[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: What was education like before the Prussian method ofindoctrination?
Paul Rumelhart
godshatter at yahoo.com
Mon May 14 19:24:19 PDT 2007
Perhaps a comparison of the different methodologies used in these
literacy studies would help. Who was their population, was it
representative, and how did they define "literacy"? How accurate are
their sources?
Paul
heirdoug at netscape.net wrote:
> Sue,
>
> Why would you be wary of 4 in 1000 to be a wrong assessment of the
> 1800's Were your there? Or doesn't it fit your paradigm?
>
> I truly wish to hear your viewpoint.
>
> Doug
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: suehovey at moscow.com
> To: heirdoug at netscape.net; vision2020 at moscow.com
> Sent: Sun, 13 May 2007 8:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] What was education like before the Prussian
> method ofindoctrination?
>
> And you will still be a long way off, but this makes for interesting
> reading. I'd be wary of any publication which quoted the duPont study
> (only 4 in 1000 Americans not literate in 1800) as proof of literacy.
> Surely you don't find that a credible statement. Well maybe you do..
>
> Sue
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* heirdoug at netscape.net <mailto:heirdoug at netscape.net>
> *To:* suehovey at moscow.com <mailto:suehovey at moscow.com> ;
> heirdoug at netscape.net <mailto:heirdoug at netscape.net> ;
> vision2020 at moscow.com <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 13, 2007 7:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] What was education like before the
> Prussian method ofindoctrination?
>
> Sue,
>
> I had heard it from other sources that it was as high as 98% but I
> will settle for 90%.
>
>
> Enjoy
>
>
> Education in Colonial America
>
>
> /Robert A. Peterson/
>
> One of the main objections people have to getting government
> out of the education business and turning it over to the free
> market is that "it simply would not get the job done." This
> type of thinking is due, in large measure, to what one
> historian called "a parochialism in time," ^1 i.e., a limited
> view of an issue for lack of historical perspective. Having
> served the twelve-year sentence in government-controlled
> schools, most Americans view our present public school system
> as the measure of all things in education. Yet for two hundred
> years in American history, from the mid-1600s to the
> mid-1800s, public schools as we know them today were virtually
> non-existent, and the educational needs of America were met by
> the free market. In these two centuries, America produced
> several generations of! highly skilled and literate men and
> women who laid the foundation for a! nation dedicated to the
> principles of freedom and self-government.
> The private system of education in which our forefathers were
> educated included home, school, church, voluntary associations
> such as library companies and philosophical societies,
> circulating libraries, apprenticeships, and private study. It
> was a system supported primarily by those who bought the
> services of education, and by private benefactors. All was
> done without compulsion. Although there was a veneer of
> government involvement in some colonies, such as in Puritan
> Massachusetts, early American education was essentially based
> on the principle of voluntarism.^2
> Dr. Lawrence A. Cremin, distinguished scholar in the field of
> education, has said that during the colonial period the Bible
> was "the single most important cultural influence in the lives
> of Anglo-Americans."^ 3
> Thus, the cornerstone of early American education was the
> belief that "children are an heritage from the Lord." ^4
> Parents believed that it was their responsibility to not only
> teach them how to make a living, but also how to live. As our
> forefathers searched their Bibles, they found that the
> function of government was to protect life and property.^5
> Education was not a responsibility of the civil government.
>
>
> Education Began in the Home and the Fields
>
> Education in early America began in the home at the mother's
> knee, and often ended in the cornfield or barn by the father's
> side. The task of teaching reading usually fell to the mother,
> and since paper was in short supply, she would trace the
> letters of the alphabet in the ashes and dust by the
> fireplac.^6 The child learned the alphabet and then how to
> sound out words. Then a book was placed in the child's hands,
> usually the Bible. As many passages were familiar to him,
> having heard them at church or at family devotions, he would
> soon master the skill of reading. The Bible was supplemented
> by other good books such as Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan,
> The New England Primer, and Isaac Watt's Divine Songs. From
> volumes like these, our founding fathers and their generation
> learned the values that laid the foundation for free
> enterprise. ! In "Against Idleness and Mischief," for example,
> they learned individual! responsibility before God in the
> realm of work and learning.^7
>
> How doth the busy little bee
> Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day
> >From every opening flower.
