Education and the "Whole Man"

Here is a disturbing quote upon which I only just stumbled.

"Two respected German historians looked out on the carnage after 1945 in search for meaning, one from within the country, where he had spent his entire life of eighty years, the other from the safer refuge of the America to which he had been driven. Both had token pride in their native culture and its achievements; both now stood in horror at the sight. The older man, Friedrich Meinecke, called the sight before him "The German Catastrophe" and in Gordon Craig's felicitous phrase offered the following explanation: "the emphasis upon power at the expense of spirit has corrupted the values of the people and stunted their political growth." 1 The younger historian, Hajo Holborn, later Sterling Professor of History at Yale, allowed more time to pass before offering a more expansive but similar analysis. While paying attention to the role social conflict had played in paving the way for Hitler. Holborn placed a major portion of the blame elsewhere:

The actual decline of German education goes far to explain not only why so many Germans voted the Nazis into power but also why they were willing to condone so many of their subsequent crimes. German education hardly dealt with the "whole man"; it chiefly produced men proficient in special skills or special knowledge but lacking not only in the most primitive preparation for civic responsibility but also in a canon of absolute ethical commitments. Although the churches provided this for a good many people, and to a greater extent within the Roman Catholic Church than within the Protestant Churches, the number of Germans who looked to the church for guidance was limited. The higher philosophy and the humanities of the period were largely formalistic or relativistic and did not produce a firm faith. In these circumstances it was inevitable that so many people fell for cheap and simple interpretations of life and history, as offered by the racists. To young people in particular this proved an irresistible temptation. 2 "(excerpted from Education, Moral Values, and Democracy: Lessons from the German Experience by Douglas F. Tobler Fn, BYU Studies, vol. 28 (1988), Number 2 - Spring 1988 .)

Add to that the following:

"The purpose of the foundation [the General Board of Education] was to use the power of money, not to raise the level of education in America, as was widely believed at the time, but to influence the direction of that education....The object was to use the classroom to teach attitudes that encourage people to be passive and submissive to their rulers. The goal was--and is---to create citizens who were educated enough for productive work under supervision but not enough to question authority or seek to rise above their class. True education was to be restricted to the son and daughters of the elite. For the rest, it would be better to produce skilled workers with no particular aspirations other than to enjoy life." (G. Edward Griffin in The Creature from Jekyll Island, (copy write 1994. Thirteenth printing: June 2002) on Rockefeller's General Education Board, founded in 1903.)

Even if Griffin were wrong is his assertions of motive, we must look long and hard at the current result. The recent financial collapse can in good measure be laid squarely on the shoulders of a populace as described in that last sentence. We are the product of our own making. The question should be what are we becoming and is that okay? History shows us where the present course will lead.

If we cannot manage to rally behind a unifying force, we will have only ourselves to blame for the inevitable.

1. Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 763. See also Friedrich Meinecke, Die Deutsche Katastrophe: Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen, Dritte Auflage (Wiesbaden: Eberhard Brockhaus Verlag, 1945), 161 and passim.

2. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 3 vols. (New York: Knopf, 1969), 3: 813.