THE PILGRIMS
O how have the mighty fallen l In the last issue we dealt with that radical and destructive fruit of New England apostasy known as 'abolitionism'. Another fruit of that same apostasy from the Christian faith is what is known today as the 'public school system'. As early as 1647 Massachusetts Bay Colony provided by law for a system of publicly operated 'common schools', and not many years later made attendance at such schools mandatory. State operated schools were a natural corollary of that unscriptural New England theocracy that clung so long to the union of church and state. But when apostasy finally swept it all away the resulting secular state was operating a system of secularized public schools. Apostasy breeds apostasy and as scripture saith, 'the tree is known by its fruits'. The twin heresies of abolitionism and statist education produced another inevitable fruit of apostasy, WART And in the 'Reconstruction' aftermath of the War Between The States the whole ungodly system was imposed upon a prostrate South till today the curse of the public schools reaches into every town and hamlet, every home and family in the entire nation.

BIBLICAL EDUCATION
Children are 'a heritage of the Lord'. They are also God's gift TO THE PARENTS and not to the State. All, through the scriptures the PARENTS are exhorted to teach their children the ways of truth, instruct them in the knowledge of the Lord and discipline them in the law of God, and the PARENTS are held accountable for the behavior of children under their authority. When Eli's sons 'made themselves vile' in the sight of God it was Eli, and NOT THE STATE that was rebuked of God because he restrained them not: (1 Sam. 3:13) And conversely God blessed Abraham because God knew of Abraham, 'that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of die Lord

(Gen. 18:19) Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 contain a Biblical bill of rights outlining the various and mutual duties and responsibilities of the different members of the family. The children receive the duty to obey the parents and the parents receive the right to the obedience of the children (6:1) and the children receive the right to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and this duty is entrusted not to the State but TO THE PARENTS. Biblical education is parental education within the framework of the divinely ordained family and under the authority of a godly home. This is not to say that parents may not hire tutors or found private parentally controlled schools. But scriptures affirm that the responsibility, the authority and the control are to be the PARENTS! ! ! Nowhere is the State given a scriptural mandate to mould, train and educate the offspring of her citizens. Rather the State is clearly limited to being an arbiter of secular justice administering the second table of the law, enforcing the divine 'thou shall not's' in defense of life, liberty and property.

THE ANTI-CHRIST CONSPIRACY
The Bible proclaims the conspiratorial theory of history. From the subtlety of the serpent in the Garden of Eden to the Mark of The Beast at the end of the age the scriptures trace the thread of that conspiracy of Satan to usurp the very throne (Isaiah 14:12-14) of God and to rule God's creation for himself. That conspiracy has as its aim the constant subversion of God's purpose and the total reversal of God's design. And although Christians can rejoice that God's decrees are sure and his promises will stand, that they are in the hands of a sovereign God 'working all things together for good' and that the day is fast approaching when "The kingdoms of dais world are become die kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign for ever and ever." Yet for the present the conflict is still very real. And so it is in the field of education as throughout history the designs of Satan and the thrusts of his conspiracy have never changed. From Nimrod's dictatorship at the tower of Babel to Daniel's captivity in Babylon, from ancient, pagan Sparta and Plato's heathen 'Republic' to Marx's manifesto of 1848 we hear the same cry. We hear that children belong to the State, are to be taken from the parents and reared by the State and are to be indoctrinated by the State to serve the State. Both Plato and Marx envisaged a society where the family was abolished, the State was everything and ALL PROPERTY including WOMEN and CHILDREN were held in common by the State. Marx capped off his hate filled diatribe against the family and marriage with the ten points of the Communist Manifesto which culminated in "FREE EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS".

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
The union of Church and State has always been destructive of religious liberty. Leaning on the power of civil government rather than of the Holy Spirit, state churches have always fettered the conscience, strait-jacketed worship and grown fat on the involuntary tithes extracted from the citizens. As we have seen it was just such a union of state and church in Massachusetts that was responsible for the origin of the American public school system. The two go together and it works both ways. That is a system of government operated public schools in effect establishes a state church and has the same destructive effect on religious liberty. The 'Public Schools' represent a radical breach in the United States Constitution that provides for religious liberty by declaring "Congress shall make no law respecting die establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" The Bible declares that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' Education starts with a knowledge of God. Education is by its very nature religious whether it be Christian or pagan, deist or atheist. When the science teacher proclaims either divine creation or biological evolution these are religious pronouncements as the Scope's Monkey Trails demonstrated with such national prominence. When schools teach the Biblical family structure or women's liberation, when they teach free enterprise and private property or socialism they are teaching religion. Since education was of necessity by nature religious our founding fathers who framed the Constitution wisely restricted government from that area and left the domain of education to private interests. Now we have the public school system that is denying the free exercise of religion by its prohibitions of prayer and Bible reading. Now we have a State that has seized the educational system and purged it of Christianity under the guise of separating church and state. The effect has been the exact opposite and has established an official religion which is anti-Christian. Now we have an educational establishment that is officially sponsoring a religion of atheism and anti-Christianity by its censorship of all things Christian from its curriculum. With strange inconsistency while simple manger scenes are hounded from the nation's campuses courses in Oriental mysticism, transcendental meditation, witchcraft and the occult are prospering. While God's name can not be invoked in prayer or worship it may be invoked in vain and in curse. The official religion is only against Christianity. The official religion taught in our public schools is ANTI-CHRIST!!!

