James Madison: Thoughts on Public Education (my title)

The Founders' Constitution website ^ | 4 Aug. 1822 | James Madison

[Huck]

Madison's language is tough going to the modern reader, which is why I added the bold emphasis on certain parts. I thought some folks might be interested to learn that James Madison supported public education, and in this letter supports the use of property taxes to pay for such a system, and specifically states that folks who can't afford education ought to have one provided for them. I'll wager more than a few freepers didn't know that. I believe Adams and Jefferson were also big on public education.

Now, that doesn't make public education a good thing. It doesn't make the system great. But it does mean that the idea was not anathema to some big time Founders. And it suggests that to some here at FR, James Madison was a socialist. Interesting stuff, eh?

FWIW, I agree with Mr. Madison that there is a public interest in having an educated populace. I also agree with him that if poor people cannot afford one, the "haves" should provide it, for the good of all. I strongly support a voucher system, because I believe it combines the best elements of a free market system with the best elements of the public interest, and minimizes the pitfalls of each. Freegards,

[KentuckyWoman]

Good post, Huck! The thing we all need to keep in mind here is that he thought it was a good idea for the (individual) state to do this, not the federal government. In fact, the system of the states running their own education systems worked like a charm up until the feds got involved in the 1960 with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Until that time, we had the best educated population on the planet and now look what we have. Also, compulsory attendance and number of years mandated have done nothing but expanded since federal involvement with the result being a dumbed-down, PC populace that looks to government for their substanance and safety.

[StriperSniper]

Bump for later.

[aardvark1]

I had the privelege of hearing Bill Bennett speak of our current fed ed dept as a place where you send them a dollar and they send 66 cents back to you.

[KentuckyWoman]

you send them a dollar and they send 66 cents back to you

I would have imagined that 66 cents figure to be much lower. I find it hard to believe that the government is only taking approx. 1/3 for themselves. Of course, this figure probably doesn't include what the state depts. of ed take out to run their own little bureaucracies. Education ran much better when the LOCAL taxpayers funded it and CONTROLLED it.

[savedbygrace]

So where do we take the leap from what Madison was advocating in this statement, to federal support and control of education?

[Huck]

I agree that Madison is talking about state administration, not Federal. It is my impression that even with the Federal regulations that we now have, public schools are funded mainly through property taxes, collected locally. Isn't that normally the case? If so, the point is that here is Mr. Madison advocating the very same scheme for funding, and also endorsing the concept of collectively funded education. Now, I understand that today the Feds through in money with strings attached, and tru to regulate and mandate etc etc. Isn't that now part of the Bush Edu. Plan? Anyway, as I said in my initial comments, this isn't to say our current system is good. And I indicated how I would like to see it done.

[Arthur McGowan]

There was one full-blown Socialist among the signers of the Declaration--don't recall the name--Morris?

Anyway, I don't agree with Madison on this. There is no difference in principle between a government-funded school and any other form of welfare. The fact that "education" is Good Thing and welfare-funded booze is a Bad Thing doesn't change the fact that providing schooling or booze at public expense is NOT providing something for the Common Good, but is the use of state power to bestow a private good on some citizens. That is wrong in principle.

And of course, if Madison could have foreseen the infantilization of parents, the destruction of the father-son bond, the militant atheism, the rampant illiteracy, and condoms in the classroom, he wouldn't have uttered a word in support of "public education."

[Ohioan]

Note that the curriculum was reading, writing, arithmetic, and Madison's recommendation for geography--with which I heartily concur. (It is a great embarrassment, how poor most Americans are today in Geography. As a people, we are absolutely pathetic in the subject.)

What Madison did not advocate, and what no self-respecting American would have accepted from a publicly financed education, would have been indoctrination with the alien values of the NEA, or any of the intrusive "life adjustment" type of courses, now forced upon the innocents. If public education were to shape up, it would be acceptable--nay, it would put a valuable floor under public competence. In its present direction, it does more harm than good.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[CyberCowboy777]

I would assume that even Madison good be wrong or short sighted. Hindsight is 20/20.