> How skillfully she builds her cell,
> How neat she spreads the wax
> And labours hard to store it well
> With the sweet food she makes.
> In works of labour, or of skill,
> I would be busy too; For Satan finds some mischief still
> For idle hands to do.
> In books, or work, or healthful play
> Let my first years be passed; That I may give for every day
> Some good account at last.
>
> Armed with love, common sense, and a nearby woodshed, colonial
> mothers often achieved more than our modern-day elementary
> schools with their federally--funded programs and education
> specialists. These colonial mothers used simple, time--tested
> methods of instruction mixed with plain, old-fashioned hard
> work. Children were not ruined by educational experiments
> developed in the ivory towers of academe. The introduction to
> a reading primer from the early 19th century testifies to the
> importance of home instruction.^8 It says: "The author cannot
> but hope that this book will enable many a mother or aunt, or
> elder brother or sister, or perhaps a beloved grandmother, by
> the family fireside, to go through in a pleasant and sure way
> with the art of preparing the child for his first school days."
> Home education was so common in America that most children
> knew how to read before they entered school. As Ralph Walker
> has pointed out, "Children were often taught to read at home
> before they were subjected to the rigours of school. In
> middle-class families, where the mother would be expected to
> be literate, this was considered part of her duties."^9
> Without ever spending a dime of tax money, or without ever
> consulting a host of bureaucrats, psychologists, and
> specialists, children in early America learned the basic
> academic skills of reading, writing, and ciphering necessary
> for getting along in society. Even in Boston, the capital city
> of the colony in which the government had the greatest hand,
> children were taught to read at home. Samuel Eliot Morison, in
> his excellent study on education in colonial New England,
> says:^10
> Boston offers a curious problem. The grammar (Boston Latin)
> school was the only public school down to 1684, when a writing
> school was established; and it is probable that only children
> who already read were admitted to that.... they must have
> learned to read somehow, since there is no evidence of unusual
> illiteracy in the town. And a Boston bookseller's stock in
> 1700 includes no less than eleven dozen spellers and sixty-one
> dozen primers.
> The answer to this supposed problem is simple. The books were
> bought by parents, and illiteracy was absent because parents
> taught their children how to read outside of a formal school
> setting. Coupled with the vocational skills children learned
> from their parents, home education met the demands of the free
> market. For many, formal schooling was simply unnecessary. The
> fine education they received at home and on the farm held them
> in good stead for the rest of their lives, and was
> supplemented with Bible reading and almanacs like Franklin's
> Poor Richard's.
> Some of our forefathers desired more education than they could
> receive at home. Thus, grammar and secondary schools grew up
> all along the Atlantic seaboard, particularly near the centers
> of population, such as Boston and Philadelphia. In New
> England, many of these schools were started by colonial
> governments, but were supported and controlled by the local
> townspeople.
> In the Middle Colonies there was even less government
> intervention. In Pennsylvania, a compulsory education law was
> passed in 1683, but it was never strictly enforced.^11
> Nevertheless, many schools were set up simply as a response to
> consumer demand. Philadelphia, which by 1776 had become second
> only to London as the chief city in the British Empire, had a
> school for every need and interest. Quakers, Philadelphia's
> first inhabitants, laid the foundation for an educational
> system that still thrives in America. Because of their
> emphasis on learning, an illiterate Quaker child was a
> contradiction in terms. Other religious groups set up schools
> in the Middle Colonies. The Scottish Presbyterians, the
> Moravians, th! e Lutherans, and Anglicans all had their own
> schools. In addition to these church-related schools, private
> s! choolmasters, entrepreneurs in their own right, established
> hundreds of schools.
> Historical records, which are by no means complete, reveal
> that over one hundred and twenty-five private schoolmasters
> advertised their services in Philadelphia newspapers between
> 1740 and 1776. Instruction was offered in Latin, Greek,
> mathematics, surveying, navigation, accounting, bookkeeping,
> science, English, and contemporary foreign languages.^12
> Incompetent and inefficient teachers were soon eliminated,
> since they were not subsidized by the State or protected by a
> guild or union. Teachers who satisfied their customers by
> providing good services prospered. One schoolmaster, Andrew
> Porter, a mathematics teacher, had over one hundred students
> enrolled in 1776. The fees the students paid enabled him to
> provide for a family of seven.^13
>
>
> In the Philadelphia Area
>
> Philadelphia also had many fine evening schools. In 1767,
> there were at least sixteen evening schools, catering mostly
> to the needs of Philadelphia's hard-working German population.
