Archives: Education: State school or Catholic school? part two

Education, per se, did not much interest me until about fifteen years ago when our two boys, Paul and Remo, started attending state school. When the boys came back home from school, I would ask them, “What have you done at school today, boys?” “Ah…I don’t remember,” was their usual reply. Then I would ask them to show me their exercise-books, which they would give to me. I would look through the pages to see what they had done during the day, and ask if the teacher had given them some homework. In those books there was not much to look at. They were scribbled here and there with pencil, with half pages and sometimes full pages completely blank between the work which they had to show; and again the same pattern through all the exercise books.

Those were the days my wife and I decided to home school our children. We realized how little our children were taught at school. And what little were learning was almost meaningless for their future prospects. Furthermore, in the school the Christian dimension was totally absent from their curriculum – God was out of classroom. That was fifteen years ago. Today, I feel compelled to say, things have not improved.

Why is that? What happened to our school system here in Australia? Before answering such a central question, it would be wise to point out some historical facts, because nowadays we suffer from a short memory. This generation doesn’t know what happened to the previous one if they were not taught by their parents. Tradition is the root of the ancient culture. Nowadays, tradition and history are meaningless to the new generation, because the former is absent from the Australian culture, and the latter is not any longer taught in the school.

Since 1963 the United States of America and Germany banned the Christian religion from the state education system, and a humanistic religion took its place. Evolution replaced Creation in the state curriculum. Prayer and crucifixes were excluded from classes. In Australia, the big changes started in the early ’70s. Consequently, after thirty years, since the ‘great reform’ within the education system, today we reap what has been sown in the past.

There are a lot of talks, books and articles regarding illiteracy among the youth. This is because the modern education system has failed to teach them the basics at school: the standard of English language and literature has taken a plunge; grammar and spelling are no longer effectively taught. In spite of all this nothing has been done by the government to improve the situation.

Ignorance of the past among this generation (and the previous generation), and the absence of Christian religious instruction, have caused the decline of morality within the society. Teenage pregnancy, abortion, satanism, pornography, homosexuality, drug addiction, violence, youth suicide, etc, are rife.

In answer to the questions: “why is it that today the Christian religion is absent in the school syllabus; and what really happened to our school system here in Australia?” read the following.

Prior to 1919 John Dewey (American philosopher and educator) and those who went before him and after him were making inroads in the field of American education. As far back as the mid-1800s, when Horace Mann was pushing for, and managed to obtain, compulsory education, R L Dabney proffered that while education at that time was based on Christianity, the groundwork had been laid for the government to use education to its own purposes. In 1963, when the Supreme Court ruled prayer in school unconstitutional, R L Dabney’s prophetic word became reality.”

It (the technique of destroying doctrine by altering the meaning of words) is being used according to the teaching of humanists, especially John Dewey, the father of humanistic education. In 1989, an article explaining the humanistic meaning of “pilgrimage” appeared in Religious Education, the journal of the syncretic Religious Education Association. Reading it, one is amazed to see that Dewey’s have not only humanized Catholic schools, but they’ve also had a major role in restructuring the Church itself. Humanism is atheism and incorporates Communism in its ranks. Dewey himself was a product of Hegelian and Illuminati training. In other words, as recognized by Archbishop Sheen, the ideology of the counter-church is rooted in Communism---and Masonry.” Cornelia R. Ferreira, International Report – Community on Pilgrimage http://www.catholictradition.org/cfn-pilgrimage.htm

John Dewey, as do many of these humanistic writers, come from the US. You might think that is pertinent for American schools, but not for Australia; we have a different system here. Don’t kid yourself, for whatever happens there comes here. Australia and America always ride in tandem - with the America in front, of course. As far as education reform is concerned, Australia started ten years behind - in the ’70s, but with the same results.

To make a long story short, the plan to undermine Christianity, and destroy the Catholic religion in the process, precedes the French Revolution. The foremost educational theorist of the 18^th century was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was born in Switzerland, but his influence reached throughout Europe and beyond.

