Benjamin Rush Quotes
The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.
Rush, Benjamin. "A Defence of the Use of the Bible as a School Book." Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical, Philadelphia, Thomas & Samuel F. Bradford, 1798, p. 112.
Second to Benjamin Franklin, Rush was the only other real scientist of the American colonial era. Franklin was not much of an enthusiast for religion. Rush was.
What is interesting about this advertisement is the last line advertising that the school was coeducational. Earlham was not the first college in America to admit females—Obelin College did in 1833. However, when schools accepted females there was usually controversy and they did not advertise the fact. But here Earlham’s advertisement tells us a few things about the culture. There must have been many young women who wanted to attend college, otherwise there would not have been any point in advertising for them. In addition, although coeducation at the college level was an uncommon notion, it was probably not offensive to most people in the area lest the ads would not have been publicly run.
With the exception of a few theocracies, the power to set standards of education is claimed by virtually every government in the world. Some national governments have traditionally delegated some or much of the power to state, regional or local governments. The United States has been one of the rare exceptions. The words “education” or “schools” never even appear once in the U. S. Constitution. Therefore, in the U. S. the power belongs with the state governments. (Recently with “No Child Left Behind” the U. S. Federal government has been involved in educational standards setting.) This quotation is used by many as a classic example of a practice of many right wing fundamentalist Christians and Jews who extrapolate from the Bible to determine which legislation God wants or opposes. Most Christian and Jewish clerics and theologians however reject this notion and have a more modern view of the role of God in the democratic political process. Both the United States and Canada have very small minorities who hold the Stockwell Day position. On difference however is that in the United States, such extreme fundamentalists rarely enter or succeed in politics.
See {35331} for anohter one of his quotations regarding the use of pictures. Critics claimed that images violated the Lord's Comandment not to worship graven images.
Benjamin Rush was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, and educator and the founder of Dickinson College. Rush attended the Continental Congress. His later self-description there was: "He aimed right." He served as Surgeon General of the Continental Army and became a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
