Life or Death in the Schools

The Radical Critique of Public Schools

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Education

Genre:

Lesson: 4

Track: 04

Dictation Name: RR193B4

Date:

[Tape is very rough, there may be errors.]

The Radical Critique of Public Schools. (?) After 1954, when the humanistic millennium failed to develop, a progressive disenchantment with the public schools set in among the humanists themselves. In recent years the radicals especially have been most vocal in their critique of the public schools, and their indictment has often been a very bitter and a savage one; and sometimes also sound.

Thus, (Fullman?) Greer has made it clear that the schools cannot be regarded as anything more than a failure, because he says: “9 million current school children will enter the labor market from school as functional illiterates.” Such an indictment coming from Christian sources would be discounted, but it is (?) who calls attention with no small documentation to the situation.

Moreover, (Fullman?) Greer has stated and I quote: “Public education is a religion.” As a religion therefore, it is one that has failed to save when it has said: “Leave things in my hands, and I will save you.”

Greer and others have summarized something of the function of education in this country from its early days to the present. In the early days education had as its purpose a thoroughly Christian goal. The child began school learning a simple alphabetical catechism that said, its first sentence: “In Adams fall, we sinned all.” And from there the school went on to teach the child that he was a sinner, that Christ was his savior, that his purpose was in school was to know the word of God and to prepare himself educationally to be a more effective servant to the most high. Education accordingly was high in content, emphatic in the discipline of the child, and strong in a belief that the child could learn.

The content as I have indicated was very high during the early years. The more intelligent and capable children were commonly taught Greek and Hebrew between the ages of 5 and 7. Children attended Harvard in those days a Christian institution, at the ages of 13 or 14. What was then the high school, the academy, was simply a summer session during which the child had the basic fundamentals in a number of disciplines including classical (?). Higher mathematics and a number of other subjects.

But with the development of state controlled education, the goal was changed in education from Christianizing to Americanizing. Previously the Christian schools had been able to absorb the immigrants and do remarkable things. We fail to realize that the immigrants were met when they came to this country by a tremendous variety of tithe agencies which acted as the host to the immigrants. The immigrant when he landed in the United States would find job training through missionary organization. He could learn to speak English. His wife could learn housekeeping in the new world, what types of foods and resources were available here. His children could go to a Christian school. This missionary aspect of Christian education had a very …?… that without it the United States today would be a predominately Catholic country.

As a matter of fact, an Irish priest a few years ago made a study of the Irish America, and found out that the old …?... in the United States were (?). In fact predominately Presbyterian. Because they had been met in Boston, Baltimore and elsewhere, by Presbyterian teachers.

This should give us pause to think. If in a situation where the composition of the country was increasing so dramatically that it seemed as though these Americas were going to be wiped out, Christian organization could Christianize those people, and (?). If we embark on a missionary program. One of the things that I think we shall see in the next decade are Christian missionary schools in the slums, especially in the black slums. We must not forget that part of our problem in the black community today has been that it has been subjected for almost two generation to missionary activity by humanists. So that the overwhelming majority of blacks who in the twenties were simple evangelicals today are either no longer in the churches or have been (?) modernist churches.

…?... But as I said, the goal shifted from Christianizing to Americanizing. And at this point failure set in. As Greer and (Hillidge?) and other radical critics of the public schools have said, the schools did not Americanize. The immigrants were not educated properly. Most of the Americanization of the education came from within their own ranks through their own organizations, their churches, their communal societies.

The immigrants have abandoned the United States not because of the Public Schools, but in spite of them. Because the inner development, their own community life, their own business classes have lead them to a gradual break out. The churches in particular have done yeoman’s work in leading the various immigrants and minority groups out of the slums and into the mainstream of American life. The basic factor has been, however, the family background and (?) of the church.

Thus we have been …?... when we are told that the public schools of the government are instrumental in Americanizing the immigrants in one generation after another. Quite the contrary; at this point we come to a key element that the radicals teach. It is of tremendous importance to us as Christians. Why have the public schools failed to Americanize the immigrants? Why have they failed the minority groups? The (Pollman?) report in the 1960’s reveals the fact that there is not one ghetto school in the United States that could be called at all acceptable, unless it were a parochial or a Christian school. All government schools in every ghetto in every city in the United States have been uniformly failures. Not only so, but they have led to a deterioration in the life of those with whom they deal. They lead to radical destruction of the family life, of the religious life, of the social life of the students. They have alienated the pupil from his own family, community and worship. They have created serious mental conflicts in the children.

Why? (?) is an evolutionary age. The fundamental premise of evolution or Darwinism is the survival of the fittest. This survival means the survival at the expense of all others. I referred in the last hour, and I shall refer to this from time to time in the days ahead, to the radical conflict between two ideas. One believes that the fundamental (?), this is Christianity. As Christians we believe that all things work together for good for them that love God, for them that are called according to his will. And that all things work together for good in terms of Gods purpose because he ordained them, and even the wrath of man shall praise him. So that in spite of the fall of man there is a fundamental harmony of interest in the universe because everything serves God, including the wrath of man.

It is God’s law that undergirds all of creation, it is Gods purpose in terms of which all things move. Therefore, there is a fundamental army of interest. This is why classical free-market economics has collapsed since Darwinism. Classical economics rested on the foundation of a theist universe. Even though the classical economist had become humanist, their theory still presupposed a world that God created. It had a fundamental order to it. Therefore the free market operated because it acts in terms that all time the invisible hand was operating it, God. At every point man deal with God, Gods law, Gods purpose. The Psalmist says: “Though I make my bed in hell, behold though art there. If I sleep in the uttermost parts of the earth, behold Thou art there. The darkness and the light cannot hide me from Thee.”

Now if you believe that of course you will have a free market economy, you will not believe in government as God, because the invisible hand of God is in all things. But that faith collapsed, that kind of economics collapsed (?) governments. So now you have the contrary faith, conflicts of interest. At every point in the universe there is a conflict of interest. One life goes ahead at the cost of another life. It is a dog-eat-dog universe. Now that sums up that little expression. The fundamental faith that evolution engenders. And very quickly this belief after 1865 gained part and parcel of educational philosophy.

We some times miss the whole point of the disaster of the war of 1864, the war of northern aggression. Because we fail to realize that it coincided with something else. In 1859 Darwin’s book came out. In 1860 the war broke out. The war represented a triumph of the Unitarian humanistic elements of the north. It was in part, not so much a war against southern slavery, but against southern puritanism. The hostility of these Northern elements to the puritanism which had moved southward was intense.

Moreover, at the time of the war, you not only had the triumph of liberal humanistic religion in the north, but you had a decline of the old Puritanism in the South. This is why the (?) was successful. Remember it was Calhoun whose great book (?) a generation earlier. The South turned a cold ear towards Calhoun, why? Because he was a Unitarian. It was only his prestige in his own state which made him get into the senate. The legislature appointed him, he was not popular enough to win an election.

But now there was a decline religiously in both North and South, a tremendous revival broke out during the war in the Southern army, but it was too late to effect the outcome of the events. The decline of religion in the south and in the north and the proclamation of Evolution as a faith in 1859 by Darwin.

As a result, the new ideas so quickly infiltrated the country that it was not until the 1890’s that there was really a significant religious answer. It was not until the 90’s, 35 years approximately after Darwin that you had the publication of the series of papers known as the Fundamentalist, fundamentals, from which the term Fundamentalist comes, an attempt by Christians to answer Darwin. During that interim this new faith saturated college Christian schools and seminary, and of course statist education.

In education the significance of the survival of the fittest, and education for leaders in the states and commerce, and …?... labor market as skilled and unskilled labor. But the attitude was that if the average child went to school for 3-4 years, this meant most of the children in the country and especially (?). That would be more than enough, more than enough. They would learn reading and writing and arithmetic, and that (?). Those who were superior could go on and get a full elementary and high school education. (?). This is why for example, in those days an 8th grade education was more than the equivalent of a college education today. It was (?). Those who went through the 8th grade were the elite. The others had been eliminated by the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, they were weeded out by the grade school.

But after World War 2, a change began to set in, and the reason was of course the post-war depression. In the early twenties. So that it became a matter of educational policy, and was increasingly a state law in one state after another, to hold the children in the public schools through the 8th grade. Thus we had public schooling laws saying that the child had to go to school through 12 or 14.

Then with the depression, with all these children going on the labor market, it was decided to raise the level to 16 and 18, and to hold them in schools longer, to keep them off the labor market.

Now two factors were important here, first the early practical pragmatic legal decision, we cannot have all these people out on the street looking for work; and second the belief in education as a panacea.

Then subsequent to World War 2, the depression having not really ended, and war having been the solution, it was decided that there would be a tremendous economic collapse in the United States, if all returning veterans, who were 18 to 23 or 24 returned to this country and suddenly all of them were out looking for jobs. So (?) made possible the college education of these students. Future colleges were also (?) across country and the idea increasingly gained sway with politicians and educators: “Let us keep people in school through the college years, and let us at the same time alleviate the economic situation by holding them longer.”

Now, coincident with this policy of postponing the day of maturity came the policy of no failure, in order to enable the child to go through grade school and high school and then college. First there was the no failure policy in grade schools, then second a no failure policy in the high schools, and increasingly a no failure policy in the colleges and the universities, particularly if they are (?).

Now, this no failure policy is an incentive to the graduate schools. Medical schools for example are required to take a percentage of minority group students. A few weeks ago I spoke at a medical conference, and one of the speakers pointed out that at a competent medical school he did not mention, just graduated its no-fail class of doctors. In fact he was very upset. They were afraid that these students would go out and soon be involved in malpractice suits, and the medical school would be drawn into the doctors malpractice suit. So they were quietly investigating (?) the possibility of getting malpractice insurance for the medical school.

Now these are consequences you see, of the no failure policy. The no failure policy at the same time has put built-in contradiction into state education. On the one hand you have this philosophy of the survival of the fittest; on the other hand because you believe that the environment is responsible, not the individual, you are going to protect the individual against this survival policy. It is a contradiction that is built in to this faith. They have no answer to it.

In the mean time it creates an overwhelming sense of conflict, and a problem. As one state educator emphasized (?) the conservative educator in statist education tends to emphasize the (?). The liberal and the radical educator tends to emphasize the environment as evil, and therefore protection against failure until the person is strong enough to go through the environment.

Now, at the same time another factor has entered into this critical situation. Again, apart (?) in the schools. One of the key works of the 1950’s dealing with college and university education was by Doctor Clark Kerr then president of the University of California. It was during Doctor Kerr’s administration that the student disturbances first broke out at Berkeley, and it is significant that they broke out at Berkeley, in some respects the most advanced humanistic school in the world today, because they were so fitting in terms of Doctor Kerr’s educational philosophy. The fundamental point that Doctor Kerr made was that we no longer have a university, but a multiversity. Now what does that mean?

I am going to drop Doctor Kerr’s terminology because it is so hopelessly humanistic, and involves concessions to his faith. I am going to restate his position in our terms. Very briefly it is this: “The University is the product of Christianity. There was no university in the ancient world, or outside the world of Christendom. The University was developed in the Middle Ages out of the Reformation. It is through and through a theologically premised institution. Why? Because it rests upon a fundamental faith: ‘Uni’versity. One unit. One God. One faith. One Baptism, as scripture says. The university is an application of that principle, one God or one Lord. One law in the universe, the law of the Lord, and therefore one unified body of knowledge. A unity of the whole world of knowledge. This is why you could only have a university in a Christian civilization. Paganism believes in a multiverse. This is the meaning of Polytheism. The Greeks were not Polytheistic because they were primitive, they were sophisticated and utterly humanist. There is nothing admirable about Greek civilization, we have been given generations of propaganda about Greece. They were polytheists because they believed that there were many forces, many laws, many spirits within the universe. Everywhere you turn you face the possibility of a different law structure. Just as Athens had his law, and Sparta had its law, and each had their own form of government, the universe was made up of a variety of hostile and alien elements and forces, so that there was no over-all single universe.

Now, in terms of the modern perspective, this was again the case. Having dropped the scripture they had dropped the idea of a universe. It is hard for us to imagine, but it is basic to the modern perspective. Hence there is total conflict throughout the whole of what you call the universe. The idea of the universe (?) one Lord, one law, one purpose, towards which all things move. But in a multiverse, all things are in conflict, and they live at the expense of everything else. And therefore there is no relationship between one body of fact and another body of fact that is (?) relationship, if there is a relationship it is accidental not essential. If Chemistry and Biology jive it is an accident. I will come to this when we deal with mathematics.

But perhaps I will touch on it now, since I have been postponing it so often. Now, after the moonshot had been accomplished, a group of mathematicians, physicists and others who were instrumental in pinpointing a man on the moon at an exact point, met together at a symposium, at Yale I think. I referred to this by the way in my book the Word of Flux, and the reference is there if you want to pursue it.

The problem that confronted them at this symposium was: “How was it done?” But they were the men who did it! Why would they ask that question, how it was done? Their problem was this: By their mathematical computation they had pinpointed the exact point of man to land and made it possible. They said that mathematics is nothing but pure logic. It has no relationship to this universe. The only way that it can have a relationship is to posit God, which is impossible. Therefore this is a mystery to us. How the logic of our mind can have any relationship to physical reality.

Now that sounds like insanity to us, that so simple a thing should be a mystery to them; but having denied God there is no universe, there is no relationship between what the mind thinks and what happens out there. Therefore mathematics being pure logic, it has no correlation to physical things. And hence it was a mystery to them.

