Essay on "Education, Past and Present"
by Robert W. Watson
(22 September 2001)

In his essay, "Education, Past and Present," Fletcher discusses the purpose and scope of education. Indeed, this Southern poet, critic, and artist is qualified to express his thoughts about education. Beginning his academic career in the home (where he studied German and Latin at the age of five), Fletcher attended both public schools and private academies. A restless man, distressed by the dehumanising of people by industrialists, Fletcher tried "to acquire an education, to learn something concerning aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values." Being unable to reconcile his artistic nature with the ever expanding industrialised state with its propensity for incessant war, Fletcher died in 1950. Whether a suicide or an accident, Fletcher ended his life in a pond in rural Arkansas.

We have heard so often, thanks to politicians and journalists, that the ills of society can be cured with "more education." According to the pundits, with a little more education, our social problems will be wondrously eradicated. As the universal panacea, "more education" has become fixed in the American psyche and is a maxim of unquestionably validity. In fact, the doctrine of "more education" as a tenet of faith has allowed politicians to deceive the simple, to plunder the state's coffers, and to coerce the "unenlightened." Implicit in "more education" is the notion of reform. If the state can reform its citizens by instilling good habits through enough "education," as Plato suggests, then the just state will emerge. However, call it whatever you wish, this reforming of citizens for the purpose of the state fails to be education.

Fletcher gets to the heart of the matter by stating, "All that education can do in any case is to teach us to make good use of what we are; if we are nothing to begin with, no amount of education can do us any good." In other words, a scoundrel, whether he is an illiterate pickpocket or a U.S. Congressman with a Ph.D. from Yale, is still a scoundrel. While this is true, Fletcher seems to think moral worth and genius are innate. I disagree. Our character and genius are the result of our earliest education that we received from our parents or guardians. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that parents cultivate the rudiments of moral character, religious faith, and reading early in their children's lives. The central lesson that children must learn is that they are to love their God with their heart, soul, mind, and body, and this love for God will be evinced by loving their neighbours. This responsibility belongs solely, not to government, not to the church, but to parents, who should set the example for their children.

"Education, Past and Present" is a discussion about how the English system of education was modified first in New England, and then later how the common school was forced upon the South during Reconstruction. According to Fletcher, a nation's educational system is very conservative and resists change, even after all other institutions have changed. But, even before the War for American Independence, Massachusetts enacted the "Old Deluder Satan Act" that mandated "children" (interpreted to mean "boys" only) to be publicly "educated." Prior to this law, education was the legal duty of parents as well as masters for their apprentices. However, the leaders of the Puritan theocracy were convinced that parents who educated their children at home did not share the interests of the government, which was its perpetual existence. Therefore, the first law that compelled compulsory attendance for "education" set the precedent for all subsequent governmental education: to ensure the mass-production of acceptable citizens for the continuance of the state. As Fletcher points out, "Today the object of American education is to turn out graduates--whether good, bad, or indifferent we neither know nor care. Formerly, quantity had to give place to quality; today it is the reverse."

After the formation of the United States under the Constitution, New England abandoned for the most part the English system and adopted the Prussian model for education, a system that demanded strict discipline and reciting of rote. The Prussian model is good for indoctrinating future soldiers (Prussia's leading export), but it is incompatible for free men who want to think about ideas. A student's uniqueness and his non-conformity were discouraged as Massachusetts led the way by standardising instruction for children through a state board of education. Thus, from a decentralised system of education where instruction and methods differed in every home, Northern education became centralised within a few years after American independence. In addition to the growing apostasy of the New England clergy, merchants began to direct the tone of Yankee society, and the schools adapted by offering courses in the "mechanical arts." Instruction in successful money-making became the purpose for Northern "education," and an arrogance developed against other sections of the country for those who continued to have a classical education under the English system.

Since the colonial South was more sparsely populated, her citizens relied on the Established Church to provide education to the poorer students and on private tutors from England for the gentry. As can be imagined, with the outbreak of war between the colonies and England, Southern citizens had to turn to private sources, and thus the grammar schools and the Southern academy came into existence. Most Southern children, including a goodly number of young slaves, were afforded a grammar education, consisting of reading, writing, ciphering, and an introduction to Latin. After grammar school, the student would either become an apprentice in order to learn a "practical" vocation or attend an academy to prepare him for college. The academy offered advance studies in Latin and Greek. The reason for the emphasis on classical languages was that many of the ancient works were not translated. If a student wanted to study the ideas expressed by Cicero, Quintilian, or Senaca, he had to understand Latin first. Therefore, Southern education differed from New England's system, because it was based on humane studies, rather than technical or vocational ones. Whereas the Northern students were acquainted with the indisputable facts of mathematics and science (valuable only for getting a job), Southern students grappled with divergent knowledge found in philosophy and history and used rhetoric to express their arguments. The Northern system stressed the commonality of outcomes; the Southern system emphasised the role of teachers as examples.

According to Fletcher, the one weakness of the academies was their inordinate devotion to rhetoric and "civic patriotism," while giving little attention to literature and art. Perhaps Fletcher overreaches somewhat here, because whether this was indeed a failing of the academies, the South still produced her number of artists, writers, and poets. Nevertheless, Fletcher is correct when he asserts that the Southern gentleman generally opted only to enter law or politics. Yet, this rather narrow curriculum was not the reason for the Northern ridicule of the Southern student. The South was charged with being apathetic to "education," that is, to technical training. However, even up until 1920, eighty percent of the Southern population was rural. The North had become industrialised with a large influx of immigrants, who were unaccustomed to American "democracy" and Protestantism. Because of these two factors, Northern education centred on training students both vocationally and socially. The Roman Catholic Church reacted to this Northern coercion by forbidding its members to support the public schools and established its own parochial schools.

