Chapter Eight
The Subversion of American Education
Beginning on page 980, Dr. Quigley mentions an incident which demonstrates how
powerful tycoons of international finance have
[page 69]
competed with each other behind the
scenes to dominate American educational institutions.
Speaking of Columbia University, Dr. Quigley says:
"This, of all universities, had been the one closest to J.P. Morgan and Company, and its
president, Nicholas Murray Butler, was Morgan's chief spokesman from ivied halls. He had been
chosen under Morgan influence, but the events of 1930-1948 which so weak
ened Morgan in the
economic system also weakened his influence on the board of trustees of Columbia, until it
became evident that Morgan did not have the votes to elect a successor.
status quo
and, accordingly, President Butler was kept in his position until he was long past his physical
ability to carry on its functions. Finally, he had to retire. Even then Lam
Eisenhower vocally denounced the possibility that Columbia could be a hot
ont and his allies were
able to prevent choice of a successor, and postponed it, making the university treasurer
acting-president, in the hope that a favorable change in the board of trustees might make it
possible for Morgan, once again, to name a Columbi
a president.
"Fate decreed otherwise, for Lamont died in 1948, and shortly afterward, a committee of
trustees under Thomas Watson of International Business Machines was empowered to seek a
new president. This was not an area in which the genius of IBM was at his most
effective. While
on a business trip to Washington, he confided his problem to a friend who helpfully suggested,
'Have you thought of Eisenhower?' By this he meant Milton Eisenhower, then president of Penn
State, later president of Johns Hopkins; Watson, wh
o apparently did not think immediately of
this lesser-known member of the Eisenhower family, thanked his friend, and began the steps
which soon made Dwight Eisenhower, for two unhappy years, president of Columbia."
[page 70]
But it did not seem to matter which financial coterie behind the scenes appointed the
President of Columbia; its policies followed the mainstream of world collectivism. Thus, Dwight
bed of Communist
intrigue
1(89)
and then turned around and accepted an endowment from the Communist
government of Poland to set up a
"Chair of Polish Studies" and appointed the well-known
Marxist, Dr. Manfred Kridl, to fill the position. It would be extremely
interesting to know what
forces worked on Dwight Eisenhower to get him to take this rather amazing step when even his
own liberally-oriented faculty objected.
But some strange things had been going on for many years at Columbia. The father of
Progressive Education, John Dewey, made Columbia his chief center of operations. His favorite
students and disciples, William H. Kilpatrick, Harold O. Rugg and George S. C
ounts, also
claimed Columbia's Teacher's College as their headquarters. These men had been preaching some
strange doctrines for many years and were receiving millions in endowments for their efforts. As
Dr. Felix Wittmer pointed out in his book,
your community and how it has come about.
changed. If you put two and two together, you realized that the emphasis shif
Conquest of the American Mind:
"Have you ever read a book on 'curriculum development?' No one should blame you if
you haven't. If you have, you may understand a little better what has happened to the schools in
"As the years went by, and your children passed through the grades, you may have
noticed that a change was going on. Subject matter, teaching methods, types of study, everything
ted from the
individual to the group.
"Your children learned that the
Communist Manifesto
world literature, and that the Soviet Union was an 'economic democracy.' They laughingly
ranked among the great works of
approved of the increase in 'snap courses.' Competition, it seems, had become old
hat. 'Attitudes'
and 'group relationships' were the thing.
"Just who was responsible for the change you could not say. 'Trends of the times' hardly
seems to be a penetrating explanation. Fact is that a relatively small group of educators, who
gravitated toward Columbia Teachers College, have in the course of twen
ty years turned
thousands and thousands of teachers into missionaries of the collectivist, i.e., socialist, creed.
These thousands of converts have brought about the change."
2(90)
[page 71]
What John Dewey and his disciples were teaching may be gleaned from any of their
official publications. In
Democracy and the Curriculum
, Harold Rugg and George S. Counts said
the open society of America was way behind the times. They called it a "continuo
usly depressed
society" and said it even contained the "seed of incipient racism." (p. 524) They denounced the
Constitutional system of checks and balances as a "liability" and deplored the fact that the
Constitution "is calculated to make the administrati
inefficient" (p. 210). After making frequent pilgrimages to the Soviet Union the Columbia
on of the public welfare feeble, uncertain and
Teachers College missionaries would urge the hastening of America's adoption of a "managed
economy."
As early as 1932, Dr. Counts had written his 56-page booklet entitled,
Dare the Schools
Build a New Social Order?
In it he had demanded that education must free itself from the
influence of the middle classes. He said "the teachers should deliberately rea
then make the most of their conquest." (p. 28) Of course, most teachers were not after power.
ch for power and
They merely wanted to be left alone to teach school. Before long, however, they were getting
policies from the National Educational Association a
contained some rather astonishing concepts. A genuine anti-Americanism began to appear in
nd being required to teach from texts which
texts which downgraded traditional ideals and basic concepts of economics and government.
Many books have analyzed this assault on the American culture in addition to Dr.
Wittmer's
Conquest of the American Mind. Dr. E
. Merril Root has written two excellent books,
Brain Washing in the High Schools
, 3(91) and
Collectivism on the Campus
. 4(92)
Augustin G
. Rudd's
Bending of the Twig
also deals with the invasion of the American schools for subversive
purposes.
These authors were able to document the fact that for many years American schools have
been infiltrated with a steady stream of amorality, humanism, collectivism and anti-individualism
emanating from Columbia's Teachers College, the National Education Ass
Establishment centers. These centers have served as launching pads to attack the political and
ociation and other
economic structure of the American system. And what has been the result?
Dr. Quigley frankly admits that it has been rather awful in many respects. Summing up at
the end of his book, he says, "Some things we clearly do
not
know, including the most important
of all, which is
how to bring up children
to form them into
mature
, [p
age 72]
responsible
adults...." 5(93)
This is a shocking admission. It is a confession of total incompetence in a field where
parents know there
is
a way to develop the vast majority of human beings into mature,
responsible adults.
In fact, it is this precise conviction which leads American parents to pay billions in taxes
for their children's education. Nevertheless, for many years both parents and teachers have sensed
that strong, heavily financed left-wing influences have been do
hedonistic nihilism among the schools. If these people had their way we would develop a
without morals, without standards of speech or standards of dress.
ing their best to foster a climate of
prospective nightmare in our schools -- schools without grades, without discipline, without
prayers, without pledges of allegiance
, without Christmas, without Easter, without patriotism,
Already, wherever they have taken over the educational system, we see the worst of their
products intellectual guerrillas emerging from the universities trained in "participatory
mobocracy."
Surely the nation deserves something better than this for the billions it is spending.
----------------------------------------
Chapter Nine
The Slow Awakening of the Slumbering Giant
Off and on throughout the past fifty years there have been explosive moments when the
action of the subversive conspiratorial coalition
conscious state of alertness and alarm.
almost
aroused the American people to a
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