Skull & Bones Society: How The Order Controls Education - John Dewey by Antony C. Sutton

How The Order Controls Education

Memorandum Number Seven: The Orders 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 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 as 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 collectivisation, 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."

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."

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).

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 conscienceness to that of the race" (Lectures For The First Course In Pedagogy)

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).

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 Nationas (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."

"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."

"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."

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."

"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."

Mind Blank - The Order's Objective For Education "NEA" = National Education Association The NEA is a major arm of progressive education

It is difficult for many people to understand how drastically education has changed from it's old purposes to the new purposes. The educational psychologists and philosophers, who are the recognized leaders in their fields (because they get the financial support), promote education as a socialization process. The goal of modern education is to "socialize" the child, to give him firm ideas about how he is part of a larger whole, and to generate "acceptable" behaviors in accordance with the group the child is part of. It is not that this is some better and wonderful way to do things - it is only that it serves somebody's or some group of somebody's purposes. Obviously, somebody is behind the scenes deciding what the vision of this new world society is, what the children need to believe, and what they need to be indoctrinated with. The entire purpose of education is toward creating a "new society". It is very much group oriented, just as was communism and German fascism. It is not interested in producing intelligent, capable, individualistic people who can think for themselves, make decisions, and possibly upset the new social apple cart. Realize, there is nothing wrong with wanting to create a decent society, without war, crime, insanity, and with morality, responsibility and decency. But the only legitimate way to do this is to first, create intelligent, capable, aware, responsible and decent individuals, who then 2) go out and put a better society and world there. No social plan, political system, or utopian agenda will ever do it, because these always ignore and suppress the individual. The State should exist for the benefit, safety and happiness of the individuals. Not the other way around - which is how modern education, and political and social planners view it. Let's be real here. Can the State be happy? Can the "society" enjoy freedom? Only individual people feel, and experience anything. All this over-emphasis on the State and the society is simply garbage. It's playing with words and metaphors - attributing individual human qualities to various concepts of groups - where none truly exist. A "healthy" society? A "new world order"? A "harmonous social organism?" "A loving world community?" What the hell are these people really talking about? The crazy thing is that to many people, these vague, nonsensical terms actually "make sense". These words and terms may elicit spontanteous mental imagery and feelings of some sort, but they don't actually relate through reason and clearcut definitions to anything out in the real world of common experience. Try to get them to explain what they actually mean, and correspond it to actually people and things, and they will be found to be grasping at whisps of smoke. The only love, harmony, or order you will ever see anywhere is only that created by individual human beings. Again, make great human beings, and you may get a great world. But there is no other way to do it. All other roads lead to force, oppression, ignorance, control, and misery. These guys are forever putting the building up before the foundation is ever in place. A building requires good bricks, and a stable foundation. With the proper materials, a strong building with structural integrity is almost impossible not to result. But if cheap materials, sub-grade bricks, and weak foundation materials are used, all the plans and designs in the world won't help. The same is true for society. The true solution is: make great people, and the society will take care of itself. Educate with intensity towards ability, intelligence, competence, ability to observe, decision making, responsibility, ethics and morality. But this is not at all what is currently being done. There are actually no such things as the "State", "society" or "the world community". These are vague concepts, with divergent meanings for whoever you talk to. What is the "State"? Where does it actually exist? Point out to me the "State". Show me the "State". It's a mental idea, and nothing more. It's a concept in our heads. What is a society? Show me a dynamic and functioning society. What are the characteristics and nature of a world community? What they all are, only and always, is some example of a group of individual human beings. One example out of a possible infinity of examples. There can be no group without the individuals. But these philosophers and social planners think and talk with these terms as if they actually referred to something which exist by themselves, independent of the individual human beings which make them up. They are jerking themselves and us around. Apparently they have failed at confronting and dealing with actually reality, and instead, in place of succeeding with actual life, have retreated within their own minds, ever thereafter happy to play with concepts, ideas and notions. And we, like fools, listen to all the nonsense they come up with. There could be a philosophy of life, and a valid psychology, which recognizes and encourages individual ability, greatness, the human mind, compassion, and also aims to build a sane society which gurantees the rights and safety of honest people. But that has nothing to do with what has come out of the halls of German academia for the past 200 years - Kant, Wundt, Hegel, etc. - or what exists within the modern subjects of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and sociology - the actual heirs of these German thinkers. The theories and practices of these subjects are largely oppressive and detrimental to conscious, living, thinking beings. Every instance of where someone has had a grand idea of a generalized group of individuals (i.e. utopia, social perfection) has been characterized by the utilization of force to bring about their concepts into reality. Why? Because every form or manifestation of this involves denial and oppression of the individual, in favor of some "social" or "communal" notion and healthy people resist it. The ideas of social utopia, communism, a well ordered society, or new world order are all mental concepts which have very little to do with any possible corresponding reality - the only solution is to use force, and plenty of it, in an attempt to make all the people conform with the pedantic, over-intellectualizing philosopher's or psychologist's self-indulgent mental constructs. I think they all need to get a life and let everybody else live their own. They are a constant source of trouble. For a more in-depth look at confusing concepts asd ideas with reality, and the use of force to implement the concepts, see Reality, Belief and The Mind (section 2).

Get The Book!

Suggested Reading List - the Demise of the Educational System - OBE (Outcome-Based Education), NEA (National Education Association), educational psychology, German psychology & influences, demise of public education, educational sabotage, Wundt, Pavlov, Dewey, Skinner, Watson.

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