You see, they believed in a multiverse. Now they acted when they undertook the moon shot, as Bible believing Christians, even though they never once honored the name of Christ. But they acted as though the God of Scripture is real. They acted as though there is a universe, and only on that premise were they able to make the moonshot. And then they proceeded to deny the possibility of what they had done, to say it was only an accident, that there was no necessary correlation.

I cited that fact so that you can begin to rethink subjects, and to recognize the radically alien world that Christians and non-Christians have. (?) multi-verse versus universe. In a multiverse, you see, there is no single meaning. No single truth. But our Lord said: “I am the truth.” The humanist answers “Certainly, I can agree with you if you say that you are the truth for yourself.” because in a humanistic universe every man is in terms of scripture, Genesis 3:5, his own God; knowing, and the word knowing has the force of ‘determining for yourself’ what constituted good and evil. So every man is his own truth, that is the premise of existentialism. So the existentialists say “Yes, Jesus, you are the truth for yourself, and I am the truth for myself. But there is no truth that overarches and governs all things, because there is no universe, only a multiverse.

As a result you see, in the modern university increasingly anything can be taught except Biblical thinking. Shortly after Doctor Clark Kerr wrote his book, the University of California granted a master’s degree to a student in witchcraft, magic. It was a legitimate subject. Every subject is legitimate in a multiverse, except Christianity.

The …?... they cannot put their finger on the central reason because it would condemn them also. …?...

Today education is more and more existential. The more existential education becomes, the more of necessity it must deny that there is truth. John Dewey said, and his (?) and experimentalism, essentially an early form of existentialism: “We do not teach subjects, we teach children.” That sounds beautiful, but what it means in essence is that there is no truth. There are only people, and each child is his own universe, his own God. Therefore let him do that which feels good in his eyes. Do your own thing. That is existentialism.

The hippies therefore were the logical product of humanistic education. They were (?) they were the most intelligent students, usually. They got the point. Do your own thing, there is no truth. …?... education. It in effect nullifies it.

In the public schools now even kindergarten children are rebellious. They learn this very early from television, the existentialism is revealed there, and it is confirmed from the first day at the (?) school. Incidentally, recently there was an article in the paper by a kindergarten teacher who had (swatted?) a boy. The boy was so intent on doing his own thing that he was disturbingly anti-social. The teacher felt that this child should be held back for his own welfare before going into the first grade and disrupting everything there. The mother sued the school and won. …?...

You cannot hold back a child more than that. Everyone must be allowed to do their own thing, including the homosexuals. Now in European countries incest has been legalized, and there is a demand for the legalization for a variety of other perversions. Every man his own law. “In those days there was no king in Israel.” The Lord was not recognized as king; “And every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Thus the radicals critique of education becomes increasingly impotent as this progresses. Because (?) nothing except for more of the same and more (radically?). One of the radicals critics of education, Daniel Fader, wrote a very moving book a few years ago in 1971, entitled The Naked Children. And his thesis was a good one, and I quote: “…?... No child should be sent naked into the world.”

He went into a Washington D.C. Junior High, a slum school. And he took over a class of some of the most difficult students. He sought to become their friend, he sought to take them here and there, to expose them to opportunities, brought them into his home. When it was over (it was a failure?) it was effective only while he was there, (his personal interest?) to be friendly and adopting and leading these children. It was an interesting and exciting period for the children, but it did not change them. And as a result, the minute he left things were as they had been, because they were all (?).

…?...

Each of these constitutes a dramatic failure. Because they could (reach?) into his entire faith, humanistic education is destructive of the individual.

If the child is dropped, and the (emphasis?) of humanism is to make man his own God, there are only two (?) that humanistic education can ultimately take. One is to radical anarchism. This is the direction of the new left on the (?). Anarchism says that man needs no savior, no law, no government of any kind over him; that because men are naturally good, the only thing necessary for man is total freedom. Then paradise will be here. Logically the anarchists would have to say that then there is no need for education. (?) says ‘education gives the individual an opportunity for them to realize themselves, and their own ultimacy; and therefore he will (?) up to a point.’

Behind the anarchism is a radical existential reform. Existentialism believes that man has (?). Man has (?). The great (?) was John Paul Sartre. Now what (?) teaches is that man has being but no matter. If we insist man is (?). But we have no predetermined nature, neither he nor the universe has any predetermined character or destiny, or nature, or aptitudes. This of course …?... characterized as behaviorism. It entails therefore that man creates his own essence, man determines what he shall be.

And the (law’s?) function therefore, the public schools from the anarchistic point of view, humanistic education, is to help the individual determine what his essence will be. To decide himself his own God, to be his own nature, and (?) his nature.

