Our Threatened Freedom

Is Education For or Against Barbarism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 114-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 114

Dictation Name: Vol. I - Part 10 - Is Education For or Against Barbarism

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Is education for or against barbarism? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

The key reporter of the Bi Beta Kappa Society recently carried an interesting article by Edgar F. Shannon Jr. commonwealth professor English at the University of Virginia. The subject of Shannon’s study is education, the leaven of American life. Professor Shannon has some good things to say, some very needed emphasis on quality in education. Essentially, Shannon wants a restoration of character and emphasis to the Liberal Arts curriculum and the humanities.

However, one sentence in Shannon’s address stands out, because it summarizes a common opinion. He states, quote, “Education is what raises a society from barbarism to civilization.” Unquote. Is this true?

More than a few men have called attention to the role of education in creating the new barbarism of Mousselines fascism, Hitler’ Nazism, and Russian Marxism. Instead of raising these societies out of barbarism, education has been used to create it. Education obviously can be put to a variety of uses. Just as some drugs can heal us, and others kill us, so too education can be constructive or destructive in a society, depending on who controls it, and what the nature of the educational curriculum is.

One interesting fact, which may be a coincidence, but again it may be a causal factor, is that federal entrance into education has seen a decline of quality go with it.

During the 1950’s and the early 1960’s, academic achievement tests were showing a steady improvement. In 1965 the elementary and secondary education act was passed by Congress. We now have a Department of Education on the federal level. Since 1965, scores on scholastic aptitude tests and other tests have fallen.

Federal involvement in education would appear to be costly in two things. First the quality and achievement in schools, and second in money. We are paying more and more taxes to get less and less educational results.

Moreover, education is not necessarily what raises a society from barbarism to civilization. Some of my teacher friends have some distressing horror stories to tell of the rule of the new barbarism in our state schools. One able teacher told me that now a-days the restraints are mainly on the teachers, not on the pupils.

Furthermore, education is essentially a religious discipline. It is the communication of the values, learning and achievements of a culture to its children. We are obviously not communicating sound moral values, same is true of learning. Test scores dropping, even with lower testing standards, learning has been sacrificed. Certainly we are not teaching any knowledge or respect for the achievements of our American society and culture.

Ideally, education should be good and constructive. Practically, it can be, like a wife or husband, a marvelous joy if good, and a living nightmare if bad. What we need to advance our society is not simply education as such, but good education, strong in communicating moral values, learning and a respect for the achievements of our civilization. A good education is important to freedom, and a bad education destructive of it.

This has been R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.