236 A Magnificent Memory: The Underground History of Amercian Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

A Magnificent Memory 

When I get most gloomy about this I summon up a picture of a noble British general with 
powdered hair and pipe-clay leggings sitting astride a white stallion directing troop 
movements across the green river Monongahela, his brilliant columns all in red stretching 
far behind him. "The most magnificent sight I ever saw," said George Washington many 
years later when he remembered it. Who could blame all those ordinary men for betting 
their lives on an invincible military machine, all glittering and disciplined? All they had 
to do was to ride down naked American savages from the Stone Age; all they had to do 
was take their orders and obey them. 

General Braddock and British tradition dictated common soldiers should be treated like 
dumb children, as a tough, unsentimental shepherd treats sheep. It isn't even very hard to 
imagine these lowly soldiers, so well gotten up, feeling proud to submerge their little 
destinies in the awesome collective will of the British empire. 

But as things turned out, a day of reckoning was at hand for the empire. Exposed in full 
pretension, the collapse of the British expedition under Braddock sent a shock of wild 
surmise through the minds of other common men in the colonies and their leaders. If 
Braddock didn't know what he was doing, was it possible German King George back in 
London could be taken, too? 

Prince Charles Visits Steel Valley High