David McCullough Quotes
The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent, a memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many.
McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 364.
At the time the Colonial British Government controlled the Indian Educational System. Kahn and a few others thought that the Indians should take control of their own educational systems.
Some find interest in the fact that Adams did not see education as raising the lower classes to be equal to that of the upper class. He chose the word “nearer.”
The phrase “national care and expense” was one that was seen as precedent for those advocating federal aid to education and a strong Department of Education. However, the majority of Adams contemporaries saw education, even public education, as a local matter. The word “education” or “school” never appeared in the Constitution. Adams was well before his time on this point.
His hope that the elite intelligentsia would lead the nation was thwarted by Islamic fundamentalism which destroyed most of Pakistan education by only teaching religion in its Madrassas and not allowing the leadership to have compulsory education. There has been an enormous brain drain with a huge number of the Pakistani intelligentsia on which Jinnah pinned his hopes, had no opportunity in Pakistan and emigrated to the United Kingdom and America.
The Emperor was then only 20 years old and it is doubtful that this was actually written by him personally or even that he was the originator or driver of this policy—probably the strongest statement regarding education of any nation in history. Nonetheless, it is a great quotation on the role of education in the nation. He even ordained that all girls should be educated—an achievement which had not been achieved by the majority of countries 140 years later in 2012. Most incredible about this quotation is that the Emperor made everything else of importance subordinate to the education of children." Meiji the Great
This plank if ever actually implemented would clearly destroy the American educational system. Extreme radical ideas such as this are not typical of Libertarian Party positions before or afterwards. The quotation illustrates that there are people in America who would end public education if they could. The quotation also illustrates how a small cadre of people can capture control of a political party and create a platform that is their own personal views which may be different from most of the party members or the historical position that the party has taken. In 1980 the Libertarian Party Vice Presidential Candidate was David Koch, one half of the billionaire conservative Koch brothers. Their money financed the Libertarian Party in that year and David Koch’s views then prevailed in the party platform. Historically, the Koch brothers moved from a minor third party to the Republican party at the beginning of the 21st century when their money was able to help drive the party very far to the right from the traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, popular historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.
