It has been said that the only way to know where in the hell you’re going is to take a good look at where you’ve already been. I tend to agree, and so I thought it might make sense to take a walk through history, president by president, and see what these guys have to say about education. So many of them have schools named after them, but I wonder how many actually deserve such an honor? Let’s find out.

#1) George Washington:

I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education which I received from my mother.

While it might be tempting to write our most Foundingest Father off as a mama’s boy, it’s really a nice sentiment, and sweet of him to honor her. Moving on, George seems to have a keen vision of the future. Certainly the intellect should always be at the fore of any educational pursuit, and in the 231 years since this country was founded, that hasn’t changed. If anything, it was reinvigorated during the Cold War and the Space Race, but these will have to wait until the Reagan years. Sit tight.

Physical education’s most legitimate moments come in the form of the President’s Physical Fitness Test, a rigorous battery of pull-ups, sit-and-reach and the like. How could George Washington have known that his office would sanction such a thing?

Even more interesting is the mention of moral education. Taking a quick look at moraleducation.org, it quickly becomes clear that proponents of such a thing are a bit, well, scary. Looking elsewhere, one finds that there is currently a spectrum of approaches to emotional, social, and moral education, and one wonders which of these many approaches was put into practice by George Washington’s mother.

#2) John Adams:

“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

While I might take issue with the idea that politics and war are necessary in order to facilitate the liberal arts, I appreciate the sort of hierarchy that Adams suggests here: poetry and architecture are more noble than warmaking and politicking, with mathematics kind of holding down the middle ground. John Adams seems to have basically laid the underpinnings of my own educational philosophy.

#3) Thomas Jefferson:

This guy. Don’t even get me started.

Regarding marriage between blacks and whites, Jefferson wrote that “[t]he amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent.”^[52] This is the subject of considerable controversy since Jefferson has been recognized as the father of at least some of the children of his slave Sally Hemings.

For the full story, check it out at Wikipedia, but since race and slavery have nothing whatsoever to do with education (rich, isn’t it?), let’s find a different quote, shall we?

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

A fine quote, when taken completely out of context (is not racism ignorance?). As it turns out, even though it’s tempting, we can’t completely vilify Jefferson–he helped to lay the groundwork for today’s public schools. The following is from ednews.org:

1) Attendance is voluntary. “It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent’s refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father.” (1)

2) Every child is entitled to three years of instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

3) The reading for the primary school years is mainly history. “The first stage of this education . . . wherein the great mass of the people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future order will be laid here. Instead therefore of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children, at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European, and American history.”

And later in the text, Jefferson writes that “of all the views of this law, none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.”

4) The “best genius in the school of those whose parents are too poor to give them further education” is entitled to a fourth and fifth year at a “grammar school.”

5) Students at grammar schools study “Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic.”

6) After a trial period of one or two years, the best student at each grammar school is selected for six years of further instruction. “By this means . . . the best geniusses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed, at the public expense, so far as the grammar schools go.”

7) After the sixth year, the best half of these go to college. “At the end of six years instruction, one half are to be discontinued (from among whom the grammar schools will probably be supplied with future masters); and the other half, who are to be chosen for the superiority of their parts and disposition, are to be sent and continued three years in the study of such sciences as they shall chuse, at William and Mary college . . .”

Well, the view from down here in the rubbish heap is that, thankfully, public schools have come a long way since Jefferson’s day, but there are some kernels of wisdom here, and I guess we have to thank the old bigot for that.

#4) James Madison:

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”

The Founding Fathers of this country were more concerned about liberty and liberties than most of us are today, and whatever their shortcomings (which were, in the case of slavery, catastrophic), we would do well to be concerned with liberty as well. If we were, perhaps we might treasure education all the more. Here’s to you, James Madison. Here’s to you (even if you were the vice president under that racist prick Thomas Jefferson).

#5) James Monroe:

“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.”

This is seriously the best I could do. I think that Monroe probably conducted an internet search on Madison’s quotes, only to take one of his education quotes and restate it as a negative. Liberty plays pretty heavily into these guys’ mindsets, which I suppose makes sense, given that Monroe fought in the Revolutionary War. I’m not sure I would have gotten so hung up on the difference between “people” and “populace”, but I guess that’s his prerogative.

So many years later, his statement seems obvious. If people are kept ignorant, they will be incapable. Yet so many years later, our advanced society still allows this to happen every day.

6) John Quincy Adams:

Known far and wide as “The Napper” (see above), John Quincy Adams seems to have been conflicted when it comes to education. He declared himself a creationist:

“The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.”

But this next statement seems inconsistent with his views of God and the Bible:

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”

Perhaps I have different ideas about God and the Bible, but they seem to be the very definition of “arbitrary power”. What is more strange is that, for a creationist, JQA seems to have an uncommon love of science:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Now if that isn’t a case for evolution, I don’t know what is. This is all so confusing, I think I may need a nap.

#7) Andrew Jackson:

Oh, what a country. Not only do we let this dude with no formal education hold the highest office in the land (that’s democracy for you, for the people, son!), but we put him on some money. Even after he said this:

“I have always been afraid of banks.”

Damn. Seriously? And it’s hard to find anything about education among his many quotes, unless this counts:

“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.“

Not in my Language Arts class, Mr. Jackson. Now hand me that twenty.

Martin Van Buren:

Marty VB would like you to know that he is a learned man, no Andy Jackson, but a man of letters, who even passed the bar exam. That’s right, unlike Jackson, he’s no envelope under the mattress kind of president:

“Banks properly established and conducted are highly useful to the business of the country, and will doubtless continue to exist in the States so long as they conform to their laws and are found to be safe and beneficial. “

Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, that’s not really what this blog is about, but I figure that since it’s buried deep in a page no one’s really reading, it’s okay to segue here and there. Now. Back to education.

Well, this might seem off-topic, but consider how spot-fucking-on it would seem if you were among the “Cherokee Nations of Indians” of which MVB speaks – no doubt your schooling would have been affected by your uprooting. Especially once they threw you into those horrible missionary schools:

“It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.“

Van Buren’s support for Indian boarding schools is not so different from today’s support for the charter school. I wonder if he ever said anything about that sort of thing…

“The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. “

Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I suppose, even if it does lay the groundwork for the complete undermining of public education as we know it.

And really, I suppose we have to let the guy off the hook, given that he’s long dead, which kind of takes care of the quandary in which he might otherwise find himself:

“It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t.”

9) William Henry Harrison:

This guy’s definitely got a school or two named after him, of this I am certain.  But why?

Well, let me say this: quotations are worthless if they can’t be twisted to fit the quoter’s unique agenda.  The bible, for instance, is quoted to condemn and justify all manner of behavior.

Harrrison, on the other hand, could be quoted as an enthusiastic supporter of free and public education:

“I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.”

Yet supporters of charter schools (hiss!) might counter with another of WHH’s nuggets of wisdom:

“Times change, and we change with them.”

And while it is no doubt true, we humans are indeed changeable, Harrison does not offer condemn or support for this reality, only a statement of fact.  So while charter schools may be changing the educational landscape in America, thereby changing Americans in the process, it is not necessarily a good thing, especially coming as it does at the expense of public education.

Clearly this is what #9 was getting at.