> For the most part, the curriculum of these schools was
> confined to the teaching of English and vocations.^14 There
> were also schools for women, blacks, and the poor. Anthony
> Benezet, a leader in colonial educational thought, pioneered
> in the education for women and Negroes. The provision of
> education for the poor was a favorite Quaker philanthropy. As
> one historian has pointed out, "the poor, both Quaker and
> non-Quaker, were allowed to attend without paying fees." ^15
> In the countryside around Philadelphia, German immigrants
> maintained many of their own schools. By 1776, at least
> sixteen schools were being conducted by the Mennonites in
> Eastern Pennsylvania. Christopher Dock, who made several
> notable contributions to the science of pedagogy, taught in
> one of these schools for many years. Eastern Pennsylvanians,
> as well as New Jerseyans and Marylanders, sometimes sent their
> children to Philadelphia to further their education, where
> there were several boarding schools, both for girls and boys.
> In the Southern colonies, government had, for all practical
> purposes, no hand at all in education. In Virginia, education
> was considered to be no business of the State. The educational
> needs of the young in the South were taken care of in
> "old-field" schools. "Old-field" schools were buildings
> erected in abandoned fields that were too full of rocks or too
> over-cultivated for farm use. It was in such a school that
> George Washington received his early education. The Southern
> Colonies' educational needs were also taken care of by using
> private tutors, or by sending their sons north or across the
> Atlantic to the mother country.
>
>
> Colonial Colleges
>
> A college education is something that very few of our
> forefathers wanted or needed. As a matter of fact, most of
> them were unimpressed by degrees or a university accent. They
> judged men by their character and by their experience.
> Moreover, many of our founding fathers, such as George
> Washington, Patrick Henry, and Ben Franklin, did quite well
> without a college education. Yet for those who so desired it,
> usually young men aspiring to enter the ministry, university
> training was available. Unlike England, where the government
> had given Cambridge and Oxford a monopoly on the granting of
> degrees,^16 there were nine colleges from which to choose.
> Although some of the colonial colleges were started by
> colonial governments, it would be misleading to think of them
> as statist institutions in the modern sense.^17 Once
> chartered, the colleges were neither funded nor supported by
> the State. Harvard was established with a grant from the
> Massachusetts General Court, yet voluntary contributions took
> over to keep the institution alive. John Harvard left the
> college a legacy of 800 pounds and his library of 400 books.
> "College corn," donated by the people of the Bay Colony,
> maintained the young scholars for many years."^18 Provision
> was also made for poor students, as Harvard developed one of
> the first work-study programs.^19 And when Harvard sought to
> build a new building in 1674, donations were solicited from
> the people of Massachusetts. Despite the delays caused by King
> Phil! ip's War, the hall was completed in 1677 at almost no
> cost to the! taxpayer.^20
> New Jersey was the only colony that had two colleges, the
> College of New Jersey (Princeton) and Queens (Rutgers). The
> Log College, the predecessor of Princeton, was founded when
> Nathaniel Irwin left one thousand dollars to William Tennant
> to found a seminary.^21 Queens grew out of a small class held
> by the Dutch revivalist, John Frelinghuyson.^22 Despite
> occasional hard times, neither college bowed to civil
> government for financial assistance. As Frederick Rudolph has
> observed, "neither the college at Princeton nor its later
> rival at New Brunswick ever received any financial support
> from the state. . .." ^23 Indeed, John Witherspoon,
> Princeton's sixth president, was apparently proud of the fact
> that his institution was independent of government c! ontrol.
> In an advertisement addressed to the British settlers in the
> West Indies, Witherspoon wrote:^24 "The College of New Jersey
> is ! altogether independent. It hath received no favor from
> Government but the charter, by the particular friendship of a
> person now deceased."
> Based on the principle of freedom, Princeton under Witherspoon
> produced some of America's most "animated Sons of Liberty."
> Many of Princeton's graduates, standing firmly in the Whig
> tradition of limited government, helped lay the legal and
> constitutional foundations for our Republic. James Madison,
> the Father of the Constitution, was a Princeton graduate.