CIVIL LIBERTY
There is a prevalent myth today that education as such is conducive of liberty and is a great cornerstone of democracy as the liberals put it. That Biblical education defined as "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" is the foundation of liberty may be undeniable. But that is to overlook that most of what passes for education today is better described as indoctrination and produces a mental slavery the exact opposite of that liberty wherewith Christ sets men free. Rushdoony quotes a keen observer of this fact in his book 'The Messianic Character of American Education

After the II World War Stalin is reported to have demanded from the Allies a vast program of foreign aid to the third world. The same foreign aid program that the liberals in the State Department peddle as our best defense against communism. Stalin's thinking however is as obvious as II Duce's. Socialism must precede communism. And people can not be socialized till they can read, understand and be brainwashed with socialist propaganda. The socialist regimentation of any nation requires a vast number of 'educated' bureaucrats shuffling the endless paper work filled out by the dutiful but regimented literate population. A nation must be developed before it can be socialized hence all the foreign aid to the underdeveloped nations.

And that is exactly the point. The same educational system that be such a blessing by disseminating the truth can become an equal curse by propagating the lie. As Hitler is reported to have said, as Lenin echoed and as every demagogue in the White House from Wilson and Roosevelt on practiced, "Make a lie big enough, bold enough, and REPEAT IT OFTEN ENOUGH" and it will 'become fact in the public mind': But such an effective barrage of the lie, such an over-whelming stream of propaganda is only possible through the printed page and the mass media and communications systems. All of us have seen and acknowledged the benefits of the latter; few have realized their potential for evil. Thus the great medieval historian Heerea "announced the deliberate opinion that the art of printing was destined to be more a curse than a blessing to Europe." The same warning could be echoed of television and of the public school system. As Pope warned "A little learning is a dangerous thing" and there is precious little learning taking place in our public schools.

The War Between The States is a good case in point. As Dabney declares "For years before the war the sectional and aggressive party had control of the State education in New England and the Northwest. They used their opportunity diligently; and the result was that when the chance to strike came, they had a WHOLE GENERATION TRAINED to THEIR PURPOSE in HATRED OF THE SOUTH and in CONSTITUTIONAL HERESIES." And then quoting the great Daniel Webster's advice to the Southern patriots of 1861 who sought to defend their constitutional rights, "/ cannot say you are wrong, but if you are fixed in that, go home and get ready your weapons." They asked him what on earth he meant. He replied, that the parsons and COMMON SCHOOL TEACHERS and schoolmarms had diligently educated a whole Northern generation into a passionate hatred of slavery, who would as certain as destiny, attack Southern institutions." (Dabney: Discussions vol. IV, p. 213) And that is exactly the purpose of public schools, not education but statist indoctrination, not liberty but molding each successive generation to fulfil the purposes of the State. America has forsaken the wise isolationism of her forefathers and has been plagued with perpetual foreign war in this century. Yet it is doubtful if we could have been inveigled into even one of those futile and destructive wars without the mighty efforts of the mass media and the conditioning of the public schools in favor of such well propagandized wars to 'end all war' and 'to make the world safe for democracy'. Public schools with the teacher training, required curriculum and texts etc., becomes in the hands of the politicians a massive system for conditioning, and brainwashing the sons of the citizens into conforming with the plans and purposes of the State. As an early champion of the system boldly proclaimed, it would be an institution that "would become by its influence on society, and particularly on tike young, AN ENGINE TO SWAY THE PUBLIC SENTIMENT, THE PUBLIC MORALS and the PUBLIC RELIGION, more powerful than any other in the possession of government" (Rushdoony: Messianic Character of American Education, p. 38; emphasis added) And to this mighty engine we are to be required to surrender our liberties! To this mighty engine we are to be required to surrender the souls of our children!

