Education
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
With a new school year approaching, maybe education should be more than the Three R's?
It appears our Founding Fathers thought this to be true: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison (1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia).
"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed ... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people." - Noah Webster (in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English Language).
"It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
"The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal." - Thomas Paine ("The Existence of God--1810").
"I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them - we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism ... By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds." - Benjamin Rush (Letter written in Defense of the Bible in all schools in America)
"What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ." - George Washington (speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs, May 12, 1779)
No doubt certain groups would be furious, even enraged, over this "old-fashioned" idea, but shouldn't we examine the fruit of both systems?
Tim & Penny Morbitzer
North Manchester, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
With a new school year approaching, maybe education should be more than the Three R's?
It appears our Founding Fathers thought this to be true: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison (1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia).
"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed ... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people." - Noah Webster (in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English Language).
"It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
"The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal." - Thomas Paine ("The Existence of God--1810").
"I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them - we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism ... By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds." - Benjamin Rush (Letter written in Defense of the Bible in all schools in America)
"What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ." - George Washington (speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs, May 12, 1779)
No doubt certain groups would be furious, even enraged, over this "old-fashioned" idea, but shouldn't we examine the fruit of both systems?
Tim & Penny Morbitzer
North Manchester, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
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