>
>
> Libraries
>
> In addition to formal schooling in elementary and secondary
> schools, colleges, and universities, early America had many
> other institutions that made it possible for people to either
> get an education or supplement their previous training.
> Conceivably, an individual who never attended school could
> receive an excellent education by using libraries, building
> and consulting his own library, and by joining a society for
> mutual improvement. In colonial America, all of these were
> possible.
> Consumer demand brought into existence a large number of
> libraries. Unlike anything in the Old Country, where libraries
> were open only to scholars, churchmen, or government
> officials, these libraries were rarely supported by government
> funds. In Europe, church libraries were supported by tax money
> as well, for they were a part of an established church. In
> America, church libraries, like the churches themselves, were
> supported primarily by voluntarism.
> The first non-private, non-church libraries in America were
> maintained by membership fees, called subscriptions or shares,
> and by gifts of books and money from private benefactors
> interested in education. The most famous of these libraries
> was Franklin and Logan's Library Company in Philadelphia,
> which set the pattern and provided much of the inspiration for
> libraries throughout the colonies.^25 The membership fee for
> these subscription libraries varied from twenty or thirty
> pounds to as little as fifteen shillings a year. The
> Association Library, a library formed by a group of Quaker
> artisans, cost twenty shillings to join.^26
> Soon libraries became the objects of private philanthropy, and
> it became possible for even the poorest citizens to borrow
> books. Sometimes the membership fee was completely waived for
> an individual if he showed intellectual promise and character.^27
> Entrepreneurs, seeing an opportunity to make a profit from
> colonial Americans' desire for self-improvement, provided new
> services and innovative ways to sell or rent printed matter.
> One new business that developed was that of the circulating
> library. In 1767, Lewis Nicola established one of the first
> such businesses in the City of Brotherly Love. The library was
> open daily, and customers, by depositing five pounds and
> paying three dollars a year, could withdraw one book at a
> time. Nicola apparently prospered, for two years later he
> moved his business to Society Hill, enlarged his library, and
> reduced his prices to compete with other circulating
> libraries.^28 Judging from the titles in these libraries,^29
> colonial Americans could receive an excellent education
> completely outside of the schoolroom. For colonial Americans
> who believed in individual responsibility, self-government,
> and self-improvemen! t, this was not an uncommon course of
> study. Most lawyers, for example, were self-educated.
>
>
> Sermons as Educational Tools
>
> The sermon was also an excellent educational experience for
> our colonial forefathers. Sunday morning was a time to hear
> the latest news and see old friends and neighbors. But it was
> also an opportunity for many to sit under a man of God who had
> spent many hours preparing for a two, three, or even four hour
> sermon. Many a colonial pastor, such as Jonathan Edwards,
> spent eight to twelve hours daily studying, praying over, and
> researching his sermon. Unlike sermons on the frontier in the
> mid-19th century, colonial sermons were filled with the fruits
> of years of study. They were geared not only to the emotions
> and will, but also to the intellect.
> As Daniel Boorstin has pointed out, the sermon was one of the
> chief literary forms in colonial America.^30 Realizing this,
> listeners followed sermons closely, took mental notes, and
> usually discussed the sermon with the family on Sunday
> afternoon. Anne Hutchinson's discussions, which later resulted
> in the Antinomian Controversy, were merely typical of
> thousands of discussions which took place in the homes of
> colonial America. Most discussions, however, were not as
> controversial as those which took place in the Hutchinson home.
> Thus, without ever attending a college or seminary, a
> church-goer in colonial America could gain an intimate
> knowledge of Bible doctrine, church history, and classical
> literature. Questions raised by the sermon could be answered
> by the pastor or by the books in the church libraries that
> were springing up all over America. Often a sermon was later
> published and listeners could review what they had heard on
> Sunday morning.
> The first Sunday Schools also developed in this period. Unlike
> their modern-day counterparts, colonial Sunday Schools not
> only taught Bible but also the rudiments of reading and
> writing. These Sunday Schools often catered to the poorest
> members of society.
> Modern historians have discounted the importance of the
> colonial church as an educational institution, citing the low
> percentage of colonial Americans on surviving church
> membership rolls. What these historians fail to realize,
> however, is that unlike most churches today, colonial churches
> took membership seriously. Requirements for becoming a church
> member were much higher in those days, and many people
> attended church without officially joining. Other sources
> indicate that church attendance was high in the colonial
> period. Thus, many of our forefathers partook not only of the
> spiritual blessing of their local churches, but the
> educational blessings as well.
