Via Billy
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.