Memorandum Number Five:
The Baltimore Scheme
While G. Stanley Hall was in Leipzig working under Wilhelm Wundt,
the revolutionary trio Gilman-Dwight-White were moving events back
home - and The Order ran into its first organized opposition.
The protesting "neutrals" at Yale had no hope of winning. Even under
independent President Noah Porter in the 1870s, The Order had Yale
University under its control. But while Yale students were watching,
protesting and writing bad verse, Daniel Gilman ran into opposition
3000 miles away - and if the leaders of this counter revolution had
known the story we are recounting here, they might just have stopped
The Order dead in its tracks.
In 1867 Daniel Gilman received an offer as President of the
University of Wisconsin. This he declined. In 1872 Gilman was
offered the Presidency of the newly established University of
California. This offer he accepted.
In California Gilman found a political hornets' nest. For some years
there had been increasing popular concern about the railroad
monopolies, government subsidies to railroads and - oddly enough
-the Morrill Bill which gave federal land grants to agricultural and
scientific colleges. The reader will recall that in Connecticut and
New York, The Order had grabbed the total state's share for Yale and
Cornell respectively.
Californians believed that the University of
California, a land grant college, should teach agriculture and
science, whereas Gilman had different ideas. Unrest over corruption,
including corruption among University of California Regents and the
railroads (in which members of The Order had widespread interests),
led to formation of a new California political party.
In 1873 the party was known as the Patrons of Husbandry or the
Grangers. Then members of the Republican Party broke away and joined
with the Grangers to form the Peoples Independent Party (known also
as the Dolly Varden Party). They won a decisive victory in the 1873
California elections and following investigations by the Grangers, a
petition was sent to the Legislature concerning operation of the
University of California under Daniel Gilman.
At that time Henry
George was editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening Post and George
used his considerable journalistic skills to attack the University,
the Regents, Gilman, and the land grants. Although Henry George is
known as a socialist, we classify him as an independent socialist,
not part of the Hegelian right-left spectrum.
His main target was
land monopoly, whereas the "scientific" Hegelian socialism of Karl
Marx is geared to establishing monopolies of all kinds under state
control, following the Hegelian theory of the supremacy of the
State.
This populist furor scared Gilman, as he freely admits:
"... there are dangers here which I could not foresee... . This
year the dangers have been averted
but who can tell what will happen two years hence"? I feel that we
are building a superior structure
but it rests over a powder mill which may blow it up any day. All
these conditions fill me with
perplexity."
Reading between the lines, Daniel Gilman was not too anxious to face
the populist west. He needed a more stable base where prying
journalists and independent politicians could be headed off. And
this base presented itself in the "Baltimore scheme."
Daniel Gilman Becomes President Of Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins, a wealthy Baltimore merchant, left his fortune to
establish a University for graduate education (the first in the
United States along German lines) and a medical school.
Hopkins' trustees were all friends who lived in Baltimore. How then
did they come to select Daniel Coit Gilman as President of the new
University?
In 1874 the trustees invited three university presidents to come to
Baltimore and advise on the choice of a President. These were
Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, Andrew Dickson White of Cornell, and
James
B. Angell of Michigan. Only Andrew Dickson White was in The Order.
After meeting independently with each of these presidents, half a
dozen of the trustees toured several American Universities in search
of further information - and Andrew D. White accompanied the tour.
The result, as in the words of James Angell:
"And now I have this remarkable statement to make to you, that
without the least conference
between us three, we all wrote letters telling them that the one man
was Daniel C. Gilman of
California,"1
The truth is that Gilman not only knew what was going on in
Baltimore, but was in communication with Andrew White on the
Baltimore scheme," as they called it.
In a letter dated April 5, 1874, Gilman wrote as follows to Andrew
D. White,
"could not conclude on any new proposition without
conferring upon it with some of my family friends, and I have not
felt at liberty to do so. I confess that the Baltimore (italics in
original) scheme has often suggested itself to me, but I have no
personal relations in that quarter."2
1 John C. French. A HISTORY OF "I HE UNIVERSITY FOUNDED BY JOHNS
HOPKINS (The Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore. 1946), p.
26.
2 LIFE OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN. p. 157.
Here's the interesting point: the board appointed by Johns Hopkins
to found a university did not even meet to adopt its by-laws and
appoint committees until four weeks before this letter i.e., March
7, 1874. Yet Gilman tells us "the Baltimore scheme has of times
suggested itself to me..."
In brief: Gilman knew what was happening over in Baltimore BEFORE
HIS NAME HAD BEEN PRESENTED TO THE TRUSTEES!
