- Tom Garfield, for more on Classical Education see Tom’s book, Dear Parents: Communicating the Christian and Classical Vision to Families.
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Without doubt there was anguish. No parent with a heart of flesh could have borne their decision without much fear and trepidation. But the purpose was one with a higher calling – for most it was regarded it as “the will of God.” Therefore, though the parting was more tearful than joyful, especially for the mothers, the children went forth. The older ones, that is, those twelve years old and above, assured their parents that they would look out for the “little ones.” So, they marched off, the older ones herding the younger ones in groups of a dozen or more, their heads high, proud that their mission was one that God would undoubtedly bless. From across the entire country, hundreds of children, with their parents’ heart-rending acquiescence, responded to the call.

The mission, now a holy crusade, was indeed one fraught with great danger, but surely with God’s blessings the children would be victorious. They were marching to wrest the Holy Land from the hands and presence of the heathens. Where the adult knights had failed, these children would succeed. They would be the “salt and light” of which our Lord spoke, to the pagan peoples who had taken Jerusalem. There was no need for training with the sword or shield, no need for battle-hardened veterans; these children with full hearts and innocent eyes would conquer with soft words and gentle hands.

Actually there would be two children’s crusades, one from France and one from Germany, around 1212 AD. The children were given little, if any provisions, protection, and transportation to travel from their home lands to the far-off, mid-east countries. Not much is written about their pitiful, sorrow-filled journeys. What became of them? Did God indeed bless their sincere, but horribly misguided purpose? We do know that hundreds of those who set out never returned home. Many died of exposure, starvation, abduction, and murder. Others returned half-alive to their homes, with tales of horror. Some got as far as the Holy Land, only to become slaves of the Muslims. The “glory” of the these crusades wasn’t even a memory that could be distorted to legendary proportions in the years to come. They were best forgotten, if possible.

Someone said that “the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.” But surely today thinking, loving parents would never knowingly send their children en mass into a situation that is so dangerous that even adults need good training and protection there. Even when presented with the glowing admonitions to consider it a “higher calling,” or being “salt and light,” parents would certainly consider carefully all aspects of any “crusade.” They would ask: Is this truly children’s work? Will my child be nourished and protected as I would want? Will my child come home to me stronger in the Lord, or will his faith be attacked and his spirit crushed by heavy-handed adults? Will he be victorious or taken captive? And most importantly: Does God, in His Word, really require this of my children?

What would have happened if all those French and German parents had examined the “call” of the crusade in the above light? At the very least their children would not have been lost, for they would not have gone. The Holy Land would have remained in the hands of the Muslims, as it did anyway, crusade or no. Let’s not indulge in more lost crusades. And let us be extremely cautious and biblically discerning, with whom and to what we entrust our precious children. “And whoever receives one such child in My Name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:5,6)

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-Tom Garfield
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The autumn morning was warm, very warm, especially inside the large pavilion. The people standing in line, dressed in their Sunday-best felt the heat, but found that the excitement and anticipation were stronger feelings. Besides, the line was moving quickly into the building and along the partitioned path toward the large, jovial man everyone had come to meet. The man himself, though fairly rotund, seemed to be impervious to the stifling heat in the room. He genuinely enjoyed seeing each person and briefly, but solidly shaking each hand. He met each person’s eyes and had a smile or word of welcome to share. Hundreds of people flowed by in a very short time. The security men decided to call it quits long before the kind gentleman was ready, and certainly before the many waiting to meet him were willing to leave. Just before the doors were closed, the last people in line moved forward. The shy little girl, who received a special smile, and her mother were followed by a man with a white handkerchief over his right hand.

William McKinley, president of the United States, cheerfully and warmly reached out his hand to the man with the handkerchief. Instead of extending friendship, Leon Czolgosz extended a revolver from under the white cloth and shoved it into McKinley’s stomach, pulling the trigger twice…

The above could have been summed up in the brief words “William McKinley was assassinated in September of 1901 by an anarchist.” And in many American history textbooks, if they mention McKinley at all, that sentence is about the amount of coverage they give such an historic event. They certainly won’t mention that McKinley was a very strong Christian man who quoted hymns as he died of infection. Or that he lovingly and diligently cared for his handicapped wife, even when campaigning for the presidency.

There isn’t room here to go into all the problems with how history is taught, revised, or not taught at all in many schools, private and government. Rather, I would like to share with you the excitement I have about the changes, the reviving, we have given our history program. These changes will probably be most obvious in our elementary grades. Over the past year, as per the school board’s directive, the curriculum committee reviewed the teaching of history throughout the entire school. This spurred a lot of thought, meetings, and work among the staff members. At the elementary level, we came up with the following basic changes to our history program:

1. In accordance with the classical philosophy, we will try to make history (and geography) more three-dimensional for the students, through the use of many biographies, historical novels, pictures, artifacts, models, drama, etc., and less reliance on the survey-style textbooks.

2. Also in line with the grammar stage of the students, we will try to use more repetition and recitation of the key, significant dates, events, and people in history. From grade to grade, these key facts will be repeated.

