The justification for public education in the United States may be traced to the Northwest Ordinance. This legislation of the Continental Congress laid down the parameters of westward expansion by the addition of new states.
An unfortunate choice of words in Article 3, was seized upon by later governments. The phrase "education shall forever be encouraged" (see next paragraph) came to mean "education shall forever be funded by the government until the last nickel has been drained from the taxpayers' wallet."
Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
This led to the creation of the common (government) schools in the 1830s by Horace Mann in Massachusetts. This was followed by the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Hatch Act of 1887, by which government control of education was extended to the collegiate level. Thus, education became a tool by which government could manipulate the minds of the American people.
Notice the Messianic terms in which the government takeover of education is described in this paragraph from the Antioch University website. Horace Mann was the founding President of Antioch College.
"Awed by the immensity of the challenge of his new post, Mann swore to himself on the day he accepted, "Henceforth, as long as I hold this office, I dedicate myself to the supremest welfare of mankind on earth." Over the next twelve years he transformed the state's hodgepodge of charity schools for the poor into a great system of free public schools, organized on solid educational principles."
This is reminiscent of the "brain tax" levied on the erstwhile countryside by the Flying Island of Laputa in Gulliver's Travels.
Mar 15, 2011 Rating
Community Schools by: Anonymous
By government schools, what government do you mean? The Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony required a colony for every down with fifty families.