Gilman became first
President of Johns Hopkins University and quickly set to work.
Johns Hopkins had willed substantial amounts for both a University
and a medical school. Dr. William H. Welch ('70), a fellow member of
The Order, was brought in by Gilman to head up the Hopkins medical
school. (Welch was President of the Board of Directors of the
Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research for almost 25 years,
1910-1934.
This we shall expand upon later in the series when we
examine how The Order came to control medicine). For the moment
let's return to G. Stanley Hall who was in Leipzig while Johns
Hopkins was acquiring its new President.
Gilman Starts The Revolution in American Education
When he returned to the United States Hall was feeling pretty low:
"I came home, again in the depths because of debt and with no
prospects, took a small flat on the edge of Somerville, where my two
children were born, and waited, hoped and worked. One Wednesday
morning President Eliot (of Harvard University) rode up to the
house, rapped on the door without dismounting from his horse and
asked me to begin Saturday of that week a course of lectures on
education ..."
As Hall recounts it, he had a "very impressive audience" for these
lectures. Sometime later,
"In 1881 I was surprised and delighted to
receive an invitation from the Johns Hopkins University, then the
cynosure of all aspiring young professors, to deliver a course of
twelve semi-public lectures on psychology."
At the end of the lecture series, Gilman offered Hall the chair of
Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy. This puzzled Hall because
others at Johns Hopkins were "older and abler" than himself and,
"Why the appointment for which all of them had been considered fell
to me I was never able to understand unless it was because my
standpoint was thought to be a little more accordant with the ideals
which then prevailed there."
Hall was given a psychological laboratory, a thousand dollars a year
for equipment and, with the encouragement of Gilman, founded The
American Journal Of Psychology.
And what did Hall teach? Again in his own words:
"The psychology I taught was almost entirely experimental and
covered for the most part the material that Wundt had set forth in
the later and larger edition of Physiological Psychology."
The rest is known.
The chart demonstrates how doctoral students from Wundt and Hall fanned out through the United States, established
departments of psychology and education by the score; 117
psychological laboratories just in the period up to 1930. Prominent
among these students were John Dewey, J.M. Cattell and E.L.
Thorndike - all part of the founding of Columbia Teachers' College
and Chicago's School of Education - the two sources of modern
American education.
Their activities can be measured by the number of doctorates in
educational psychology and experimental psychology granted in the
period up to 1948. The following list includes psychologists with
training in Germany under Wilhelm Wundt before 1900, and the number
of doctorates they in
turn awarded up to 1948:
American Students of
Wundt Teaching
at U.S. Universities |
Career At |
Number of Doctorates
They Awarded up to
1948 |
G. Stanley Hall |
Johns Hopkins and Clark University |
149 doctorates |
J. McKeen Cattell |
Columbia University |
344 doctorates |
E. W . Scripture |
Yale University |
138 doctorates |
E.B. Titchener |
Cornell University |
112 doctorates |
G.T.W. Patrick |
Minnesota University |
123 doctorates |
H. Gale |
Iowa University |
269 doctorates |
C.H. Judd |
University of Chicago |
196 doctorates |
Of these only E.B. Titchener at Cornell could be called a critic of
the Wundt school of experimental psychology. The rest followed the
party line: an amalgamation of Hegelian philosophy and Wundtian
animal psychology.
So from the seed sown by Daniel Coit Gilman at
Johns Hopkins grew the vast network of interlocking schools of
education and departments of psychology that dominates education
today.
Return to Contents
Memorandum Number Six:
The Troika Spreads Its Wings
Around the turn of the century The Order had made significant
penetration into the educational establishment. By utilizing the
power of members in strategic positions they were able to select,
groom and position non-members with similar philosophy and activist
traits.
In 1886 Timothy Dwight (The Order) had taken over from the last of
Yale's clerical Presidents, Noah Porter. Never again was Yale to get
too far from The Order. Dwight was followed by member Arthur T.
Hadley ('76). Andrew Dickson White was secure as President of
Cornell and alternated as U.S. Ambassador to Germany. While in
Berlin, White acted as recruiting agent for The Order.
Not only G.
Stanley Hall came into his net, but also Richard T. Ely, founder of
the American Economic Association. Daniel Gilman, as we noted in the
last memorandum, was President of Johns Hopkins and used that base
to introduce Wundtian psychology into U.S. education. After
retirement from Johns Hopkins, Gilman became the first President of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C.
The chart overleaf summarizes the achievements of this remarkable
troika.
Now let's see how The Order moved into more specialized fields of
education, then we need to examine how The Order fits with John
Dewey, the source of modern American educational philosophy, then
how The Order spread Dewey throughout the system.