>
>
> Philosophical Societies
>
> Another educational institution that developed in colonial
> America was the philosophical society. One of the most famous
> of these was Franklin's Junto, where men would gather to read
> and discuss papers they had written on all sorts of topics and
> issues.^31 Another society was called The Literary Republic.
> This society opened in the bookbindery of George Rineholt in
> 1764 in Philadelphia. Here, artisans, tradesmen, and common
> laborers met to discuss logic, jurisprudence, religion,
> science, and moral philosophy (economics).^32
> Itinerant lecturers, not unlike the Greek philosophers of the
> Hellenistic period, rented halls and advertised their lectures
> in local papers. One such lecturer, Joseph Cunningham, offered
> a series of lectures on the "History and Laws of England" for
> a little over a pound.^33
> By 1776, when America finally declared its independence, a
> tradition had been established and voluntarism in education
> was the rule. Our founding fathers, who had been educated in
> this tradition, did not think in terms of
> government-controlled education. Accordingly, when the
> delegates gathered in Philadelphia to write a Constitution for
> the new nation, education was considered to be outside the
> jurisdiction of the civil government, particularly the
> national government. Madison, in his notes on the Convention,
> recorded that there was some talk of giving the Federal
> legislature the power to establish a national university at
> the future capital. But the proposal was easily defeated, for
> as Boorstin has pointed out, "the Founding Fathers supported
> the local institutions which had sprung up all over the
> country."^34 A principle had been est! ablished in America
> that was not to be deviated from until the mid-ninet! eenth
> century. Even as late as 1860, there were only 300 public
> schools, as compared to 6,000 private academies.^35
>
>
> A Highly Literate Populace
>
> The results of colonial America's free market system of
> education were impressive indeed. Almost no tax money was
> spent on education, yet education was available to almost
> anyone who wanted it, including the poor. No government
> subsidies were given, and inefficient institutions either
> improved or went out of business. Competition guaranteed that
> scarce educational resources would be allocated properly. The
> educational institutions that prospered produced a generation
> of articulate Americans who could grapple with the complex
> problems of self-government. The Federalist Papers, which are
> seldom read or understood today, even in our universities,
> were written for and read by the common man. Literacy rates
> were as high or higher than they are today.^36 A study
> conducted in 1800 by Du Pont de Nemours revealed that only
> four in a thousand Americans were unable to rea! d and write
> legibly.^37 Various accounts from colonial America support
> these statistics. In 1772, Jacob Duche, the Chaplain of
> Congress, later turned Tory, wrote:^38
> The poorest labourer upon the shore of Delaware thinks himself
> entitled to deliver his sentiments in matters of religion or
> politics with as much freedom as the gentleman or scholar....
> Such is the prevailing taste for books of every kind, that
> almost every man is a reader; and by pronouncing sentence,
> right or wrong, upon the various publications that come in his
> way, puts himself upon a level, in point of knowledge, with
> their several authors.
> Franklin, too, testified to the efficiency of the colonial
> educational system. According to Franklin, the North American
> libraries alone "have improved the general conversation of
> Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as
> intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and
> perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so
> generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their
> privileges." ^39
> The experience of colonial America clearly supports the idea
> that the market, if allowed to operate freely, could meet the
> educational needs of modern-day America. In the nineteenth
> century, the Duke of Wellington remarked that "the Battle of
> Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton and Cambridge."
> Today, the battle between freedom and statism is being fought
> in America's schools. Those of us who believe in
> Constitutional government would do well to promote the
> principle of competition, pluralism, and government
> non-intervention in education. Years ago, Abraham Lincoln
> said, "The philosophy of the classroom will be the philosophy
> of the government in the next generation."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> /At the time of the original publication, Mr. Peterson was
> Headmaster of The Pilgrim Academy, Egg Harbor City, New
> Jersey. He taught economics and was constantly in search
> of ways to support and defend the principle of voluntarism
> in education./
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1. Bertrand Russell, quoted in: Tim Dowley, ed., The History
> of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman's Pub. Co.,
> 1977), p. 2.
> 2. CIarence B. Carson has emphasized this point in his The
> American Tradition (Irvington-onHudson: The Fbundation for
> Economic Education, Inc., 1964).