ACADEMIC LIBERTY
The proponents of the public schools speak much of academic freedom. Although the N.E.A.'s (National Education Assoc.) definition of academic freedom is a virtual license for the teacher to do as he pleases in actual fact academic freedom is an impossibility in the public schools. The definition is readily applied to justify blasphemy, filth and treason in the classroom but has yet to be used to defend the right to read the Bible. Since a system of public schools must cater to citizens of all religious persuasions it must operate on the principle of the lowest common denominator. It cannot teach Protestantism for it will offend the Catholics. It cannot teach Christianity for it will offend the Buddhists. It cannot teach the New Testament for it will offend the Jews and it cannot even teach the existence and moral government of God without offending the atheists and agnostics. Recognizing this and seeing Madelyn Murray O'Hair from afar off, Dr. A.A. Hodge prophesied back in 1887 that " 7 am as sure as l am of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.' " (Ibid.. p. 335) Despite all their vaunted 'academic freedom' public schools do not have the freedom to teach. By their very nature they cannot teach Christianity. By their very nature they cannot teach about Christ, who is the truth. By their very nature they are therefore anti-Christ. Christ declared that there can be no neutrality. 'He that is not for me is against me': Rather than liberty the public schools offer monopoly, a government monopoly on denying our children a godly education, on denying them that true education, "The fear of the Lord". They will not suffer the little ones to come unto Jesus and of such Christ himself declared, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea."

TRUANCY AND TAXES
The Bible declares that "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL" and that admonition includes government. By God's law both truancy and school taxes represent theft. Children belong to the parents and not to the State. For the State to require their presence in its schools in tantamount to legal kidnapping and is an unbiblical exercise in men-stealing. The scriptures prescribe the death penalty for all kidnappers. Even as doctors who's hands are bloody with abortions so educators and public school officials who legally kidnap our children are scripturally worthy of death.

Christ affirmed that we are to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s" but as we have seen the education of the young is not Caesar’s. Paul declared in Romans 13, "For this cause pay ye tribute also" referring to the Biblical functions of government, and went on to exhort the Christians to, "Render tribute to whom tribute is due" : But tribute is not due to Caesar to kidnap our children and indoctrinate them with anti-Christianity. Such tribute is theft. Such tribute is socialist extortion requiring one man to pay for the education of another's children. Such tribute collected from Christians is an outrage as it is compulsory financing of the moral and spiritual destruction of their children.

STATISTICS
Alexis De Toqueville, Dabney and Zach Montgomery (Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. in 1886) all concurred in presenting statistics that wherever public schools replaced private or parental instruction CRIME, INSANITY, SUICIDE and WELFARE CASES multiplied extravagantly. As Dabney put it, the advocates of public schools have "been again and again exposed in . . . . their deceptive cry, 'Better economy to build schoolhouses than jails'; after IT HAS BEEN PROVEN TO THEM, THAT THE MULTIPLICATION OF THEIR SCHOOL-HOUSES HAS MULTIPLIED THE JAILS" (Discussions; vol. IV, p. 262). Non Christian education is anti-Christian education and reaps its own rewards. The tree is known by its fruits. As a contemporary educator put it, "Education without God's word makes men clever devils':, and a not so contemporary educator declared, "To educate the mind of a bad man, without correcting his morals is to put a sword into the hands of a maniac. "

SEPARATION
Christians are called to be separate, in the world but not of the world. Abraham went to great lengths to provide a godly wife for his son Isaac and the Israelites were constantly warned not to mix, mingle or intermarry with the surrounding heathendom. Genesis 6:2 records that the godly seed of Seth mixed with the ungodly seed of Cain and the result was the universal judgment of God in the Deluge of Noah's Flood. By contrast the Psalmist declares in Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly". In the public schools the children of the Christians are forced to mingle and mix with the children of the ungodly. In the public schools the children of the righteous are forced to sit under the counsel of the ungodly. The public schools requires Christians to sell their souls of their children and to trample on the exhortations of scripture.

DISCIPLINE
Discipline has always been a problem in the public schools. The reason is not hard to find. The public school teacher has no real basis for his authority. The Bible says, "Honor thy father and thy mother", and 'Children obey your parents" but says nothing of the public school teacher. Parents may delegate their authority to a private tutor or a teacher in a private school but neither the student nor the parent are required to recognize the usurpations of the State. Authority must have a moral foundation. The parents have one, the public schools do not. The scriptures are the only moral foundation there is but these have been cast out by the public schools. Having cast out the ten commandments the public schools now bid the students behave. It is an impossibility and the schools are besieged by delinquency, rebellion and insurrection and even teachers strikes as teacher and student alike reflect the lawlessness that ever appears in the absence of God's law.