Founding Of The American Economic Association
Academic associations are a means of conditioning or even policing
academics. Although academics are great at talking about academic
freedom, they are peculiarly susceptible to peer group pressures.
And if an academic fails to get the word through his peer group,
there is always the threat of not getting tenure. In other words,
what is taught at University levels is passed through a sieve.
The
sieve is faculty conformity. In this century when faculties are
larger, conformity cannot be imposed by a President. It is handled
equally well through faculty tenure committees and publications
committees of academic associations.
We have already noted that member Andrew Dickson White founded and
was first President of the American Historical Association and
therefore was able to influence the constitution and direction of
the AHA. This has generated an official history and ensured that
existence of The Order is never even whispered in history books, let
alone school texts.
An economic association is also of significance because it
conditions how people who are not economists think about the
relative merits of free enterprise and state planning. State
economic planning is an essential part of State political control.
Laissez faire in economics is the equivalent of individualism in
politics. And just as you will never find any plaudits for the Ninth
and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution in official history,
neither will you find any plaudits for individual free enterprise.
The collectivist nature of present day college faculties in
economics has been generated by the American Economic Association
under influence of The Order. There are very few outspoken preachers
of the Austrian School of Economics on American campuses today. They
have been effectively weeded out.
Even Ludwig von Mises, undisputed
leader of the school, was unable to find a teaching post in the
United States. So much for academic freedom in economics. And it
speaks harshly for the pervasive, deadening, dictatorial hand of the
American Economics Association. And the controlling hand, as in the
American Psychological Association and the American Historical
Association, traces back to The Order.
The principal founder and first Secretary of the American Economic
Association was Richard T. Ely.
Who was Ely?
Ely descended from Richard Ely of Plymouth, England who settled at
Lyme, Connecticut in 1660. On his grandmother's side (and you have
heard this before for members of The Order) Ely descended from the
daughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford, Connecticut. On
the paternal side, Ely descended from Elder William Brewster of
Plymouth Colony.
Ely's first degree was from Dartmouth College. In 1876 he went to
University of Heidelberg and received a Ph.D. in 1879. Ely then
returned to the United States, but as we shall describe below, had
already come to the notice of The Order.
When Ely arrived home, Daniel Gilman invited Ely to take the Chair
of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins. Ely accepted at about the
same time Gilman appointed G. Stanley Hall to the Chair of
Philosophy and Pedagogy and William Welch, a member of The Order we
have yet to describe, to be Dean of the Johns Hopkins medical
school.
Fortunately, Richard Ely was an egocentric and left an
autobiography, Ground Under Our Feet, which he dedicated to none
other than Daniel Coit Gilman (see illustration). Then on page 54 of
this autobiography is the caption "I find an invaluable friend in
Andrew D. White."
And in Ely's first book, French And German
Socialism, we find the following:
"The publication of this volume is due to the friendly counsel of
the Honorable Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University, a
gentleman tireless in his efforts to encourage young men and alive
to every opportunity to speak fitting words of hope and cheer. Like
many of the younger scholars of our country, I am indebted to him
more than I can say."
Ely also comments that he never could understand why he always
received a welcome from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, in fact from the
Ambassador himself. But the reader has probably guessed what Ely
didn't know - White was The Order's recruiter in Berlin.
Ely recalls his conversations with White, and makes a revealing
comment:
"I was interested in his psychology and the way he worked
cleverly with Ezra Cornell and Mr. Sage, a benefactor and one of the
trustees of Cornell University."
The reader will remember it was
Henry 5age who provided the first funds for
G. Stanley Hall to study in Germany.
Then Ely says,
"The only explanation I can give for his special
interest n me was the new ideas I had in relation to economics."
And
what were these new ideas? Ely rejected classical liberal economics,
including free trade, and noted that free trade was "particularly
obnoxious to the German school of thought by which I was so strongly
impressed."
In other words, just as G. Stanley Hall had adopted
Hegelianism in psychology from Wundt, Ely adopted Hegelian ideas
from his prime teacher Karl Knies at University of Heidelberg.
TO THE MEMORY OF DANIEL COIT GILMAN
First President of Johns Hopkins
University,
creative genius in the field of education;
wise,
inspiring and courageous chief under
whom I had the good fortune to
begin my career
and to whom I owe an inestimable debt of gratitude,
I dedicate this book.
And both Americans had come to the watchful attention of The Order.
The staff of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin never did appreciate why a
young American student, not attached to the Embassy, was hired by
Ambassador White to make a study of the Berlin City Government. That
was Ely's test, and he passed it with flying colors.