Voter approved, locally controlled, no federal strings, voluntary, Basic (Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, History, Geography) Education may be a good idea. It is not however what we currently have. And it is not a Right!

A system of public Education must start and end with parental control with Voter approval. If parents are impeded in any way in the upbringing of their children by the state or Feds, I believe it is a violation of Life, Liberty and Property.

If land owners are to foot the bill, then land owners should vote on the issue, not the general public as they pay nothing (which is not the case now as the federal dollars paid into the state are from other sources).

"And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."

- H.L. Mencken

[mrsmith]

Yes, Jeffereson was also a big supporter of public funded education.
A Republic requires an educated cirizenry.

Of course, it would break his heart that a student recieves a much better education in a religious school today than in a public one.

[savedbygrace]

You won't find me defending the Bush education plan. "Strings attached" is putting it mildly. "Federal micro-management" would be closer to the truth.

Stopping the flow of money that goes through D. C. on its way to the schools would go a long way toward solving a lot of the problems in this country today.

Funding by the States, with true local control, and NO NEA control, would be OK with me. I'd probably still be a homeschool advocate, but I doubt I could make as strong an argument as I can today.

The bottom line is: The public schools today are irreparably broken.

[KC Burke]

My understanding is that the Federal contribution is averaging 9%. As that 9% is with strings and voters use of local power keeps school districts on a short rope, none of them have the fiscal independence to turn it down, even if the Boards would be dispositioned to do so.

Likewise, federal regulation, promoted by national union activism, places all sorts of non monetary operating restraints on schools, much like OSHA does on industry.

Looking into Michael Novak's "On Two Wings", we also find that most of the founders saw a generalistic, nominal, "christian" moral education to be one of the driving uses of public education. Dewey disciples have worked to supplant that with his religion: Secular Humanism.

[politeia]

I agree that in the early 1800's, public education supported by taxes seemed a very liberal (in the classical sense) idea to Madison and the other founders. Madison was on the governing board of the University of Virginia with Jefferson. Jefferson considered his founding of a public university as important as writing the declaration of independence and perhaps more important than his presidency.

Popular government was considered risky (Hamilton believed it was bound to fail) and educating the masses was seen by Madison and Jefferson as the best remedy to losing liberty to the tyranny of the majority. They wanted a method of assuring that poor people would have the ability to become educated as well as a wealthy elite. Jefferson even came up with a plan to identify promising scholars from the masses and provide them funding for university education.

But Madison also understood and wrote in the federalist papers that time will be the ultimate test of policies and the great advantage of constututional and popular government is that it allows for correcting mistakes that will inevitably be made and which will be revealed as time passes. A policy that worked in the early 1900's may be rendered harmful in changed circumstances and there is no reason we have to follow the same state monopoly model of education just because that is what teachers unions want for their own selfish reasons.

The public school system today in no way educates citizens to be responsible participants in self-government. The harm it has done has been immense but it is not irreversible. Vouchers to stimulate the private education market, home schooling and removing government as much as possible from the lives of families and children is what is needed today to begin to reverse this harm. Madison would be the first to admit the need to back away from the one size fits all system of indoctrination that masquerades as public education today.

[Roscoe]

Probably one of the reasons that Jefferson hated the twit.

Read and learn.

"And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been compleat. It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5. or 6. miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might receive at the public expense a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be compleated at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught." -- Thomas Jefferson

[Huck]

Probably one of the reasons that Jefferson hated the twit.

Amazing you managed to fit so much ignorance into so few words.

[Huck]

And of course, if Madison could have foreseen the infantilization of parents, the destruction of the father-son bond, the militant atheism, the rampant illiteracy, and condoms in the classroom, he wouldn't have uttered a word in support of "public education."

Well, we'll never know, but based on how he lived, I would think he'd have taken a very active (and productive) role in improving the situation. His record speaks for itself. And anyway, none of the social ills you list suggest that people shouldn't be educated. I don't see a connection at all.

[Huck]

Of course, it would break his heart that a student recieves a much better education in a religious school today than in a public one.

I am sure he would be greatly disappointed.