THE SOLUTION
The problems of the public schools are manifold and there is no reformation that can or will remedy them. They are by nature the necessary problems of the system. The only answer is to abolish the whole system of compulsory, tax financed public schools. The public schools cannot educate but they can destroy. While graduates can barely read their moral and spiritual subversion has been thorough and efficient. Every problem inherent in the public school system can be solved by a simple return to the old paths, private education. Education is by its very nature religious whatever that religion may be. For the government to operate a school system is tantamount to it operating a church. Schools like churches should be private not governmental and should be voluntarily attended and supported. Let the parents select a school for their children even as they select a church. The public schools please no-one. All parents of all persuasions would prefer to have their children in schools that reflect their own beliefs and convictions. Only such schools preserve the civil and religious liberty of the citizens and really have the academic freedom to teach whatever the parents want their children taught. The State must get out of a function that it cannot properly perform. The parents must be relieved of the bankrupting burden of supporting an educational monopoly that they cannot ideologically support. The nation must repudiate the program of Karl Marx and return to being ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

KANAWHA COUNTY
The America that has slumbered these many decades under the curse of the public schools has of late been stirred to some resistance to the wholesale destruction of their children. Past eruptions in San Francisco, Pontiac and now Boston about forced bussing have brought some communities to the brink of civil war. Since last April Kanawha County in West Virginia has been in the national spotlight for its stubborn and tenacious resistance to the textbooks in their county school system. The battle has involved mass rallies and protest marches, election campaigns of local officials, wildcat miner strikes, massive school boycotts, sporadic bombings and shootings, police brutality and all kinds of legal suits. And the battle is far from over.

BLASPHEMY
Although many of the texts involved are filthy beyond description or degree and would drive even Playboy back under the counter and although they undermine every last shred of moral principle perhaps the most shocking of all is the persistent hatred and blaspheming of Christ and Christianity. For example...

Mother,
There's a strange man waiting at the door with the familiar sort of face you feel you've seen before
Says his name is Jesus and can we give 'im 'elf a crown
says 'as run out of miracles and noe 'is luck is down.
Yes I think 'e is a foreigner Egyptian or a Jew
Oh aye and that reminds me 'ad like some water too
Well, shall I give 'im what 'e wants or send 'im om 'is way?
All right I'll give 'in sixpence.
Say that's all we got today
and I'll forget about the water.
I suppose it's a little bit mean but 'onest 'as filthy dirty
you don't know where 'as been.

OR

I think it must be lonely to be God.
Nobody loves a master . . . . . . . . . .
Picture Jehovah striding through the hall Of his importance
But who walks with Him?-dares to take His arm, To slap Him on the shoulder, tweak His ear,
Buy Him a Coca-Cola or a beer,
Pooh-pooh His politics, call Him a fool?

OR

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and softly stole away into some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again an unimaginable and impossibly Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest of Second Comings

THE REACTION
Those who feel that the American Revolution was fought because of a tax on tea have a lot to learn from history. Similarly those who feel that the issues raised by the Charleston protest are limited to a few objectionable excerpts from some 'dirty' text books had better 'peel their eyeballs' as the mountaineers would say. The mountaineers with their traditions of liberty have run smack into the elitist monopolism of the NEA and the public school system. The issue has become not only the books but who has the authority to choose the books, the parents or the educational bureaucracy.

The basic issue underlying all others is the question, to whom do the children belong? To the parents or to the state? The parents who provide the children and pay the taxes were under the impression that the state was merely providing a service for them and was operating with their consent and in accordance with their wishes. Now they have been confronted with the statist philosophy that the education of the children is the primary responsibility of the government which takes the child and teaches it as it sees' fit. They have been rudely awakened that not only does the government claim the child but can enforce that claim with compulsory attendance statutes and the truant laws. To the parents of Kanawha County voluntarily sending their children to a school system that they financed and controlled was one thing. Having their children officially kidnapped and subjected to an unpatriotic and unchristian indoctrination is another! The parents are challenging the states usurpation of their parental rights and that issue is both explosive in nature and national in scope.

Over one hundred years ago Americans traded in a tradition of private education for a system of government operated schools. The two pillars of the new system of public schools are the compulsory attendance laws and compulsory financing through the tax system. Before the smoke clears in West Virginia both pillars are likely to have been challenged. A massive school boycott in defiance of the truant laws has already taken place and will be intensified by the return of the disputed books to the system. The School Board's stated intention to enforce the laws compelling attendance ensures a confrontation in the courts if not in the streets. Neither are the same parents, who have vowed that their children shall never be subjected to the pornography and blasphemy of the new curriculum, likely to relish paying for it.

The long prophesied inherent weaknesses of the public school system are now glaringly revealed in Charleston. Two cultures are at war in the valley. A new liberal culture of sophisticated contempt and moral rootlessness is waging war against the patriotism and fundamental faith of the Bible belt. And the public schools cannot serve two masters. A century ago both sides would have packed their offspring off to private schools reflecting their respective convictions. But now no such solution is in sight as the parents are faced with the monopoly of the public schools. A monopoly that they must break if they are to perpetuate their faith and their traditions and bequeath their heritage to their children. Time will tell if the West Virginians can roll back the clock a hundred years. One thing is sure nothing less will really be an ANSWER!!!