As he says,
"It
was this report which served to get me started on my way and later
helped me get a teaching post at the Johns Hopkins."
The rest is history. Daniel Coit Gilman invited Richard Ely to Johns
Hopkins University. From there Ely went on to head the department of
economics at University of Wisconsin. Through the ability to
influence choice of one's successor, Wisconsin has been a center of
statist economics down to the present day.
Before we leave Richard Ely we should note that financing for
projects at University of Wisconsin came directly from The Order -
from member George B. Cortelyou ('13), President of New York Life
Insurance Company.
Ely also tells us about his students, and was especially enthralled
by Woodrow Wilson:
"We knew we had in Wilson an unusual man. There
could be no question that he had a brilliant future."
And for those readers who are wondering if Colonel Edward Mandell
House, Woodrow Wilson's mysterious confidant, is going to enter the
story, the answer is Yes! He does, but not yet.
The clue is that young Edward Mandell House went to school at
Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, Connecticut. House knew The Order
from school days. [n fact one of House's closest classmates at
Hopkins Grammar School was member Arthur Twining Hadley ('76), who
went on to become President of Yale University (1899 to 1921). And
it was Theodore Roosevelt who surfaced Hadley's hidden philosophy:
"Years later Theodore Roosevelt would term Arthur Hadley his fellow
anarchist and say that if their true views were known, they would be
so misunderstood that they would both lose their jobs as President
of the United States and President of Yale."1
1 Morris Hadley. ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, Yale University Press. 1948,
p. 33.
House's novel, Philip Dru, was written in New Haven, Connecticut and
in those days House was closer to the Taft segment of The Order than
Woodrow Wilson. In fact House, as we shall see later, was The
Order's messenger boy. House was also something of a joker because
part of the story of The Order is encoded within Philip Dru!
We are not sure if The Order knows about House's little prank. It's
just like House to try to slip one over on the holders of power.
American Medical Association
Your doctor knows nothing about nutrition? Ask him confidentially
and he'll probably confess he had only one course in nutrition. And
there's a reason.
Back in the late 19th century American medicine was in a deplorable
state. To the credit of the Rockefeller General Education Board and
the Institute for Medical Research, funds were made available to
staff teaching hospitals and to eradicate some pretty horrible
diseases.
On the other hand, a chemical-based medicine was introduced and the
medical profession cut its ties with naturopathy. Cancer statistics
tell you the rest.
For the moment we want only to note that the impetus for
reorganizing medical education in the United States came from
John
D. Rockefeller, but the funds were channeled through a single member
of The Order.
Briefly, the story is this.
One day in 1912 Frederick T. Gates of
Rockefeller Foundation had lunch with Abraham Flexner of
Carnegie
Institution. Said Gates to Flexner:
"What would you do if you had
one million dollars with which to make a start in reorganizing
medical education in the United States?"1
1 Raymond D. Fosdick. ADVENTURE IN GIVING (Harper & Row. New York.
1962), p. 154.
As reported by Fosdick, this is what happened:
"The bluntness was characteristic of Mr. Gates, but the question
about the million dollars was hardly in
accord with his usual indirect and cautious approach to the spending
of money. Flexner's reply, however,
to the effect that any funds - a million dollars or otherwise -
could most profitably be spent in
developing the Johns Hopkins Medical School, struck a responsive
chord in Gates who was already a
close friend and devoted admirer of Dr. William H. Welch, the dean
of the institution."
Welch was President of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research from 1901, and a Trustee of the Carnegie Institution from
1906. William H. Welch was also a member of the Order and had been
brought to Johns Hopkins University by Daniel Coit Gilman.
Other Areas Of Education
We should note in conclusion other educational areas where The Order
had its influence. In theology we have already noted that The Order
controlled Union Theological Seminary for many years, and was strong
within the Yale School of Divinity.
The constitution for UNESCO was written largely by The Order, i.e.,
member Archibald MacLeish. And member William Chauvenet (1840) was
"largely responsible for establishing the U.S. Naval Academy on a
firm scientific basis." Chauvenet was director of the Observatory,
U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis from 1845 to 1859 and then went on to
become Chancellor of Washington University (1869).
Finally, a point on methodology. The reader will remember from
Memorandum One (Volume One) that we argued the most "general"
solution to a problem in science is the most acceptable solution. In
brief, a useful hypothesis is one that explains the most events.
Pause a minute and reflect. We are not developing a theory that
includes numerous superficially unconnected events.
For example, the founding of Johns Hopkins University, the
introduction of Wundtian educational methodology, a psychologist G.