3. Each of the elementary grades will have the year broken into eight units of time, of four and a half weeks each, to study one area of history in some depth. For example, fifth graders will study the culture, people, and times of the Greeks during one unit. They will read about the Trojan War and Greek myths, see photos of the Parthenon, hear how to pronounce the names of the Greek heroes, and write their own myths, to name a few activities.

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- Tom Garfield
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“Is there anything which one might say, ‘See this, it is new’? Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.” Ecclesiastes 1:10-11

“The century is turning soon. America is in the throes of a great technological revolution, the like of which has never been seen on earth. Our military can stand up to the best any other country has to offer. In fact, if push comes to shove (as it looks like it might in another part of the world where a dictator is throwing his weight around), we are read and able to show him what’s what. Our standard of living has never been higher. The economy is strong, though many complain anyway. The great thinkers of our time are urging us to make even more progressive changes in education to prepare our students for the coming new millennium, with the cry that the world is changing so fast and profoundly that only new ideas and teaching will help our children cope in this new world… of the 20th century. After all, this is the 1890s!”

Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? One hundred years ago this month our country did indeed match the description above. Instead of Saddam, though, it was the Spanish dictator in Cuba we were bothered by. In fact, President McKinley requested, and Congress granted, a declaration of war against Spain at about this time. The war in Cuba was to have profound consequences for the United States (and the world) in the coming century. For one thing, it battle-hardened our greatest 20th century president – Theodore Roosevelt. (But that’s another story.)

We are hearing, reading, watching the same kind of endless verbiage one hundred years later. “The century is turning, the century is turning! We must warn the people!” But if the Bible is to be believed, King Solomon was the first to essentially coin the phrase, “Been there, done that!”

However, please note that not only does he say that there is nothing really new under the sun, he also says that people will always forget what went before, i.e. not know or understand history. In other words, Solomon also says there is nothing really “old” under the sun either. We can and should study and learn from “earlier things,” and teach our children not to despise the learning of lessons from history.

In Donald Kagan’s excellent book, On the Origins of War, he compares with great insight the incredible similarities between the Peloponnesian War and World War I, as well as other wars of antiquity with “modern” wars. True, there is a lot of technical difference between the swords and shields of the Greek battles and the Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) and satellite tracking used in the recent Gulf War. Nevertheless, Solomon still speaks truly. Technology, particularly the computer, is one of the gods of this age and culture. But like all false gods, its worship does not, nor can it redeem or sanctify its disciples. Our nature remains Adamic, and therefore in need of the Second Adam’s nature.

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“The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles. This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.” Noah Webster, 1832

I truly hope that someday history books will label American education in the latter half of the twentieth century as “The Era of Foolish Experimentation With Neutrality.” If our times are thus labeled, it might indicate that as a nation we had come to recognize “neutrality” in education as the absurd lie that it is. It would also indicate that the historians were desirous of passing on to future generations the painful lessons we learned from this era, in the hope of preventing a repeat of this nonsense. God repeatedly states in His Word that there is nothing outside of His domain; “the earth is His footstool.” Yet, there are still many wide-eyed, true-believers, Christian and non-, who hold that it is possible to teach children about the world from a “neutral” or “secular” standpoint. This is not just a bad alternative way to teach; it is wrong and compels those who teach that way to teach falsehoods.

Case in point: Even after thirteen years of education in primary and secondary schools, and eight years of college, it wasn’t until I read some uncensored American history books on my own that I learned at least two immensely important facts. One fact was that our nation was founded on biblical principles, and founded largely by men who acknowledged God the Father and Jesus Christ in their private lives, as well as in the life of the nation. The second thing I learned was that for all those years of my education this predominantly critical truth about our nation’s history had been hidden from me (and all my classmates). No doubt many of my teachers were sincere and competent instructors. Some may have even been Christians. Yet, in compliance with the myth of neutrality, none of them taught me the full truth about American history. In anticipation of some Christians who are quick to point out that “not every one of our founding fathers were Christians” – frankly, that’s not the point. The fact remains – the United States of America is a profoundly unique nation due to its inception by men who, as a body, recognized the God of the Bible as their Benefactor and His truths as indispensable.

How important is this truth about our history? Imagine, if you can, any government official today, avowed Christian or not, using the language Noah Webster used in 1832 (above). This is just one quote among thousands by other founding fathers and early American government figures. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of Christian U.S. history I was never taught. John Quincy Adams, Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, William McKinley, even H.J. Heinz (of ketchup fame) were godly, publicly Christian men. Did that fact influence the way they lived and led in their time and culture? Absolutely! The downright scary part of all this is that, for the secularists to acknowledge and teach the significant acts of these men, without acknowledging their Christianity, the historical truth must be altered, or “revised.”

And that is exactly what is happening, or being overtly proposed by diverse groups in education today. The new, proposed national standards coming out of a committee from U.C.L.A. have set up battle lines between the “revisionists” and the old-schoolers. Should these standards become truly national in scope and application, historical illiteracy will hit an all-time high. The resulting consequences in our culture could be devastating. As Lincoln said, “The philosophy in the classrooms of this generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next generation.”

It matters what children are taught, who teaches them, and what those teachers believe – about history, about science…about the Almighty God.

-Tom Garfield, Logos School Superintendent

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