Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Education
& Teaching:
Adler
on the Founding Fathers
The following is an excerpt from Mortimer Adler's American Testament:
EPILOGUE
- There is an absence in our society today of statesmen or
persons in public life of a caliber comparable to those who assembled in Philadelphia in
1787.
Why, it may be asked, can we not find in a population so many times larger than
the population of the thirteen original states a relatively small number who would be as
qualified for the task as their predecessors?
I cannot give a satisfactory answer to this question except to say that the best
minds in our much larger population do not go into politics as they did in the eighteenth
century.
Perhaps the much larger number of citizens in our present population are not
nearly as well educated. Their minds are not as well cultivated and their characters not
as well formed.
Even if a second constitutional convention were to assemble statesmen of a
character comparable to those who met in Philadelphia in 1787, and even if that second
convention could be conducted under circumstances favorable to a good result,
- the resulting constitution would not find a receptive and
sympathetic audience among our present citizenry, to whom it would have to be submitted
for adoption.
They would not have the kind of schooling that enabled them to understand its
provisions and to appraise their worth. The vast majority would not even be able to read
intelligently and critically the kind of arguments in favor of adopting the new
constitution that were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, and
published in current periodicals in the years 1787 and 1788.
- A radical reform of basic schooling in the United States
would have to precede any attempt by whatever means to improve our system of government
through improving its Constitution.
That is also an indispensable prerequisite for making the degree of democracy we
have so far achieved prosper, work better, or, perhaps, even survive.
- We are, indeed, a nation at risk, and nothing but radical
reform of our schools can save us from impending disaster. Whatever the price we must pay
in money and effort to do this, the price we will pay for not doing it will be much
greater.
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