Stanley Hall, an economist Richard T. Ely, a politician
Woodrow
Wilson - and now we have included such disparate events as Colonel
Edward House and the U.S. Naval Observatory. The Order links to them
all... and several hundred or thousand other events yet to be
unfolded.
In research when a theory begins to find support of this pervasive
nature it suggests the work is on the right track. So let's
interpose another principle of scientific methodology. How do we
finally know that our hypothesis is valid? If our hypothesis is
correct, then we should be able to predict not only future conduct
of The Order but also events where we have yet to conduct research.
This is still to come.
However, the curious reader may wish to try it
out. Select a major historical event and search for the guiding hand
of The Order.
Members Of The Order In Education
Return to Contents
Memorandum Number Seven:
The Order's Objectives For Education
We can deduce The Order's objectives for education from evidence
already presented and by examining the work and influence of John
Dewey, the arch creator of modern educational theory.
How do we do this? We first need to examine Dewey's relationship
with The Order. Then compare Dewey's philosophy with Hegel and with
the philosophy and objectives of modern educational practice.
These educational objectives have not, by and large, been brought
about by governmental action. In fact, if the present state of
education 7 had been brought about by legislation, it would have
been challenged on the grounds of unconstitutionality.
On the contrary, the philosophy and practice of today's system has
been achieved by injection of massive private funds by foundations
under influence, and sometimes control, of The Order. This
implementation we will describe in a future volume, How The Order
Controls Foundations. In fact, the history of the implementation of
Dewey's objectives is also the history of the larger foundations,
i.e., Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Peabody, Sloan, Slater and
Twentieth Century.
How John Dewey Relates To The Order
John Dewey worked for his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University from
1882-86 under Hegelian philosopher George Sylvester Morris. Morris
in turn had his doctorate from University of Berlin and studied
under the same teachers as Daniel Gilman, i.e., Adolph Trendelenberg
and Hermann Ulrici.
Neither Morris nor Dewey were members of The Order, but the link is
clear. Gilman hired Morris, knowing full well that Hegelianism is a
totally integrated body of 'knowledge and easy to recognize. It is a
different from the British empirical school of John Stuart Mill as
night and day.
John Dewey's psychology was taken from G. Stanley Hall, the first
American student to receive a doctorate from Wilhelm Wundt at
University of Leipzig. Gilman knew exactly what he was getting when
he hired Hall. With only a dozen faculty members, all were hired
personally by the President.
In brief, philosophy and psychology came to Dewey from academics
hand-picked by The Order.
From Johns Hopkins Dewey went as Professor of Philosophy to
University of Michigan and in 1886 published Psychology, a blend of
Hegelian philosophy applied to Wundtian experimental psychology. It
sold well. In 1894 Dewey went to University of Chicago and in 1902
was appointed Director of the newly founded
- with Rockefeller money - School of Education.
The University of Chicago itself had been founded in 1890 with
Rockefeller funds - and in a future volume we will trace this
through Frederick Gates (of Hartford, Connecticut), and the
Pillsbury family (The Order). The University of Chicago and Columbia
Teachers' College were the key training schools for modern
education.
The Influence Of Dewey
Looking back at John Dewey after 80 years of his influence, he can
be recognized as the pre-eminent factor in the collectivization, or
Hegelianization, of American Schools. Dewey was consistently a
philosopher of social change. That's why his impact has been so deep
and pervasive. And it is in the work and implementation of the ideas
of John Dewey that we can find the objective of The Order.
When The Order brought G. Stanley Hall from Leipzig to Johns Hopkins
University, John Dewey was already there, waiting to write his
doctoral dissertation on "The Psychology of Kant." Already a
Hegelian in philosophy, he acquired and adapted the experimental
psychology of Wundt and Hall to his concept of education for social
change.
To illustrate this, here's a quote from John Dewey in
My
Pedagogic Creed:
"The school is primarily a social institution. Education being a
social process, the school is simply that
form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated
that will be most effective in
bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race,
and to use his own powers for social
ends. Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a
preparation for future living."
What we learn from this is that Dewey's education is not child
centered but State centered, because for the Hegelian, "social ends"
are always State ends.
This is where the gulf of misunderstanding between modern parents
and the educational system begins. Parents believe a child goes to
school to learn skills to use in the adult world, but Dewey states
specifically that education is "not a preparation for future
living."
The Dewey educational system does not accept the role of
developing a child's talents but, contrarily, only to prepare the
child to function as a unit in an organic whole - in blunt terms a
cog in the wheel of an organic society. Whereas most Americans have
moral values rooted in the individual, the values of the school
system are rooted in the Hegelian concept of the State as the
absolute.
No wonder there is misunderstanding!
