American Education as the Founders Intended for Homeschooling

Education in America has been steadily declining to the point of absolute insanity. In this freefall, we are desperately grasping for any hand hold we can find.  

Classical Education is considered a return to tradition. It is being presented as a way to help children become more learned and disciplined. Even homeschoolers are turning to this form of demagogy in record numbers.  

But I believe we should approach Classical Education with great caution, since it may not be the best option. I also believe there is something superior that carries in its bosom the spirit of freedom: 

I am referring to what I call  American Education. 

Today I would like to cast a vision. This vision is of a learning system that is not self-focused, corporately-controlled or factory-driven.  

In recent past posts we have been educating ourselves as homeschooling mommies so that we will be able to make good choices for the upcoming year. We’ve covered the different voices of homeschooling, including Charlotte Mason, Dr. Raymond Moore, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, and even Classical Education.  

In the previous two posts we talked about the essence of education in “Observe, Think, and Do,” and the need for structure expressed in the four elements of a quality education. They are: 

1. A child’s relationship with God and man 

2. Tools for learning (the basics done well) 

3. Content (truth-driven and interest-based) 

4. Practical skills (the stuff of real life) 

We also discussed the core of a Biblical education: Observe, Think, Do. 

Today I would like to expand the understanding of these principles by suggesting a way to implement them which originated in the burning desire to worship and serve God in freedom.  

I came across this idea of American Education via DollarHomeschool.com. This website offers digitized copies from the Eclectic Education Series originally published in the 1880’s. Delving deeply into these textbooks was an answer to prayer.  

The richness of ideas in these books and the way they were presented gave clarity and direction for me at a time when I was swamped with educating a number of children, all at different ages and stages, at the same time.  

(At that point I had ten children at home, eight of whom I was homeschooling, with a toddler and a newborn, along with a number of grown children who were in need of my time and counsel.) 

When these schoolbooks were written, our nation was mostly rural or on the frontier. One room schoolhouses were the norm, and the school year was short; sometimes only 15 weeks. Teachers were often asked to instruct a packed room with students in all different ages and abilities at the same time. Books in general were rare and precious, so schoolbooks were concentrated and compacted and “open and go” as we would say today. 

I will be sharing some more specifics on this in this post, and a few to come, but first let’s go in depth and talk about American Education in general. 

Just what is included in an American Education? 

Here are some of the components: 

• Freedom in Christ 

• Freedom to serve 

• Freedom from bondage to sin 

• Freedom from the whims of overlords 

• Freedom of conscience 

• Freedom to make choices to improve one’s life 

These principles were quite different from European education at that time, which was based in the ideals of Classical Education. 

Classical Education has its roots in an aristocratic system. In this system elitists are meant to obtain knowledge which places them above the common people. It is an education of the privileged, often because students are given the key to “higher” (often pretentious) information via the knowledge of Latin. It has been suggested this is intentional; meant to bring certain persons up and bring other persons down and keep them in their lowly place (or “station”). 

(To be clear, I am not against people learning Latin, as it may be helpful in some ways, but not as a necessity.) 

In a recent documentary on the life of George Mueller I heard an interesting story illustrating this tendency.  

George Mueller was an ardent believer in Christ living in England in the 1800’s who, completely by faith, was able to build orphanages where abandoned children could be fed, clothed, housed, and educated. At one point the local owners of factories and mines came out against Mueller and his work. Their reason? They were concerned that Mueller was robbing them of workers by educating and allowing them to rise “above their station.” 

This was the class structure of Great Britain, but America was different. 

The spirit of American Education (inspired by The Spirit) was to elevate every man; to produce a classless people all equally capable of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While some looked to Ancient Greece and Rome for direction in this pursuit, many did not. 

…there is a long tradition in this country of resistance to the wisdom of the Greeks: Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Noah Webster all judged the classics to be of scant use, and advocated that Americans receive, instead, a properly American education. 

Algis Valiunas, Commentary Magazine 

According to William Wirt, even Patrick Henry, that great Christian statesmen, thought little of the Classical philosophers: 

…nor, in deciding what was proper to be done in America, did he look to see what had been found expedient at Athens, or Rome. 

William Wirt, Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry 

This is evident in the schoolbooks which came out of this spirit. This includes The New England Primer, which was made abundantly available to all. Its genius was in its simplicity and its focus on a child’s relationship to God and his duty to family and others. 

Another book in this time was Noah Webster’s Blue Backed Speller (yes, that Noah Webster of the dictionary, the first of its kind in the English language). Webster’s intention was for every person to know God and be free. 

He who came to save us, will wash us from 

all sin ; I will be glad in his name. 

A good boy will do all that is just ; he will 

flee from vice ; he will do good, and walk in 

the way of life. 

Love not the world, nor the things that are 

in the world ; for they are sin. 

I will not fear what flesh can do to me ; for 

my trust is in him who made the world : 

He is nigh to them that pray to him, and 

praise his name. 

