35. Occasional Letter Number One: The Underground History of
American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Occasional
Letter Number One
Between
1896 and 1920, a small group of industrialists and financiers, together with
their private charitable foundations,
subsidized university chairs, university researchers, and school administrators, spent more money on
forced schooling than the government itself
did. Carnegie and Rockefeller, as late as 1915, were spending more
themselves. In this laissez-faire
fashion a system of modern schooling was constructed without public
participation. The motives for this are
undoubtedly mixed, but it will be useful for you to hear a few excerpts from the first mission
statement of Rockefeller's General Education
Board as they occur in a document called Occasional Letter Number One
(1906):
In our dreams. ..people yield themselves
with perfect docility to our molding hands. The
present educational conventions [intellectual and character education]
fade from our minds, and unhampered by
tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make
these people or any of their children into
philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise
up from among them authors, educators,
poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers,
doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of
whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very
simple. ..we will organize children...
and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
This mission statement will reward multiple
rereadings.
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