The Individual Child
When we compare Hegel, John Dewey, and today's educational thinkers
and doers, we find an extraordinary similarity.
For Hegel the individual has no value except as he or she performs a
function for society:
"The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has
objective existence, truth and morality
only in his capacity as a member of the State."
John Dewey tried to brush the freedom of the individual to one side.
In an article, "Democracy and Educational Administration" (School &
Society, XVL, 1937, p. 457) Dewey talks about the "lost individual,"
and then restates Hegel in the following way:
"freedom is the
participation of every mature human being in formation of the values
that regulate the living of men together."
This is pure Hegel, i.e.,
man finds freedom only in obedience to the State. As one critic,
Horace M. Kallen stated, John Dewey had a "blindness to the sheer
individuality of individuals."
In other words, for Dewey man has no individual rights. Man exists
only to serve the State. This is directly contradictory to the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with the preamble
"We the people." They then go on to define the rights of the state
which are always subordinate and subject to the will of "We the
people."
This, of course, is why modern educationists have great difficulty
in introducing the Constitution into school work. Their ideas follow
Hegel and Dewey and indirectly the objectives of The Order.
For
example:
"An attempt should be made to redress the present
overemphasis on individualism in current programs ... students
need to develop a sense of community and collective identity."
(Educational Leadership, May 1982, William
B. Stanley, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction,
Louisiana State University).
The Purpose Of Education
What then is the purpose of education, if the individual has no
rights and exists only for the State?
There was no need for Hegel to describe education, and so far as we
Know there is no statement purely on education in Hegel's writings.
It is unnecessary. For Hegel every quality of an individual exists
only at the mercy and will of the State. This approach is reflected
in political systems based on Hegel whether it be Soviet Communism
or Hitlerian national socialism. John Dewey follows Hegel's organic
view of society.
For example:
"Education consists either in the ability to use one's powers in a
social direction or else in ability to share in the experience of
others and thus widen the individual consciousness to that of the
race"
(Lectures For The First Course In Pedagogy)
This last sentence is reminiscent of the Hitlerian philosophy of
race (i.e., right Hegelianism). And today's educators reflect this
approach. Here's a quote from Assemblyman John Vasconcellos of
California, who also happens to be Chairman of the Joint Committee
on the Master Plan for Higher Education and the Education Goals
Committee for the California State Assembly - a key post:
"It is now
time for a new vision of ourselves, of man, of human nature and of
human potential, and a new theory of politics and institutions
premised upon that vision. What is that vision of Man? That the
natural, whole, organismic human being is loving... that man's
basic thrust is towards community"
(quoted in Rex Myles, Brotherhood
and Darkness, p. 347).
What is this "widen(ing) of the individual
consciousness" (Dewey) and "thrust... towards community" (Vasconcellos)?
Stripped of the pedantic language it is new world order, a world
organic society. But there is no provision for a global organic
order within the Constitution. In fact, it is illegal for any
government officer or elected official to move the United States
towards such an order as it would clearly be inconsistent with the
Constitution. To be sure, Dewey was not a government official, but
Vasconcellos has taken an oath of allegiance to the Constitution.
The popular view of a global order is probably that we had better
look after our problems at home before we get involved in these
esoteric ideas. Political corruption, pitifully low educational
standards, and insensitive bureaucracy are probably of more concern
to Americans.
It's difficult to see what the new world order has to do with
education of children, but it's there in the literature. Fichte,
Hegel's predecessor from whom many of his philosophical ideas
originated, had a definite concept of a League of Nations (Volkerbund)
and the idea of a league to enforce peace.
Fichte asserted,
"As this
federation spreads further and gradually embraces the whole earth,
perpetual peace begins, the only lawful relation among states..."
The National Education Association, the lobby for education,
produced a program for the 1976 Bicentennial entitled "A Declaration
Of Interdependence: Education For A Global Community."
On page 6 of
this document we find:
"We are committed to the idea of Education for Global Community. You
are invited to help turn the commitment into action and mobilizing
world education for development of a world community."
An objective almost parallel to Hegel is in
Self Knowledge And
Social Action by Obadiah Silas Harris, Associate Professor of
Educational Management and Development New Mexico State University,
Las Cruces, New Mexico:
"When community educators say that community education takes into
consideration the total individual and his total environment, they
mean precisely this: the field of community education includes the
individual in his total psycho-physical structure and his entire
ecological climate with all its ramifications - social, political,
economical, cultural, spiritual, etc. It seeks to integrate the
individual within himself (sic) and within his community until the
individual becomes a cosmic soul and the community the world."
