Carol
Member
When this was written, Germany was not the declared enemy of the US. It was published in 1899, and is written by William James, one of the best know authorities on education. His book is titled "Talks To Teachers on Psychologiy: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals"
We need to clarify that at this time in history the Prussians had centeralized German education. They used this centeralized public education to destroy Germany's heroes. Whatever culture we speak of, the way to destroy that culture is to destroy the culture's heroes, then educate them to accept the new paradigm.
Under the new paradigm, the young were taught to praise efficiency to trust in Prussian rule over them, as many in the US today, think of government as the answer to all their problems. Just create a new law and a new bureaucracy to enforce it, and we will have utopia. Mostly trust in technoogy like little children trust in Santa Claus, and foucs education on the development of that technology. Don't worry, God, technology and Big Brother will take care of everything, and if you don't believe this, we will move you to the consprisy thread, so you don't disturb our peace of mind and faith.
The education philosophy behind this education is, "Everyone is born with blank brain, and anything can be written on it, as long as the right method is used." The efforts were made to get our schools to accept this German model of education for military reasons when we entered WWI, but we thought that war was the war to end all wars, and teachers stressed, an institution for making good citizens is good making patriotic citizens, so education was not changed at that time. The US was caught completely off guard when it entered the second war, because while our enemies used technology to prepare for war, the US maintained, what Past President Eisenhower called "domestic education". This was liberal education that transmitted the classics, and focused on citizenship, not technology. The US was technologically behind, especially when it came to military technology. Liberal education resulted in some scientist and inventors but not the technological soceity we have become. Eisenhower praised the Germans for thier contributions to democracy, and we might believe equalizing everyone, by thinking of them as blank brains, upon which the state can write anything, may seem a good thing democracy, but it is not.
What Eisenhower missed, and what I want to be sure you do not miss is, the philososhy holds that the state has the right, and even the duty, to write on these blank brains. We need to repeat William James here "If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacity for conduct." In 1958 we changed the capacity for conduct, when we passed the 1958 National Defense Education Act, that was supposed to end in 4 years, but permanently changed public education, and the culture of the US.
"If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacity for conduct. This is most immediately obvious in Germany, where the explicitly avowed aim of the higher education is to turn the stucent into an instrucment for advancing scientific discovery. The German universities are proud of the number of young specialist whom they turn out every year,- not necessarily men of any original force of intellect, but men so trained to research that when their professor gives them an historical or philological thesis to prepare, or a bit of labortory work to do, with the general indication as to the best method, they can go off by themselves and use apparatus and consult sources in such a way as to grind out in the requisite number of months some little pepper-corn of new truth worthy of being added to the store of extant human information on the subject."
We need to clarify that at this time in history the Prussians had centeralized German education. They used this centeralized public education to destroy Germany's heroes. Whatever culture we speak of, the way to destroy that culture is to destroy the culture's heroes, then educate them to accept the new paradigm.
Under the new paradigm, the young were taught to praise efficiency to trust in Prussian rule over them, as many in the US today, think of government as the answer to all their problems. Just create a new law and a new bureaucracy to enforce it, and we will have utopia. Mostly trust in technoogy like little children trust in Santa Claus, and foucs education on the development of that technology. Don't worry, God, technology and Big Brother will take care of everything, and if you don't believe this, we will move you to the consprisy thread, so you don't disturb our peace of mind and faith.
The education philosophy behind this education is, "Everyone is born with blank brain, and anything can be written on it, as long as the right method is used." The efforts were made to get our schools to accept this German model of education for military reasons when we entered WWI, but we thought that war was the war to end all wars, and teachers stressed, an institution for making good citizens is good making patriotic citizens, so education was not changed at that time. The US was caught completely off guard when it entered the second war, because while our enemies used technology to prepare for war, the US maintained, what Past President Eisenhower called "domestic education". This was liberal education that transmitted the classics, and focused on citizenship, not technology. The US was technologically behind, especially when it came to military technology. Liberal education resulted in some scientist and inventors but not the technological soceity we have become. Eisenhower praised the Germans for thier contributions to democracy, and we might believe equalizing everyone, by thinking of them as blank brains, upon which the state can write anything, may seem a good thing democracy, but it is not.
What Eisenhower missed, and what I want to be sure you do not miss is, the philososhy holds that the state has the right, and even the duty, to write on these blank brains. We need to repeat William James here "If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacity for conduct." In 1958 we changed the capacity for conduct, when we passed the 1958 National Defense Education Act, that was supposed to end in 4 years, but permanently changed public education, and the culture of the US.
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