The first post in this series dealt with the definition of education. The second post began to look at the history of education.

I have chosen to deal with the history of education by looking at a number of different influences upon education. I see seven basic influences which have brought American education to where it is today.

The first influence is the founding of the New World. In this post I will continue to examine the influences upon education. The second trend which influenced education was the establishment of the new nation. With the American War of Independence and the founding of the United States came a somewhat subtle change in education.
There was great concern that liberty would bring chaos. The founding fathers felt that education would be a major solution to the problem the young nation faced. Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” James Madison said, “A people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.” John Adams said, “The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expense of it.”

It must be understood that they were not concerned with education as far as “knowledge.” The colonists were extremely well-educated in the basics. In 1765, John Adams observed that “a native of America, especially of New England, who cannot read and write is as rare a phenomenon as a Comet.” The great concern was with the teaching of “republican virtues.” This now became the central goal. There was a desire to create and maintain a distinctive in and about America. Noah Webster claimed that “as an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government.” The emphasis on the education of women began to be more prominent at this time because these “republican mothers” would carry the responsibility of instructing the next generation in the civic virtues which would be necessary for the national welfare.

The founding fathers, in general, assumed that some sort of public system of education was needed in order to preserve the government and freedom which had been established. However, in general, it was not a federally controlled educational system which was in view. What they had in view and what we have today are two totally different ideas. It is interesting that the word education does not even appear in the U.S. Constitution. This calls into question the constitutionality of any kind of federal educational system.

The early colonists (as seen in the previous post) who established formal education before the founding of America primarily did so in order that the Bible would be known. The founding fathers established formal education in order that the “Republican virtues” would be known. What is interesting is that these purposes have both failed in our modern educational system. They both seemed to assume that formal education was necessary, at least to some degree. The question could be asked: is their assumption of the necessity of formal education correct?

Once the depravity of man’s sinfulness was lost (we will address this later), education became something which man can accomplish on his own. And since man is basically good, all he needs is to be educated in order to be reformed. John Locke believed that children were born with a “blank slate” and educators believed they could create a better society by writing the best things on this slate. Not all took that position, just as all today do not take that position. However, that is the basic underlying thesis of education from the founding of America to this day. This is why it is important that we do not just go back to the founding of America for our ideas (as good as many of them are) but that we go back to the Bible.

To be continued…