This must be done however, without reference to anything outside of himself. Without reference to (?), which leads to God, to man, to parents, to family, to church, or even teachers. Sartre gives an illustration of what true humanism is. Take two men who are both existentialists and humanists. One is a prime minister and the other is a wino. He says that the wino is the better philosopher. A truer humanist. Why? Because the prime minister is still thinking about people out there, whereas the wino thinks only of himself, and therefore he is the sounder humanist and existentialist.

Now what future is there for humanity in terms of the humanist? A dog-eat-dog universe. Every man his own God, doing that which is right in his own eyes, and the wino as the great philosopher. So this is anarchism.

To go back to the canons of Anarchism in the early days, one of its great proponents, Max Stirner. (?) who is still very popular in this country, and is most--- when I was a student in the university was very popular, especially The Ego and Its Own. (?) humanist accuses them of being ignorant Christians. Why? Because he said “You still have prejudice against incest, and against homosexuality, and against necrophilia, anything. That you were brought up to feel that it was immoral. So you still are a practicing Christian in your personal life, even though you don’t believe in it.” And so he said: “We must overthrow all law.”

Now it is this element of existentialist anarchism that you see in today’s (?) situation in San Francisco, New York, (?) and elsewhere. It is this too which has formed a major segment of state education. I said this was one of two forms that has developed statist education; the existentialist anarchist, and the other, the collectivist. Karl Marx, formulated this very tellingly. We sometimes forget that Karl Marx felt as perhaps his most important work, certainly his most intensely written work, a two volume attack on Max Stirner and anarchism. In effect Karl Marx was recognizing that Stirner was right. If you are a humanist, the logic is exactly that direction. Every man his own God. “But,” said Marx, “This logically will lead to the destruction of the society and of man, and our future will be broken. Therefore we have to replace individual man with collective man, with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Then after generations of a totally controlled collectivist society, in terms of pure humanism, we will create a man who is so automatically humanistic that he will be like the bees in the beehive, and the ants in the anthill, without self-consciousness, doing automatically that which comes as his lot to do.”

…?... to produce this kind of automatic man, and then (in every nation?) man will no longer be alienated from his own being. There are a variety of forms of that faith, not all are strictly Marxist; but all of the collectivist philosophy of education follow this kind of pattern very clearly. So here you have the two basic premises of humanistic education. The Anarchistic Existentialist, and the Collectivist. Both humanistic and existentialist (?). This is why you have textbooks as (Roger Seidburghs?) Beyond History. And post-historical man. What are they talking about with such language?

Post historical man, man beyond history, man no longer …?... Because each generation is exactly like the generation before. So that the goal of society is to create a world in which each generation will be exactly like the one before; some being born as worker men, and others being born scientific men, and others as bureaucratic men, and each (?) functioning in his place generation after generation, with no variation. This is the world of 1984, and then some.

…?... wrote about by Plato in his book called Republic. Man then will be beyond self consciousness. And therefore beyond (?) and beyond knowing that there is such a thing as conscience.

Let’s take this one (?). A very influential book in recent years, because all their philosophy, (?) Yale and indeed Harvard. (?) declares that we must abandon the ideas of truth and justice in law, because both ideas are theologically governed. That idea of guilt is to believe that there is a God to whom men are answerable, and no man is answerable to anyone. Justice again is a theological idea, arisen from scripture. And it too must be lost. And if you feel that we are mis-educating people if we talk about right or wrong, or about justice and injustice, this (?) why your state school students are (?). they are being educated in terms of the philosophy that is beyond guilt and justice. Beyond right and wrong, and beyond good and evil. And we are just beginning to see the implementation of these ideas.

If the statist educators have their way, they will soon adopt more radical versions of these ideas, that implement them more radically within the state schools. This is why we must say that what is happening on the state school scene is an act of man’s suicide. We are committing self (?). When (?) said that they are educate supposedly forward, they drawing more students (?). You had better be sure …?... if your philosophy of education is Christian. It is not any part of the humanistic package. With every step forward, as one public school educator at California recently complained, who was somewhat conservative, but not Christian; he said we are simply driving more students into the hands of the opposition. And just as he made those remarks, (?) said he had no reason to believe that was true. (?) [1:01:54}

…?... we have this fact that is …?... because God has created the universe, the wages of sin are always death. Statist, humanist education today is one of the most deadly (?). And its wages increasingly are death. As a result (?) of this country is a time of tremendous opportunity for us, both for the church, and especially for the Christian school, and we should seize it.

Are there any questions now?

Yes.

[Question and Answer period skipped due to difficulty]

Lecture ends