Rousseau and Voltaire were Freemasons; the Encyclopedie was published under the auspice of the same order[1].

He was against the social order. His believed in the original goodness of human nature [the noble savage] and considered that the rise of property and human pride [amour propre] had corrupted the “noble savage”. He was a free thinker and he planted the first seed for 20th century Communism, which is against private property and individualism. As a Freemason, Rousseau’s ideas were the basis [with Voltaire’s] for the French Revolution, the destabilization of the French throne, and of the Catholic Church.

There were others whose humanistic philosophy was based on Rousseau’s, namely Bertrand Russell [a Fabiam] of Britain, and Maria Montessori of Italy.

Wherever they operate social planners share two characteristics: (1) They want no surprises. They will make 1000 alternative plans rather than have one event occur which is not included in their list of possibilities. (2) They want all of nature to obey their ‘science.’ They resent grass that grows, flowers that bloom, and little babies who learn to walk and talk without a planner’s permission.

The economist/planner, Ralph Borsodi bothered his mind for years trying to figure a way to classify human actions so they could be predicted and controlled. One day the lights flashed and the bells rang. The eureka moment had arrived!---PROBLEMS!--yes, PROBLEMS! What could be more simple? All of human life, he decided, could be classified by problems and their solutions. Determine the formula for solving each and every problem that people might face as individuals and in groups, and then classify the problems and figure out the alternative solutions. By solving their problems, or promising to solve their problems, the people who have them can be controlled [my emphasis].

Borsodi decided people who solve their problems within the proper groups in ways prescribed or controlled by social planners could be accepted as ‘scientific,’ ‘normal,’ or ‘human.’ Those who do not want to have their lives controlled in this ‘scientific’ way need schooling and treatment in schools of living to ‘normalize’ or ‘humanize’ them.

After making a card file of more than 8000 problems Borsodi worked on his classifications. He finally divided life’s problems into fourteen categories--fourteen handy little boxes in which to file human problems. What this meant was that when the social planners had control of the facilities for solving all the problems of all the fourteen categories, people would be trapped. They would no longer have any choice but to submit, to go to the planners for lifetime education and guidance. The people could stop thinking, and start meditating so they would not feel the pain. The details of all their problems could go to the problem solvers or to the problem solving computers.

It wasn’t long before courses in colleges, then high schools, then grade schools, were problem centered: urban problems, social problems, American problems, problems of scientific business management, rural problems, parental problems, teen problems, senior citizen problems, etc.

After this brief look into the history of education, what is particularly disturbing is that the Catholic Church continues in the same path of the state education system. We have seen that we have problems, a lot of them, in the state education system. And Australia is not alone here. This same issue touches every country in the world.

Why is it that the Catholic system copycats the dysfunctional state education system? I have already written previously [“Evolution” of the Catholic School System, Part one] underlining the shortcomings of it. However, that does not answer my question, why the copycat? Why should we have a ‘glorified’ state school - the Catholic school - when it is well known that Catholic (and non-Catholic) parents are not getting better education for their children than if they were to send them to the state school?

If the Catholic education system fails its purpose - to instruct children in the faith and doctrine of the Catholic Church – for which it was intentionally designed, then there is no reason to have a Catholic school at all. But no, we have a copycat - an imitation of the government school system.

Quo bono? Is the Catholic Church in Australia giving a helping hand to the establishment to set up the Universal Republic [read New World Order]? Do we have to give credit to what John Dryden (1631-1700) said: By education most have been misled. The priest continues what the nurse began, and thus the child imposes on the man?” The Hind and Panther (1687) pt 3, 1. 389

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bibliography

Beret Kjos, Brave new Schools – Guiding Your Child Through the Dangers of the Changing School System

[1] Martines de Pasqually, by Papus, President of the Supreme Council of the Martiniste Order (1895), p.146 see “World Revolution - The Plot Against Civilisation” by Nesta Webster.