4. Who Broke The American Education System?
Part 4: The institutionalizaiton of a secular agenda in higher education
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
What comes after high school? For some, it is higher education.
Sadly at our academic institutions, since the 1960s, too many students only get high on dope instead of bringing glory and worship to the Most High. This was not always the case nor should it be.
During the founding era, “Christianity was fundamental to the ethical and political teaching of the nation’s colleges which produced the new nation's leaders.”1 After the Civil War education from elementary school to graduate degrees became more public and secular. This institutionalized and formalized a secular mindset and purpose in our schools. What began as taxpayer-funded primary schools with literacy and language training became a movement to undermine the foundations of the orthodox and historic Christian faith through schools and universities.
Previously we discussed how Massachusetts Governor Edward Everett appointed eight men to the state Board of Education in 1837, including Horace Mann. Mann became the first secretary and began devising the system of public education which grew throughout the nation in the 1800s. As the country expanded west this system became the standard in the east. By the 1920s a national model of county taxes on property through millage rates helped public schools replace parochial schools as the primary system for K-12 education. The Smith-Towner bill established the National Education Association (yes, that NEA) and provided federal funds to public schools to mandate school attendance. The expressed goal of this effort was to irradicate private education.2 Now, we will examine the rise of Christian colleges and universities as a failed resistance movement against secularism in the United States.
The first post of this series pointed out that universities were originally theological training grounds. European universities historically exceeded American universities in standing and programs. Next, we explored the fact that US colleges were expressly Christian and grew in stature. Universities not only impart knowledge but prepare the next generation of teachers and professors. After, addressing secondary education we now connect the dots between state funding and the secularization of post-secondary schools.
Many universities’ charters and mottos are expressly religious. These colleges were founded by believers to spread the faith. Home tutoring and basic proficiencies in writing and math were often enough for admittance into a college. But, as public schools grew many families outsourced education to teachers because most parents could not teach. This was either because they lacked the training or their time and energy were spent surviving a wild desperate world. Education was important in America. It has historically provided opportunities for greater income. Parents who wanted their children to attend college expected that they would return not only better educated but stronger and fit to lead. With the publication of Darwin’s The origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favored races in the struggle for life (1858) secularists found an opportunity to thwart Biblical literalism in schools and alter the outcome of education. By promoting scientistic naturalism a fissure was created that separated the Bible from education.
As public school systems grew in the mid-1800s and the industrial revolution accelerated, vocational training was in demand. Colleges sought to fill this need. Many administrators claimed that skills were more important than godly principles.
French Enlightenment philosophy also seeped into the professorate. The bloody French Revolution and its bastard children scattered and found fertile ground in colleges where intellectual exploration replaced clean living. Socialism and psychology were offered as solutions to the human predicament instead of Jesus.
College was altered from a liberal arts and classical model to include and even emphasize either research or technical skills. Higher education changed because a focus on pure science made courses more specialized and materialistic. Some churches resisted this slide as the country grew. Instead of giving up Christian leaders formed new colleges and universities.
Quaker philanthropist Richard Humphreys founded the Institute for Colored Youth in Cheyney Pennsylvania in 1837, which eventually became Cheyney University the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU). In 1844, Free Will Baptists who were strong abolitionists founded Hillsdale College led by Daniel McBride Graham (1817–1888) as an integrated private liberal arts college in Michigan. It has become a strong and overt supporter of Christian leadership in public policy. While providing a Biblical foundation to all students the school also offers world-class practical majors so that Christians can pursue success and excellence in their chosen fields. Moral leadership, vocational training, liberal arts, and open access to education are the hallmarks of the school’s mission.
The mission of American colleges continued to change in the United States. Geneva College was founded in 1848, in Northwood, Ohio by John Black Johnston, a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA). It was named after the Swiss home of reformer and theologian John Calvin (1509-1564). The school moved to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania in 1880. As part of the Underground Railroad students and faculty helped African Americans escape slavery. In 1865, Geneva College admitted black and female students. Likewise, Wheaton College was founded by evangelical abolitionists in 1860. It served on the Underground Railroad and offered degrees to freed slaves.3 Many Christian colleges followed in their footsteps reclaiming education for the Kingdom of God.
