Modern education (?)

From The Dan Smoot Report of April 24, 1961, we have the following information.

"Dr. A. H. Hobbs (Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania) published a study of 83 leading sociology textbooks used in American high schools and colleges. Dr. Hobb's study reveals that a sizeable percentage of the textbooks teach such stuff as:

1. Religion should discard mysticism, super-naturalism, ritual and tradition and adjust to conditions of modern society by concentrating on crusades against undesirable economic and social conditions;

2. Educational practices and principles (which) involve discipline, or drill, and teaching of traditional beliefs about government, the family or the economic system) are harmful;

3. Government should actively provide people with security, equality, happiness, and developed personalities;

4. Increased government control over business and industry is the most important step toward attainment of desired goals; such controls constitute only one phase of broader social planning;

5. Unemployment and maldistribution of wealth and income are the outstanding characteristics of our private enterprise system; government control of business will eliminate these evils and provide people with security;

6. The rising divorce rate may be good it is more nearly an indication of family re-organization than an indication of disorganization; "companionate marriages" are desirable;

7. Heredity and innate tendencies are relatively unimportant in personality formation and motivation; personality is formed largely through "cultural conditioning".

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Such education (and it is not confined to the U.S.A. alone by any means) is preparing the minds and characters of the younger generation for acceptance of Socialism and ultimately of the Communist State, for all the above mention- ed principles are fully integrated into the Communist doctrine. Let it be added, also, that the adult generation is being bombarded daily with such "education" via the press, radio and television.

It is not necessary to invoke the authority of the Christian philosophy (although that is unequivocal on the point) to realize that the relationship of the individual to the group is not arguable. The group exists for the benefit of the individual in the same sense that the field exists for the benefit of the flower, or the tree for the fruit. Groups of any kind whether called nations, business systems or any other associative label, inevitably decay and disappear if they fail to foster a sufficient number of excellent individuals, using these words in their precise significance. It is also true that excellence involves exercise: a man does not become a good cricketer by reading books on cricket.

C. H. DOUGLAS