One Major Southern Problem--Public Schools, Part 2

by Al Benson Jr.

Horace Mann received much support in his endeavor to kill the influence of Christian education from people like Robert Owen, the British socialist who came to this country and founded the socialist colony at New Harmony, Indiana in the late 1820s. Owen was the man whose socialist scheme in Indiana "lighted up (Abraham) Lincoln's heart" according to Lincoln's biographer, Carl Sandburg, himself a socialist.

So the foundation of public education in this country was clearly anti-Christian--and if that was the case in the beginning, then how, pray tell, do you get it back to the "good old days?" There never were any "good old days" in public education. All there were, if you perceive events correctly, were times years ago when the anti-Christianity and socialism were a little less evident than now, but they were still there. If the root of the tree is rotten, you can't improve it by lopping off a few small branches and labeling it "school reform." Unfortunately, most Christians in the last 160 years have never figured that out.

After the public school system had operated in Yankeeland for about thirty years, one generation, along came the War of Northern Aggression.  When the shooting part of that war was over, then what is euphemistically called "reconstruction" was instituted, starting in the South--and guess what came South with the Carpetbaggers? You got it--the public school system, complete with Yankee school teachers and textbooks, all designed to show the benighted South the path of true salvation--not through Jesus, but through the State. Up until that point, you hadn't had a public school "system" in the South. Here and there you had parentally-controlled local schools, and that was it because that was enough. As part of the Yankee/Marxist "reconstruction" you got the public school system you have all come to know and love.

I have one question no one has yet been able to answer. Most Southern folks I know that know anything at all, hate "reconstruction" and justifiably so. I hate it and what it did to the South, and I was born in the North. If you hate "reconstruction" why do you love public schools? They are a major part of what you profess to hate. Have folks in the South finally been brainwashed to the point where they now love "Big Brother?"

You will never even begin to preserve your culture, history, and heritage in any lasting way until you start to realize what the public school brainlaundering has done to you and your kids and you start taking them out of public schools and either putting them in Christian schools or teaching them at home. It's hard for folks to grasp this because they were brainwashed in the exact same way their kids are being brainwashed now.

However, we need to ask the Lord's help so we can begin to think outside the public school box. I would exhort folks to think about this and to ask the guidance of the Holy Spirit as they seek to deal with what they need to do regarding the education of their children.

I recently read an article that asked the question, "Are Christians who put their kids in public schools committing a sin?" The upshot of the article was that, if they are unaware of what the public schools are all about, then, no, they are not, but if they have some knowledge of what the public schools are and still choose to leave their kids in them, then they have a major problem. There are many instances where parents have no other alternative. But there are also many instances where parents do have the possibility of Christian alternatives and they just don't bother, or worse, yet, because their kids are in public school, they stand up and defend public education. Again, they don't know the history of public education in this country, or they don't want to know it. Either way they have a problem they will, at some point, have to deal with.

Either way, the South has to deal with the public education problem. If it does not, it will cease to exist as a viable entity and a culture that had a Christian worldview will be lost forever.

Taken in part from The Confederate Sentry, Volume 19, Number 3, AD 2013,
The publication of the Confederate Society of America