Public education,
in its current state, is based on the idea that government is the
"parent" best equipped to provide children with the values and wisdom
required to grow into intelligent, functional adults. To echo what
former first lady Hillary Clinton professed, these public school
champions believe "it takes a village" to cultivate a society of
competent human beings.
As Hebrew University
historian Martin van Crevald points out in his book, The
Rise and Decline of the State, nineteenth-century state
worshippers who wanted to impose a love of big government ideals
upon the youth popularized the archetype for state-directed education.
Additionally, there was an overall appetite for discipline of the
"unruly" masses that reinforced the campaign to take education
out of the hands of individuals. After all, the self-educated masses
might resist government decrees, and this kind of disarray would
be undesirable in the move toward building a powerful, controlling
state apparatus. Prussia's Frederick William I and France's Napoleon
discerned this, as did a legion of other despotic rulers throughout
the 18th and 19th centuries. In a recent article published on the American Daily Herald "Dumberer
and Dumberest," Glenn Horowitz writes:
If you're
not familiar with it, the Prussian system was a teaching methodology
designed to stamp out good little worker bees assembly-line fashion,
trained to be complacent with their station in life and compliant
with every demand of the State. An elite of those better educated
but still proven unquestioningly loyal to the State were promoted
to lead the proletariat, rewarded with elevated status and material
success commensurate with their skills and the zeal they demonstrate
in supporting the system. It specifically avoided developing creativity
and independent thought, reasoning these were skills the worker
classes didn't need in their roles as mass produced labor.
Modern education
is built upon a foundation set forth by tyrants. What is most disquieting
about the public education mindset is that those who believe most
strongly in it are convinced that there are no other suitable alternatives
to the compulsory schooling provided via the public domain. The
egalitarian core belief of these public education proponents is
that society is responsible for obtaining, maintaining, and paying
for the process of equally developing young minds.
