This is the definitive book that launched the Christian homeschool movement. It charts the intentional departure from Judeo-Christian values and objective truth and the trend toward a statist religion that deifies the child and exalts the teacher to the role of priest that has been at the root of public schooling from the beginning. It is fair to the viewpoints of they key figures almost to a fault.

I've never read anything that explains the intellectual and utilitarian protestant roots of progressive education etter than this book. It is outstanding, unique, and worthy of the five star rating. I wish that Rushdoony was still around today. Someone with his vision and leadership would be welcome.

The book examines over twenty one of the leading philosophical proponents of education that have shaped what we now know as public education. All philosophical views are rooted in a worldview and the book follows the thinkers in their own words from God to humanism.

Really interesting history. Brilliant writing.

This is a thick book: 400 pages, every one densely packed with names and philosophies of education covering the last 200 years in American education. This book appears on several reading lists (for example in Doug Wilson's Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning), as a devastating critique of the philosophy of the American education system.

This book is "an historical and analytical study of the philosophies of education in state education in the United States." (x) He starts out with a couple of chapters of historical introduction, stretching all the way back to Rome and then later Scholasticism, and explains how "the university gradually developed its concept of academic freedom, that is, an independent authority for reason and scholarship which made it responsible to none other, and its concept of the redemptive, authoritative and power-endowing nature of knowledge, of reason, of university and school." (17)

He then jumps into the American history of the philosophy of education, and doesn't come up for air until the end of the book. 21 of the 28 chapters are each devoted to a particular figure in this history, starting with Horace Mann, and including men like William Harris, Francis Parker, Wiliam James, G. Stanley Hall, and John Dewey.

Each chapter is heavy on original source quotes, so you can read for yourself the sort of language and philosophy that has shaped education in America. This is important, because if you couldn't see it with your own eyes, you would be tempted to write Rushdoony off as a crackpot conspiracy theorist. His title "The Messianic Character," put me on guard initially, that maybe he is taking this a little too far, but page after page, quote after quote, from figure after figure and eventually you cry out "Okay! I get it! your point is incontrovertible."

This history of American education has been shaped by men and women who believed in the innate goodness of man, and his ability to reach utopia through education. They themselves use religious, messianic, salvation language when describing the process of education, specifically apart from the God of the Bible. When you see how these men were the professors of teacher's colleges, and held positions in federal and state Education departments, you see how we have reached our present condition.

I appreciate the hardcore presuppositionalist reconstructionists for this: they boldly take on ungodly philosophies from the foundation up, and spare nothing in exposing them for what they really are. The Bahnsen/Stein debate is another classic example of this. While I don't agree with the solution that they posit (theonomy, reconstructionism), their critiques are devastating and extremely helpful, and pave the way for a more truly Biblical solution. I want them on my demolition team, even if I don't ask them to help me rebuild :-)

One final note, Rushdoony is hard to read. His sentences are often tangled syntactical messes, and his paragraphs often extend for 3-4 pages in length. Here's an example that I noted for it's sheer convolutedness:

"In Idealism, God, however exalted in rhetoric, nevertheless, especially since Hegel, labors mightily merely to bring forth the new universal, man. In Horne, this strange "God" was still on the stage; in Dewey, having brought forth the child of destiny, man, this "God," like a salmon whose life ends with spawning, faded quietly out of the picture."

Dozens of names, dates, places, and quotes, combined with the difficult style of Rushdoony's writing, makes this a laborious read. Nevertheless, if you want to understand the history of the philosophy of American education, this is the book to tackle, if you must!

This book, originally published more than 50 years ago (1963), is a compendium of information on the history of educational philosophy in America. It vastly expands on some of the ideas Rushdoony presented in his earlier work, "Intellectual Schizophrenia" (1961). Whether you agree with all of Rushdoony's conclusions concerning the nature of American education in general or what he says about specific figures, or, in particular, whether you agree with his position as a Christian Reconstructionist, Rushdoony makes many perceptive points regarding the philosophy of American educators and philosophers such as Horace Mann, William James, John Dewey, J.B. Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, George Counts, and others. Although some of his analyses may be superficial (but going into greater depth would have meant either writing an unwieldy book or ignoring many of the currents that have shaped educational philosophy in America), they still function both as an overview and as a decent critique of the various positions examined.

The "Messianic Character of American Education" was originally published more than half a century ago (1963) and expands the ideas presented in Rushdoony's earlier work, "Intellectual Schizophrenia." Whether you agree with his conclusions regarding the nature of American education in general or his evaluation of specific figures, and whether you agree with his Christian Reconstructionist perspective, Rushdoony makes many insightful points regarding the philosophy of American educators and thinkers such as Horace Mann, William James, John Dewey, J.B. Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, George Counts, and others. While these analyses are not in great depth, they are a good overview and critique of the views of these various thinkers.

Rushdoony's "The Messianic Character of American Education" was originally published more than half a century ago and goes into more detail on some of the ideas he presented in his earlier "Intellectual Schizophrenia." Whether you agree with Rushdoony's conclusions about the nature of American education in general or, more particularly, his evaluation of specific figures and his Christian Reconstructionist perspective, Rushdoony makes many perceptive points about the philosophy of American educators and thinkers such as Horace Mann, William James, John Dewey, J.B. Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, George Counts, and others. His analyses of these figures function well as a general overview and critique of their positions.