> 3. Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial
> Experience, 1607-1789. (New York: Evanston and London: Harper
> and Row, 1970), p. 40.
> 4. Psalm 127:3.
> 5. Romans 13.
> 6. Elizabeth McEachern Wells, Divine Songs by Isaac Watts
> (Fairfax, Va.: Thoburn Press, 1975), p. ii.
> 7. bid., p. 42.
> 8. Eric Sloane, The Little Red Schoolhouse (Garden City, New
> York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1972), p. 3.
> 9. Ralph Walker, "Old Readers," in Early American Life,
> October, 1980, p. 54.
> 10. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of New England
> (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), pp. 71, 72.
> 11. Carson, p. 152.
> 12. Louis B. Wright, The Cultural Life of the American
> Colonies (New York: Harper and Row Pub., Inc., 1957), p. 108.
> 13. Ibid.
> 14. Wright, p. 109.
> 15. Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen (New
> York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 36.
> 16. Ibid., p. 39.
> 17. Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University
> (New York: Random House, A Vintage Book, 1962), pp. 15-16.
> 18. Morison, p. 39.
> 19. Morison, p. 37.
> 20. Morison, p. 39.
> 21. Archibald Alexander, The Log College (London: Banner of
> Truth Trust, 1968, First Published, 1851), pp. 14-22.
> 22.William H.S. Demarest, A History of Rutgers College,
> 1766-1924 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1924), p. 45.
> 23. Rudolph, p. 15.
> 24. John Witherspoon, "Address to the Inhabitants of Jamaica
> and Other West-India Islands, in Behalf of the College of New
> Jersey," Essays upon Important Subjects, Vol. III (Edinburgh,
> 1805), pp. 312-318, 328-330.
> 25. Max Farrand, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
> (Berkeley, California, 1949), p~ 86.
> 26. Bridenbaugh, p. 8T
> 27. Bridenbaugh, p. 99.
> 28. Bridenbaugh, p. 9L
> 29. Wright, pp. 126-133.
> 30. Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The Colonial Experience
> (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1958), pp. 10-14.
> 31. This later became, of course, the American Philosophical
> Society.
> 32. Bridenbaugh, pp. 64-65.
> 33. Bridenbaugh, p. 65.
> 34. Boorstin, p. 183.
> 35. Richard C. Wade, et. al., A History of the United States
> with Selected Readings, Vol. I (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
> 1W, 1971), p. 398.
> 36. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Messianic Character of American
> Education (Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press, 1963, 1979), p. 330.
> 37. 1bid.
> 38. Bridenbaugh, p. 99.
> 39. Farrand, p. 86.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: suehovey at moscow.com
> <javascript:parent.ComposeTo("suehovey%40moscow.com", "");>
> To: heirdoug at netscape.net
> <javascript:parent.ComposeTo("heirdoug%40netscape.net", "");>;
> vision2020 at moscow.com
> <javascript:parent.ComposeTo("vision2020%40moscow.com", "");>
> Sent: Sun, 13 May 2007 2:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] What was education like before the
> Prussian method ofindoctrination?
>
> Well the 98% is a number anyone could pull out of anywhere.
> Additionally, even with the "Old Deluder Satan Law" literacy
> wasn't necessarily a goal for females, or the poor, or
> slaves...And even the level of knowledge defined as "literate"
> then would be insufficient for today. The national census, which
> did attempt to tally the literate didn't even begin until 1790.
>
> Sue
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* heirdoug at netscape.net <mailto:heirdoug at netscape.net>
> *To:* idahotom at hotmail.com <mailto:idahotom at hotmail.com> ;
> vision2020 at moscow.com <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 13, 2007 1:49 PM
> *Subject:* [Vision2020] What was education like before the
> Prussian method ofindoctrination?
>
> "Without public education, we might as well set our clocks
> back 300 years and
> restrict education to only those that can afford it." Tom-Tom
> Hansen.
>
> I don't think that the education in the Colonies 300 years ago
> was only for the "well off". If that were the case then why
> was there a 98% literacy rate back then?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus
> protection.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> http://www.fsr.net ;
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.7.0/803 - Release Date:
> 5/13/2007 12:17 PM
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.7.0/803 - Release Date:
> 5/13/2007 12:17 PM
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> http://www.fsr.net
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
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