However, in the South, all but a few industries were centred on agriculture. Thus, the need for vocational, or even social, training was unnecessary. This is not to say that the South did not attempt the common school concept of Horace Mann. There were plenty of experiments, but they failed either due to mismanagement of funds, inordinate operational costs, or both. Just before the War for Southern Independence, the citizens of Virginia were going to build three agricultural colleges and several more academies. No, the South did not ignore the education of her young people. The South preferred the English method: "She simply preferred the older schemes of education which were best suited to her own rural populations, to such novel methods as Mann's, which were non-sectarian, non-religious, urban and egalitarian in scope."

Even though he mentions it in passing, Fletcher does not explain how the New England common schools effectively destroyed leisure. Of course, I have not seen leisure being discussed at all in the modern educational literature. I suspect that leisure is no longer valid in the technological scheme of things. I have pointed out before that man must labour to provide for shelter, food, clothing, and fuel. These are absolutely essential for subsistence and survival. However, once these essentials are secured, then man can pursue leisure activities. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leisure was understood to be an exercising of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual parts of man. Thus, education falls within the realm of leisure, not work. Obviously, the more one has to labour for subsistence, the less time there is for developing the intellect, writing poetry, or just watching the setting of the afternoon sun. From the leisure class arises the statesmen, professors, preachers, and artists--leaders who are the guardians of the integrity of the family, which in turn preserves the community and nation. The Southern schools centred on the individual student in order to develop his uniquely God-given gifts. On the other hand, the New England schools created the "average" student, stressing a competitive attitude among the students, who were taught that they ought "to get ahead in life." Of course, this getting ahead presupposes that there are others that the student must get ahead of. While the common school system is believed to be egalitarian, in reality the schools produce egocentric labourers. On the other hand, the Southern schools used to produce gentlemen.

Not so today. The South's rural population continues to dwindle as the industrialised cities devour natural resources and human beings. Centralised boards of education exist in every state, victimising both teachers and students, because the boards are anti-cultural, not taking into account local needs. In that Southern children have been subjected to an impersonal process that mass-produces model citizens for the "global economy," we should not be surprised that the culture that made the South the envy of the world is disappearing rapidly before our eyes. Fletcher warns, "if the present system persists, in another generation nothing will remain of the local color, the diversity, the humanity, the charm of our South, and we will become assimilated outwardly and inwardly to the street gangs of New York and Chicago." This warning was written in 1930. Fletcher's one generation has long disappeared, and yet there still remains a semblance of the tradition of the South. This only shows the obstinacy of the Southern culture. How can it be any other way since our culture is centred on the truth of Christianity and imitates the best of humane studies and ideas?

The question naturally arises: What can Southerners do in order to reform the educational system? Asked in a different way, "What are we expecting as a result of education?" The final educational product ought to be Southern ladies and gentlemen, who will create a new leisure class. This is what Thomas Jefferson wanted, and the antebellum South tried to implement Jefferson's ideas. In a sense, the scholars in the home school movement are becoming a new gentry. These young people have had the benefit of avoiding a governmental miseducation, and therefore have the rare ability to think. Home educators have proven that when education is the goal, not vocational and social training, students can excel on low budgets without the "experts" help. Indeed, there ought to be a complete separation between schools and the government. For more information about how this can be accomplished, I refer you to the Separation of School and State Alliance. Even the home schools in some states are still burdened by state interference in their students' education. The government has no business in education. Of course, any talk about a gentry will raise a hue and cry of inequality and a false concern for the "poor."

Let me make it perfectly clear that the national bureaucrats and NEA could not care less about any child's education, whether the youngster is rich or poor. The American common school lives, moves, and has its being by acquiring more power to control, not to educate. The best that politicians can provide to a bewildered herd of taxpayers is a scheme of standardised testing and more teacher accountability. In other words, more failure, more control. Therefore, my suggestions that follow will not be accepted by the educational bureaucracy, because their interests will be in jeopardy.

Let us assume that Fletcher is correct when he states that the governmental system is here to stay like industrialism is. If this is true, then I suggest first that all compulsory attendance laws be abolished. It seems odd that we tell students that they are free citizens when they are forced to go to school every morning. Classical education recognises that children must memorise a lot of material during the first years of their education. However, by the time the students go to high school, the memorising must stop, and students should begin to use ideas learned in history, philosophy, and religion. But not every student desires this kind of learning. Therefore, at the end of eighth grade, the student should be given a choice: attend an academy to prepare him for a liberal arts college, attend a technical college, or get a job. Of course, the child labour laws will need to be abolished in order to allow the mass of ex-students to work.

I highly recommend Douglas Wilson's book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning," in order to understand classical education and how to apply it today. My own book, Critique of Pure Education, offers a classical approach to education as well and argues that pure education creates moral leaders. The classical model will allow young people (with the guidance of their parents) to chose their own destiny. Education cannot be democratised without destroying learning like we have witnessed in the past 150 years. The current educational policies will increase the frustration and alienation of our young people; a return to a classical education with the resurrection of an intellectual leisure class will ensure liberty and peace for everyone.