The American Spelling Book (popularly referred to as the Blue Backed Speller) 

Noah Webster has been called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education.” He was descended from William Bradford of Plymouth Colony, homeschooled by his mother and was characterized by a desire to see revolutionary change. It was his vision that pushed American education forward. 

Of course, the roots, the character of American Education are in the Bible; in God’s intentions for His Kingdom on earth. The founders wanted to see a people transformed and seeking after that Better City.  

Education is useless without the Bible. The Bible was America’s basic text and book in all fields. God’s Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct… 

Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country. 

 – Noah Webster, Schoolmaster of the Republic. 

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. 

— Thomas Jefferson 

If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great Security. 

— Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779 

It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness. 

— James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791 

[F]or avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy . . . the only ground of hope must be on the morals of the people. I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. [T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God. 

— Gouverneur Morris, Penman and Signer of the Constitution. 

All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.  

— George Washington 

In keeping with the vision of Webster, as well as other founders, William Holmes McGuffey added his strength and character.  

McGuffey is the quintessential American. Reared on the frontier in the early 1800’s by hard-working pioneers in a Christian community of Scottish Covenanters, homeschooled by his mother in his formative years, he saw education as a way to encourage children to fulfill the Great Commission and bring along the cause of freedom.  

At the age of 14 he found himself as a schoolmaster presiding over a classroom of 48 students for 11 hours a day during the 15-week period before spring planting.  

At his beginnings, his only textbooks were the Bible and The New England Primer, but these were all he needed to instruct and inspire.  

While teaching at the University of Miami in Ohio, he spent his leisure moments reading aloud to neighborhood children on his porch. As he read stories from American and British literature, he noted which stories enthused his young audience. It was from his observations that he was able to construct his readers, which were completely published by the year 1837. 

This from an advertisement for his original fourth reader: 

President McGuffey has taken a class of young pupils into his own house, and has taught them spelling and reading [“spelling” meaning what we today call “sounding out], for the express purpose of being able to judge with the greatest accuracy of the best method of preparing the “Readers.” The Lessons and Stories which he has adopted in the First and Second Books, are probably the most simple, and yet the most instructive, amusing, and beautiful for the young mind that can be found in our language. The third and fourth Books, being in regular gradation above the First and Second, are made up of beautiful and chaste selections from prose and poetry: the whole forming a progressive series (of excellent moral tendency) peculiarly adapted to the purpose of instruction. 

Much like our beloved Charlotte Mason, McGuffey did not appreciate fluff and “twaddle” in textbooks for children. He relied first on the scriptures: 

From no other source has the author drawn more copiously in 

his selections than from the Sacred Scriptures. For this, he 

certainly apprehends no censure. In a Christian country, that 

man is to be pitied who, at this day, can honestly object to 

imbuing the minds of youth with the language and the spirit of 

the Word of God. 

And also said in the preface of an early reader: 

A mischievous error pervades the public mind on the subject of juvenile understanding… Nothing is so difficult to be understood as ‘Nonsense.’ Nothing is so clear and easy to comprehend as the simplicity of wisdom. 

McGuffey’s works were both an influence and a reflection of the character of the United States at its founding. He expresses this further in his introduction to the third eclectic reader in its original series: 

For the copious extracts made from the Sacred Scriptures, he makes no apology. Indeed, upon a review of the work, he is not sure but an apology may be due for his not having still more liberally transferred to his pages the chaste simplicity, the thrilling pathos, the living descriptions, and the overwhelming sublimity of the sacred writings. 

The time has gone by, when any sensible man will be found to object to the bible as a school book, in a Christian country; unless it be on purely sectarian principles, which should never find a place in systems of general education. Much less then, can any reasonable objection be made to the introduction of such extracts from the bible as do not involve any of the questions in debate among the various denominations of evangelical Christians.  

The Bible is the only book in the world treating of ethics and religion, which is not sectarian. Every sect claims that book as authority for its particular views.  

The rapid sale of seven editions of the First and Second Readers, within a few months, gives the author additional confidence in both his principles and his plan of arrangement. With these few prefatory remarks this work is respectfully submitted to a liberal public. 

This was the general character of American Education at our foundings—an education which gave us a near 100% literacy rate, and that propelled us to do away with slavery and strive for the equality of all men.  

McGuffey was on the cusp of an effort to create a sort of “cannon” of education for a free people. Other authors were included, such as Dr. Ray of Ray’s Arithmetics. Ray also worked closely with children, often engaged in their games during periods of recreation. His idea was to make arithmetic sequential and explainable.  

Numerous schoolbooks followed this same pattern roughly during the period from 1830 through 1880. This was the golden age of American Education, when the one-room schoolhouse was the norm. 

There is so much I would like to share here, but if I continue, this post will be way too long, so I am going to stop.  

Next post we will look more closely at the Golden Age of education and make some comparisons with the Charlotte Mason, Ruth Beechick, et al. I hope also to make some recommendations as to how to implement this sort of education in these modern times, so stay tuned… 

Here are links to the podcast for this post:

Powered by RedCircle