And on page 84 of the same book:
"The Cosmic soul ... the whole human race is going to evolve an
effective soul of its own - the cosmic soul of the race. That is the
future of human evolution. As a result of the emergence of the
universal soul, there will be a great unification of the entire
human race, ushering into existence a new era, a new dawn of unique
world power."
This last quote sounds even more like Adolph Hitler than Assemblyman
John Vasconcellos. It has the same blend of the occult, the ethnic
and absolutism. In conclusion we need only quote the Constitution,
the basic body of law under which the United States is governed.
The generally held understanding of the Constitution on the
relationship between the individual and the State is that the
individual is Supreme, the State exists only to serve individuals
and the State has no power except by express permission of the
people.
This is guaranteed by Amendments IX and X of the Constitution.
Amendment IX reads,
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People."
Note,
the "retained". And, Amendment X reads,
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people."
In brief, the proposals of John Dewey and his followers are un
constitutional. They would never have seen the light of day in
American schoolrooms unless they had been promoted by The Order with
its enormous power.
Mind Blank - The Order's Objective For Education
Return to Contents
Memorandum Number Eight:
Summary
Up to this point we have established the following:
(1)
By the 1870s The Order had Yale University under its control. Every
President of Yale since Timothy Dwight has either been a member of
The Order or has family connections to The Order. It also appears
that some Yale graduates who are not members of The Order will act
towards objectives desired by The Order. Some of these, for example
Dean Acheson, we can identify as members of Scroll & Key, or with
relatives in The Order.
Others yet to be brought into our discussion
are members of Wolf's Head (for example, Reeve Schley, who worked
for the Rockefellers). Still others, for example Robert Maynard
Hutchins (Fund for the Republic), are Yale graduates but not yet
identified as members of any Yale senior society. It appears at this
point that Ron Rosenbaum's assertion (in Esquire, 1977), that
members of the Eastern Establishment who are not members of Skull &
Bones will be members of either Scroll & Key or Wolf's Head is
holding up.
(2)
So far as education is concerned, look-say reading originated with
Thomas Gallaudet and was designed for deaf mutes. The elder
Gallaudet was not a member of The Order, but his two sons (Edson and
Herbert Gallaudet) were initiated in 1893 and 1898. Horace Mann, a
significant influence in modern educational theory and the first
promoter of "look-say," was not a member. However, Mann was
President of Antioch College, and the Tafts (The Order) were the
most powerful trustees of Antioch.
(3)
We traced John Dewey's philosophy, that education is to prepare a
person to fit into society rather than develop individual talents,
to Herbart who was influenced by the Swiss Pestalozzi. Personal
development cannot be achieved by developing individual talents, it
must take the form of preparation to serve society, according to
Herbart, Dewey and Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi was a member of
the
Illuminati, with the code name "Alfred." This raises new
perspectives for future research, specifically whether The Order can
be traced to the Illuminati.
(4)
The scene shifts in the late 19th century from Yale to Johns Hopkins
University. Member Daniel Coit Gilman is the first President of
Johns Hopkins and he has handpicked either members of The Order
(Welch) or Hegelians for the new departments. G. Stanley Hall, the
first of Wilhelm Wundt's American students, began the process of
Americanization of Wundt, established the first experimental
psychology laboratory for education in the United States with funds
from Gilman, and later started the Journal Of Psychology.
John Dewey
was one of the first doctorates from Johns Hopkins (under Hall and
Morris), followed by Woodrow Wilson, who was President of Princeton
University before he became President of the United States. We noted
that at key turning points of G. Stanley Hall's career the guiding
hand of The Order can be traced. Hall also links to another member
of The Order, Alphonso Taft. We noted that Wilhelm Wundt's family
had Illuminati connections.
(5)
The Order was able to acquire all the Morrill Act land grant
entitlements for New York and Connecticut for Cornell and Yale
respectively. However, member Gilman ran into trouble as President
of University of California on the question of the California land
grants and corruption among the University regents. The first
organized opposition to The Order came from the San Francisco Times,
but editor Henry George was not fully aware of the nature of his
target.
(6)
The core of The Order's impact on education can be seen as a troika:
Gilman at Johns Hopkins, White at Cornell (and U.S. Minister to
Germany) and Dwight, followed by member Hadley, at Yale. Andrew
White was first President of the American Historical Association.
Richard T. Ely (not a member but aided by The Order) became a
founder and first secretary of the American Economic Association.
Members can also be traced into such diverse areas as the U.S. Naval
Observatory and the Union Theological Seminary.