With the passage of the Morrill Act of 1862, federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or seizure was either used for education or sold to support education systems.4 Abraham Lincoln signed this act into law and supported the public land grant college system throughout America. This state-based program supplemented the education by competing with private schools such as Geneva, Hillsdale, and Wheaton. But, Ivy League schools in the Northeastern US did not fear these upstart schools or state schools. Their established brand and network, which has persisted to this day, allowed them to shift courses toward secularism while maintaining a strong reputation.
Christopher Columbus Langdell (1826–1906), a law professor at Harvard, developed the case study method for legal education in 1870. Case studies are useful but incorporating eternal principles into this discussion is more important than the style of thinking required to regurgitate facts. This makes the professor into a facilitator of debate, and their beliefs will subtly direct the conversation. His expansive theories on the law supported the belief that our law can evolve based on liberalizing forces. He was following in the footprints of Supreme Court rulings starting with Marbury vs. Madison which strengthened the SCOTUS claim of judicial superiority over Congress and the President through judicial review. This ruling has produced legal distortions such as establishing the right of the courts to overturn acts of Congress, a power not granted by the Constitution. Trade-offs occur when the court “gets it wrong” versus when it “gets it right.” Judges began to reflect a culture that was opposed to the truth and attempted to determine the definitions of right and wrong. Then anything goes or eventually everything will.
Over the years, Christians pushed back on increasingly flawed views seeking local solutions to national problems. In Western Pennsylvania, Grove City College was founded in 1876 by Isaac C. Ketler as a private Presbyterian school that accepts qualified students “without regard to religious test or belief.” This expansive vision of Christian education was designed to shape our nation. But over the next 100 years education became another mechanism of social engineering used by liberals to shape our society for ill.
Federal interpretations of Education Amendments Title IX (1972) violated constitutional protections for the free exercise of religion. Based on 140 students of 2200 who received the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program the U.S. Supreme Court found in Grove City College v. Bell (1984) had to comply with all federal regulations. Grove City College then rejected federal funds for students because of entangling regulations. Hillsdale followed suit soon after. Students, including those using the GI Bill (for military) and Pell Grants (need-based), are not allowed federal money at private schools which refuse to bend to secularism. Two schools out of 4000 colleges do not accept federal funding through Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Christian colleges that accept federal loans are walking a tightrope. Like so much of our lives, higher education is now controlled by a government that opposes the Christian faith.
What happened to colleges in the 20th century?
Christian colleges attempted to stem the tide of secular influence by providing a biblical, robust, rigorous, and holistic education. These Christian institutions either depended on private donors or tuition. By institutionalizing secularism as a national religion the United States government promoted atheistic education tied to student loans. Schools faced tremendous pressure to conform to anti-Christian policies based on the strings attached to public funding and cultural rot.5 Community colleges, state universities, and secular private schools that abandoned the religious foundation of Christian colleges grew to educate the majority of our population.
In the end, we did not forestall this evil slide.
Next, we will examine the 20th-century corruption of higher education.
Christian education tried to resist secularization. However, the liberal and progressive revolution of the 1900s marginalized it. We are now the new resistance.
Archie P. Jones, Christianity in the Constitution; The Intended Meaning of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Dallas, 1991.
Slawson, D. (2005) The Department of Education Battle, 1918-1932. University Of Notre Dame Press
Maas, David E. (2010). Marching to the Drumbeat of Abolitionism: Wheaton College in the Civil War. Wheaton, IL: Wheaton College. OCLC 609880979.
Collins, John Williams; O'Brien, Nancy P., eds. (2003). The Greenwood Dictionary of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 227. ISBN 0-89774-860-3.
Alice M. Obenchain, William C. Johnson & Paul A. Dion (2004). Institutional Types, Organizational Cultures, And Innovation In Christian Colleges And Universities, Christian Higher Education, 3:1, 15-39.