A very short history of our dumbed down compulsory schooling

As any approach to history is subjected to a particular perspective, and is therefore non-neutral, so too have I approached the history of our compulsory schooling from a certain standpoint. I do believe that our educational system has been purposely dumbed down to create a meek and obedient citizenry. Already since at least Ancient Greece, rulers understood that the control over the child’s development, and therefore the control over its education, has been important means to secure their political power. Any possible revolution that could ensue from an enlightened citizenry could thus be suppressed.

Henry Louis Mencken (1924) writes that

[T]he aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment to all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

The political class
In Sparta, which was ruled by a totalitarian warrior class, children were taken away from their families and educated in barracks to instill State obedience. The Spartans understood very well that state education was a powerful means to develop the child into agents who will be passively obedient to the state. During the time of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin had also sought after the state’s control over education to ensure that every child is taught their teachings in state schools so that the spiritual war against the devil could be waged successfully. However, it was in Prussia in 1717 where the first national system of compulsory schooling was inaugurated by King William Frederick I who fervently believed in the virtues of monarchical absolutism. In order to maintain his power he deemed it necessary to develop a citizenry with iron discipline.

Carl Abraham von Zedlitz, one of the chief ministers of King Frederick II, told the Berlin Academy in 1777 that

an enlightened ruler prefers to govern subjects who serve and obey out of love and conviction, not those mired in the slavish habits of forced servitude.

Schools had therefore been reformed in order to train children to respect authority through self-disciplinary methods. However, it was not until King William Frederick III in 1807 that all education was practically placed directly under the Ministry of the Interior. For this he had gained much support from the intellectual class in Prussia, including the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Devastated by the defeat of Prussian forces at Jena against Napoleon in 1806, Fichte addressed to the German nation that the loss was due to the lack of military discipline among Prussian soldiers whose own will interfered with their military commandments. To avoid any future defeat, free will of the Prussian people should be destroyed in state schools. Fichte states in 1807:

[I]f you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.

According to Fichte, the political class should therefore subordinate its citizens psychologically until they are unconscious of their emancipative powers. The Prussian state soon implemented new policies to restrict the emancipative consciousness of its citizens. Just five years later, in 1812, the state decided to install school graduation examinations and state certificates for all teachers. The child’s schooling was based on strict coercion, repetitive tasks, compulsory attendance, regular testing, children’s classification by age, and time organization according to bell ringing. This Prussian model had soon formed the inspiration for the educational system in the rest of Europe and the United States.

The business class
The rise of national compulsory schooling was also linked to the rise of industrialization. As industrialization had still not lifted most families out of extreme poverty, many parents sent their children at the age of six or seven to work in factories where they worked twelve to sixteen hours a day. The children were oftentimes beaten in order to keep them awake and to prevent them from falling into the machinery, which could mutilate or even kill them. In the unfortunate event that children would fall into the machinery, the factory owners would have to stop the production line resulting in greater operational costs. It was hence in the interests of industrialists that industrial workers were disciplined, showed up on time, and were accustomed to mindless labour. The great industrialists understood that immense profits could be made from a dumbed down and obedient citizenry. Therefore the benefits of an obedient citizenry, trained in compulsory schooling, provided the perfect opportunity for businesses to cooperate with the state.

John Taylor Gatto (2009) writes that

[I]t is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don’t conform.

Children had to be moulded in such a way that they could serve the industrial class by accepting work orders without asking questions.

Conclusion

In this article, I have put forward why state and business interests have historically always wanted a dumbed down and obedient citizenry. I do believe that consequences and intentions are still visible around us. How this is manifested in our current educational system, I will save for another time.

References

Fichte, J.G. (1807). The General Nature of the New Education.
Gatto, J.T. (1992). Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.
Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society.
Mencken, H.L. (1924). The Little Red Schoolhouse.
Rothbard, M.N. (1979). Education: Free & Compulsory.
Russell, B. (1951). The Impact of Science on Society.

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