(7) John Dewey, the originator of
modern educational theory, took his doctorate at Johns Hopkins
under Hegelians. Dewey's work is pure Hegel in theory and
practice, and is totally inconsistent with the Constitution of the U.S. and rights of the individual. A comparison
of German Hegelians, John Dewey and modern educational theorists
demonstrates the parallelism. Children do not go to school to
develop individual talents but to be prepared as units in an organic
society.
Experimental schools at University of Chicago and Columbia
University fanned the "new education" throughout the United States.
In brief, The Order initiated and controlled education in this
century by controlling its CONTENT. The content is at variance with
the traditional view of education, which sees each child as unique
and the school as a means of developing this uniqueness.
Criticism of the educational system today bypasses the fundamental
philosophic aspect and focuses on omissions, i.e., that the kids
can't read, write, spell or undertake simple mathematical exercise.
If we look at the educational system through the eyes of The Order
and its objectives, then the problems shift.
If teachers are not teaching basics, then what are they doing?
They appear to be preparing children for a political objective which
also happens to be the objective of The Order. The emphasis is on
global living, preparing for a global society.
It is apparently of
no concern to the educational establishment that children can’t
read, can’t write, and can’t do elementary mathematics… but they are
going to be ready for the Brave New World.
Return to Contents
Memorandum Number Nine:
Conclusions And
Recommendations
A general conclusion is that The Order has been able to convert the
educational system from one aimed at developing the individual child
to one aimed at conditioning the child to be a unit in an organic,
i.e., Hegelian, society.
When we look at philanthropic foundations in the next volume we
shall see the way this has been implemented by private foundation
funds.
There is not sufficient evidence to argue whether the decline in
educational standards is an accidental by-product of this "new
education" or a deliberate subsidiary policy. In any event, the
Reagan Administration policy of merit pay will compound, not solve,
the problem.
Recommendations for reform have been forthcoming at intervals since
the late 1950s when educational problems first surfaced. At the time
of Sputnik there was a hue and cry about the backward nature of U.S.
training in mathematics and science, which at the University level
are not at all backward. Anyway the educational establishment
recognized an opportunity and cried, "more, more money." They got
it, and there was a massive expansion in the '60s. But the funds
have been poured into social conditioning. Mathematics and sciences
have taken back seat in the last 30 years.
Then in 1981, James S. Coleman of the University of Chicago produced
a study of public schools for the
U.S. Department of Education. In this study Coleman used the
National Opinion Research Center to contact 58,728 sophomores and
seniors in 1,016 public, parochial, and private schools across the
United States.
His findings were:
-
private and parochial schools
provide an education closer to the common school ideal than do
public schools
-
private school students learned more than public school
counterparts
-
Coleman wrote it was paradoxical that "catholic schools function
much closer to the American ideal of the common school... than do
public schools"
-
private schools provide "a safer, more disciplined and more ordered
environment" than public schools
-
"blacks and Hispanics perform better at private schools"
The reason?
Private schools are less under the influence of the
Dewey educational philosophy. They still have to use accredited
teachers, but these teachers - quite bluntly - have been able to
survive the teacher training conditioning.
Yet the educational establishment does not see the writing on the
wall. In Fall 1983 a report by John Goodlad, Dean of the School of
Education at University of Southern California, will be published.
John I. Goodlad wrote the Foreword to Schooling For A Global Age
(McGraw Hill, 1979) which includes these comments:
"Enlightened
social engineering is required to face situations that demand global
action now" (page xiii). "Parents and the general public must be
reached ... otherwise children and youth enrolled in globally
oriented programs may find themselves in conflict with values
assumed in the home."
And more. Another 345 pages of globalony
follows.
Nothing about the child as an individual. Nothing about the child as
a repository of talents that need to be encouraged. Nothing about
basic education: the 3 R's.
Yet this Goodlad report is being pushed in The New York Times July
19, 1983) as the most "comprehensive report" ever made on American
schools.
These are some Goodlad proposals:
-
education should start at 4 years old
-
schools should be smaller
-
head teachers with doctorates should have more pay
And this does nothing, of course, to stop what a former Commissioner
of Education called "a rising tide of mediocrity."
If the United States is to survive in the coming technologically
intensive age, then certain recommendations follow. These are:
-
the function of the school is to
develop individual talent. Social engineering as an objective
has to be discarded
-
a thorough grounding in the 3 R's is
essential for a good education. In other words, "content" is all
important
-
it follows that Schools of Education
should be abolished (this is under serious discussion at Duke
University and has been proposed at University of Michigan and
even Cal Berkeley)
-
teacher credentials should be based
on subject matter entirely, not educational theory
-
all restrictions on private schools should be abolished
-
public
schools should be returned to local control
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