. This is the most offensive to any American, where even among the Founders, a great deal of gentlemanly and heated disagreement existed on pretty much every subject other than the fact that England was not respecting them as they would have been if they were living in England. They disagreed on religion, Federalism vs Anti-Federalism, States rights, the status of slaves, central banking vs State banks, standing armies, societal factions that led to civil wars, political parties, inoculations, trade, tariffs....
It may have made sense for the Prussians to use schooling as a means of unifying the populace under the control of their kingdom, but it's clear this is about as opposite an institutional approach as you can imagine for the United States.
What Horace Mann was able to accomplish in Massachusetts, John Dewey and other school reformers was able to spread to the United States. If you read John Dewey's treatises on what school should be, you might be shocked to learn that he didn't want school to be a place where children learn skills and classical curriculum, but where the new social order is trained into them by teachers, who are "social servants ushering in the true kingdom of God". He was an atheist quasi-psychoanalyst philosopher more than anything, and very instrumental in the lives we have all lived since that time, even to the founding of Manu universities and influencing the APA standards you use when sourcing and citing references in your college-level papers.
My Pedagogic Creed - John Dewey
Quote:I believe that we violate the child's nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.
I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's own social activities.
I believe that the art of thus giving shape to human powers and adapting them to social service, is the supreme art; one calling into its service the best of artists; that no insight, sympathy, tact, executive power is too great for such service.
I believe that with the growth of psychological science, giving added insight into individual structure and laws of growth; and with growth of social science, adding to our knowledge of the right organization of individuals, all scientific resources can be utilized for the purposes of education.
I believe that when science and art thus join hands the most commanding motive for human action will be reached; the most genuine springs of human conduct aroused and the best service that human nature is capable of guaranteed.
I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.
I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.
I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.
NRA Basic, Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, RSO
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6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbooks & chamber brushes can be found here:
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CCW, CQM, DM, Long Range Rifle Instructor
6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbooks & chamber brushes can be found here:
www.AR15buildbox.com