“Dewey’s ideas were apparently judged as crucial to the revolution as any weapon in the arsenal of the Red Army.” ~ Paul Kengor

That America’s public education system is rooted and grounded in socialism has become more and more evident in recent years.

Commentator Charles Morse noted on March 25, 2002 in an article wherein he stated: “That the prevailing philosophies and methodologies of American public education are leftist is not up for debate. Leftists have dominated the federal Department of Education, most state Departments of Education, the teachers’ unions, many teachers colleges, and education foundations for several decades. Many rank and file teachers know this, and have observed the catastrophic results, yet the situation is so rotten that they dare not speak out…On December 5, 1928 The New Republic published an article written by self-described socialist John Dewey, the revered father of so-called progressive education, in which he revealed the true nature of the leftist education agenda. In the article, Dewey spoke of “the marvelous development of progressive educational ideas and practices under the fostering care of the Bolshevist government.” That’s where Mr. Dewey sought to take public education in this country and where his spiritual descendants have indeed taken it.

Morse also accurately observed that “Dewey expressed his hatred for the autonomous sovereign family and his conviction that the family was the prime obstacle to the creation of his ‘communal life.’ To create this ‘communal life’ the communists, with the tacit support of fellow travelers such as Dewey, would murder over 100 million people.” Or, as the communists themselves would say “If you want to make an omlette then you have to break some eggs.”

In an article on American Thinker on May 22, 2013, writer Daren Jonescu observed: “Joseph Stalin had been General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party for six years in 1928, when John Dewey, ‘the father of modern education’ toured Russia with a group of educators. Later that year, The New Republic published Dewey’s Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World. This polemic stands as a remarkable testament to progressivism’s disdain for mankind, reason, and truth. It is also Dewey’s most honest and concise primer on the principles of his progressive education method. Anyone prepared to defend the idea of government-controlled schooling after reading this work is perhaps beyond the reach of rational argument. Dewey’s general assessment of the Stalinist Russia he claims to have encountered is unabashedly positive, not to say romantic.”

After quoting one positively gushing passage of Dewey’s hagiography of Stalin’s Russia, Jonescu noted: “This passage, and indeed the entire document, written by a sixty-nine- year old eminent intellectual, reads like the silly postcard effusions of a ten-year-old girl on her first trip to Disneyland…Thus far we have established only that the mature Dewey loved communism, and was prepared to say anything, no matter how vile or absurd, to defend the post-revolutionary Russia by which he so unconvincingly claims to have been delightfully surprised.”

John Dewey

And his comments on the public schools of Soviet Russia? Well, he said, among many other major chunks of drivel, “I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy, and intelligently occupied children.” Yeah, right! And he also piled it higher and deeper when he added: “For while a revival of interest in artistic production, literary, musical, plastic, is characteristic of progressive schools all across the world, there is no country, unless it be possibly Mexico, where the esthetic aim and quality so dominates all things educational as in Russia today.” Note here he mentions Mexico. He, naturally, does not bother to mention that, at that time, Mexico was also undergoing Marxist revolution.

In October, 2010 Acedemia.org published an article by Malcolm A. Kline about a speech given by historian Paul Kengor. Kengor had written a book, one among several, entitled How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Kengor stated, and this should cause some concern in this country, though it probably won’t, that “In 1918, only three years after it was published in the United States, Dewey’s Schools of Tomorrow was published in Moscow. Given what was happening in Russia at the time, this is staggering.” And Kline noted “To wit: the Soviets, broke, were fighting a bloody civil war.”

Kengor further said: “Only a year after Schools of Tomorrow was published came a Russian translation of Dewey’s How We Think and then, in 1920, The School and Society.” You have to wonder, with a civil war going on in Russia and the country being broke, who was paying for all these books of Dewey’s to be published there? Obviously it was someone who understood Dewey’s leftist revolutionary potential lots more than the average American did–or ever would.

And then, Kengor made a statement that should shock any thinking American. He said: “Dewey’s ideas were apparently judged as crucial to the revolution as any weapon in the arsenal of the Red Army.” Read that one again and let it sink in. The potential for that statement is every bit as true in this country as it was in Russia. You see that revolution being worked out in the public school classrooms of America every day that school is in session. It may be working slower than it did in Russia–but it is working.

This is one reason it is so crucial that Christians get their kids out of the public schools as quickly as they can, lest they end up supporting and undertaking the leftist revolution that is beginning to sweep through this country even with Trump in office. How many of these socialist congress-persons you see infesting the halls of Congress were educated in public schools and how many of their parents were? Do you begin to see where this is all taking us, and has been for decades while ignorant Christian parents have fed little Johnny and Mary to the leftist Leviathan of public education so they would “witness” to their teachers and classmates?

In all honesty, just who is “witnessing” to who, and about what? With all the evidence out there about what public schools are really all about, I think the answer to that is quite obvious–it’s just one most Christians would rather not deal with and so they ignore it and hope it will go away. It won’t!

February 8, 2019

Submitted to Kettle Moraine Publications for publication by the author.

~ The Author ~
Al Benson Jr. is the editor and publisher of The Copperhead Chronicle, a quarterly newsletter that presents history from a pro-Southern and Christian perspective. He has written for several publications over the years. His articles have appeared in “The National Educator,” “The Free Magnolia,” and the “Southern Patriot.” I addition to that he was the editor of, and wrote for, “The Christian Educator” for several years. In addition to The Copperhead Chronicles, Al also maintains Revised History.

He is currently a member of the Confederate Society of America and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and has, in the past, been a member of the John Birch Society. He is the co-author, along with Walter D. Kennedy, of the book “Lincoln’s Marxists” and he has written for several Internet sites as well as authoring a series of booklets, with tests, dealing with the War of Northern Aggression, for home school students.

Mr. Benson is a highly respected scholar and writer and has graciously allowed Kettle Moraine Publications to publish his works. We are proud to have his involvement with this project.

He and his wife now live in northern Louisiana.