
Frances Benjamin Johnston/Library of Congress via AP
Booker T. Washington was one of the greatest American educators, and we could not do better in our quest to reform our educational system than to adopt his plan of combining trades with classical learning, thus training the hands, the head, and the heart.
Washington, who had been born a slave on April 5, 1856, and even after freedom always had to work incredibly hard for the learning he obtained, understood the vital importance of education. But he did not want it to be mere literacy or checked-off boxes, as is so often the case in Communist nations, and now even in the United States. A bad education, particularly one with bad morals and principles, can be just as harmful as no education at all, or even more harmful. Continue reading →