Is public education necessary?

A well written, well researched book. Discover the ways public education was implemented, first in Massachusetts, which was a wrangling battle for decades, then elsewhere. From the early colonies and the 'Prussian model' up through Horace Mann. Gives the origins of the thinking that was used to bring the notion that state provided education is desireable and necessary. Be Aware, this notion is not one the early American communities relied on. They relied on their church, their neighbor, themselves, and their representative government. As Professor Richard A Baer, Jr., Cornell University wrote after reading the book - "Superb" "An oasis of sanity in the statist wasteland created by the government's education system." - Frank E. Fortkamp, Reason Magazine

Mr. Blumenfeld does an excellent job bringing out the true history of public education, as Richard Owen and Horace Mann thought of it. He pays special attention to the conflict between the Calvinists (responsible for the American form of government) and the Unitarians. He rightly pinpoints the Unitarian take-over of Harvard as one of the most important and far-reaching events in the history of education. He chronicles the way in which the Unitarians copied the Prussian idea for a public school, delves into their motives, and comes to his conclusion. Incidentally, the motives the Calvinists had for education was to teach people how to read the Bible. The Unitarians wanted education to reform the world. Looking at the utter failure of education to reform the world, one can only come to the conclusion that the Calvinist ideal, while not appealing to all, worked very much better. There is no way to teach ethics and morality while attempting to leave religion out. All in all, it is an extremely carefully documented book with extensive quotations from the original sources, and quite well worth the read. I highly recommend it!