Although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is, in some respects, one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked... in which I have spoken of so many important things done by Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, To the superiority of their women.

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

My Grandpa's English Book

Working in the garage this weekend, I came across a book entitled Literature and Life: Book Three published in 1936, revised from a 1929 edition. It is a book on American literature. Each section features literary selections from a period in American history. There is a little historical background introduction prior to the selections to set the stage for the reader. My grandpa is currently 89 years old and graduated high school in 1940. This book was published by Scott, Foresman and Co, which is still a huge public school textbook publisher.

So what? Well, remember that post awhile back about the Reece Committee? Do you remember what Attorney Kathryn Casey found when she was allowed to read the founding minutes of the Carnegie Foundation? What were their three objectives, can you remember without clicking the link? Ok, I'll go ahead and tell you: 




  1. Gain control of the State Department
  2. Transform public education
  3. Teach a "revised" form of American history, especially at the university level.

We'll be focusing on the last two points. 


Let's start with the three authors:



  • Dudley Miles - Head of English Department, Evander Childs High School, New York City. 



Here is Dudley in his own words : Composition is Training in Thought, which appeared in The English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. This was a round table group founded in 1911, which is of course, liberal as all get out today. The whole goal was to "standardize" English instruction. Now some of you might be thinking I'm going a little overboard with the paranoia and the average person wouldn't see anything wrong with writing projects being used to hone the thought process. That is until you realize that the industrialists of the time were plotting how to gain control of the American schoolchildren's minds. Dr. Miles has written many articles and books on "how to" teach English. In the Jeffersonian education style, you just give the kid some great books and get them to respond to it. Take note of my homeschool guide tab, there is a list of books to get you started. But look at what 100 years of these 'teaching experts' have handed us: a nation full of idiots. 



  • Robert C. Pooley - Assistant Professor in the Teaching of English, University of Wisconsin

Says English Teachers need more training
Gave the 1963 Keynote address to the NCTE
Didn't think underprepared writers should be admitted to his school, UW, but there should be lax standards elsewhere
He headed up The Wisconsin Project, a federally funded 1964 english cirriuclum study.
Are we getting the picture?


UNC Chapel Hill

  • Edwin Greenlaw - Late William Osler Professor of English Literature, The John Hopkins University.



From the UNC-Chapel Hill site:


 A distinguished scholar who studied Edmund Spenser, Greenlaw was among the first group of faculty chosen for Kenan professorships. 
What is a Kenan professorship? This relates back to point three, in how the industrialists that set up their tax-exempt foundations for the purposes of socially engineering the population to accept central planning more easily.

According to the John Hopkins website, a Kenan Professorship is described thusly:

A North Carolina native, WILLIAM R. KENAN JR. traveled throughout the region to attend to his wide-ranging business interests in railroads, real estate, and the Standard Oil Company. After his death in 1965, the Kenan Trust sought to promote his strong interest in enhancing student-teacher relationships at prominent educational institutions through the creation of chairs in his memory.The WILLIAM R. KENAN JR. CHARITABLE TRUST has endowed more than 85 professorships at colleges and universities on the East Coast, including Johns Hopkins.
What do you want to bet that those chosen for these "paid for" experts were just a little sympathetic to progressivism and internationalism? Now I want to make clear that the teachers using the books probably just skipped over the attempts of micromanagement of the curriculum and did what they'd been doing their whole careers - whatever it took to help their students succeed.  Charlotte Iserbyt has highlighted how the old-guard teachers were pushed out to make way for the "certified" teachers (read: indoctrinated teachers) to move in and actually read the scripts and accept the federal and state intrusions into what had once been a purely local endeavor. You don't have real representation when  a group of nine people are representing dozens of schools as is the case in some counties. Used to be each school had its own board. Decentralized government is more adaptive to the people, but isn't that the point? Isn't that what our "planners" work against?

One thing I noticed in the book that was not to be found in earlier modes of instruction were the leading class discussions at the end of each selection. As if the teacher is too stupid to lead a class discussion, his/her thinking has already been done for them. Isn't that kind of our intellectually superior overlords? It was an after reading assignment with leading questions for my second grader that launched me into the home-school world, but that's a story for another day.

This has been my little case study in where things started to go so wrong. I hate to speak in generalities and throw around terms like Elite when these people have names, histories and a past to explore and root out. I hope you've enjoyed this little journey that started with just an old textbook.

7 comments:

  1. The Commies have been working it a Long time RM. And isn't it interesting that probably today, fewer people in America are tuned into that than ever?

    It's scary. It's like the black race and the democrats.

    The democrats brought the black people, mostly from Niger, Africa to be slaves.

    The democrats Fought in the Civil War to Kep the Slaves.

    The democrats fought every advancement of equality and civil rights for the black people with every ounce of their energy through to even today.

    The democrats created welfare to keep the black people as Modern Day Slaves.

    The democrats have grand pumas of the KKK in their ranks in Senate and yet...............

    the black people vote democrat almost to each and every one.

    It seems the same now with the communists. The 'progressives' would be the blank people in this version of the play.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not the blank people, the black people. Wish I could type..

    ReplyDelete
  3. It has been a well fin aced and well thought out --concerted goal to take over the Ed system of the US and it has worked--
    Thank God for Homeschooling!!
    Carol-CS

    ReplyDelete
  4. The blacks have definitely been the test population for the Elite.

    I am too grateful for homeschooling.

    ReplyDelete
  5. No doubt you have seen the Van Jones "plan" that has been implemented in the New York Schools-- just in case- great post as always.

    http://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/ny-schools-curriculum-features-van-jones-lesson-plan/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Van Jones is the front man meant to continue the Dialectic - a lightening rod if you will. Van Jones, Van Jones..but no mention of who is funding the actual curriculum. What I would look at is the group behind that curriculum:

    The RFK Center, whose board of directors is a who's who list of globalists. Their about us page features a George Bernard Shaw quote. He's the nice man that said un-useful people should be eliminated.

    RFK reminds me of what I read recently at Lew:
    http://lewrockwell.com/spl3/sirhan-bullet-switch.html
    about the shenanigans around the RFK assassination. It's how it is with these banksters, a well renown figure always gets whacked by a "nut" then they build a nonprofit around their name to continue the social engineering.

    The New York Teachers Union was almost ground zero for educational experimentation by progressives. They had the machine up their in NY to get the job done.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This country's education has been going downhill for decades. There are islands of excellence - you can see them in science fairs around the country - but they are far too few, compared to what they should be.

    I can recommend this book for anyone who wants to find out how we got here:

    http://www.amazon.com/Left-Back-Century-Battles-School/dp/0743203267/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323119231&sr=1-3

    "Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform"
    by Diane Ravitch

    "... Ravitch devotes most of her efforts to giving a history of Progressivism in education."

    It's been a tragic history of one failed theory after another. It's a wonder anyone survives. But then, just ask the average 20-something in the street a few simple questions about history, world geography, science, ...

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails