The state of education in this country today is truly deplorable. Education has become debased (some think, deliberately) from nursery schools to universities. It is a trite excuse to blame the government for every disaster, but in this case it is the governments of the country that are directly responsible.

The dead hand of politics controls all, and only the “politically correct” are allowed to have any say in education, and, as politics nowadays is essentially anti-Christian (no matter what profession some politicians make), education has become anti-Christian.

The history of our country has been the history of a Christian country; our culture is Christian, our morality is Christian. Therefore, our present anti-Christian governments have wished to destroy our history, our culture, our morality. They are succeeding. They are also destroying our freedom.

Forty years ago, it was possible for anyone to start a school. The requirements were minimal. This led to the creation of many worthless schools, but many more had their value. There was a choice. By increasing regulations made by governments almost wholly devoid of any knowledge of education, these small, independent schools closed. Nowadays, there is very little choice of schools, and the state-controlled schools dominate. Moreover, parents can be sent to prison if they keep their children away from school.

Again, there was a variety of examination boards, and one could choose which examinations were suitable, and which were more fairly marked. Now, nearly all examining boards are composed of the same people, few of them even nominally Christian, and most anti-Christian. I have had to warn my students not to include anything Christian in their answers, for then they would be likely to fail the examination, whatever their knowledge or ability.

The present system is like that of Eastern Europe under Communism, where children were taught lies at school, and the truth at home, where it was a crime to be a Christian and an equally serious crime to teach the truth. I was told by an Estonian that under Brezhnev, it was even a crime to tell a joke. I also noted that couriers in the Baltic States who were very outspoken about life under the Communists were not employed by my English holiday company the second time I went there.

The Solution

Given what little freedom we have nowadays, it is better that children should be taught at home rather than in some schools, where there is little discipline, because even the better teachers are not allowed to punish, and where immorality is openly taught, and encouraged by successive governments.

The difficulty is that parents often have neither the skill nor the knowledge, and there is a danger of the child being ill prepared for any career. Again, equipment that is so plentiful in some schools is prohibitively expensive, especially for scientific subjects. Nevertheless, it is better that a child should receive good, though limited, education at home, than be subjected to our present state education.

Even where a good school is available, the state system compels teachers to teach that which is immoral and untrue; and it is better that this teaching be corrected at home. Also, if the teaching at school can be supplemented, the child has a better chance in life.

The computer has allowed access to a good deal of information, but it must be remembered that it only contains information that has been fed into it. To rely solely upon a computer, is to limit one’s knowledge. Books are still the greatest source of knowledge in the world. Nevertheless, the computer is a great asset, if used wisely. Certainly for the basic learning of languages, it is most helpful.

My own special subjects are HISTORY, MUSIC, LANGUAGES LITERATURES (including English language and literature).

Unfortunately, modern trends have come into these subjects.

History is taught from a “politically correct” point of view, and text-books embody these views to the extent of printing lies. Truthful books have been allowed to go out of print.

English suffers in the same way, with inferior rubbish, and even pornography, replacing standard texts. It also suffers form an ignorance of the English language, even at university level. In one of the erudite Arden Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, the editor shows only too plainly that he does not know how English poetry is written.

The same applies to Foreign Languages; books once banned are now on our A-level syllabus (like Vipère au Poing).

If expertise in language is required, probably the best examinations are those of the Institute of Linguists. For courses, the Euro-Talk (www.eurotalk.co.uk) series appears, on the whole, good, but the Talk-Now programme is very basic.

It does a series for children, which I have not explored. Level Two is available in some languages, and Level Three uses the relatively harmless Asterix cartoons, but only in four languages. For teaching oneself, the best series is probably the Teach Yourself (TY) series by Hodder, which comes with a cassette (cassette-player and head-phones needed).

Certainly their Romanian Course (which I am using at the moment) is sensible and inoffensive. It even has the Romanian for the Ten Commandments! (cele zece Porunci) However, it is absolutely essential to browse the text first.

Other courses, such as Routlege, vary. Their Estonian and Latvian courses are good, but their Advanced German has two unintelligent divorcees who are obviously going to make a mess of a second marriage with each other. On the other hand, Routlege’s Ukrainian Course has near its outset a tongue-twister, and nowhere in the book does it tell the reader the meaning of it!

Another important point is that most foreign languages have nouns and adjectives affected by gender (masculine and feminine, and sometimes neuter); therefore if the course includes characters who make their way though various situations, it is vital that one be male and another female, so that the masculine and feminine forms are learned. One Italian course to be found in many book-shops has two young boys as the main characters.

Therefore, no feminine forms are learned. Moreover, when they arrive in Italy, they clamour to go to the opera, which is the last place I should expect to find the average English boy. The Routlege Hungarian has an American family, one of whom is a marine biologist – not a term I should ever want to use in Hungary (which is several hundred miles from the sea). As in so many other things, there seems to be a lack of common sense in text-books, far worse than even the lack of comprehension in the dreariest and most impossible moral “tale for children” of the Victorians.

When one has a reasonable grasp of the language, one can purchase cheaply a Bible from the Trinitarian Bible Society, which produces Bibles in nearly every standard language.

Music, long exempt from interference, is succumbing, with the great classics being replaced by inferior contemporary works, some of which are downright evil (Wozzeck). At Warwick, I am told, it is possible to get a degree in pop music. For practical examinations, one should explore the Colleges and Academies of Music.

The State of Education
by Dr. D. M. Stevens
3rd March 2004

Copyright © 2017, HomeSchooling.co.uk, All rights reserved.

Did you know that the percentage of 18 to 34-year-old Americans that are married and living with a spouse has dropped by more than half since 1975?  Back then, 57 percent of everyone in that age group “lived with a spouse”, but today that number has dropped to just 27 percent.

These numbers come from “the Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood” report that was just released by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Some are postulating that the reason for this dramatic cultural shift is a phenomenon known as “extended adolescence”, while others fear that large numbers of young men and/or young women are giving up on the concept of marriage altogether.

Instead of getting married and starting their own households, many young adults are deciding that living with Mom and Dad is the best approach.  In fact, this new Census Bureau report found that one out of every three 18 to 34-year-old Americans is currently living with their parents…

According to the Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood report for 2016, one in three Americans ages 18 to 34 are living at home with their parents.

Coming in second place is living with a spouse (27 per cent), followed by other (i.e. living with a roommate or other relatives, 21 per cent), living with a boyfriend or girlfriend (12 per cent) and living alone (8 per cent).

Once the last recession ended, this trend was supposed to start reversing, but instead the number of young adults still living at home has just continued to increase.  This is going to have very serious implications for our looming retirement crisis, and that is something that I am going to write about later today on End Of The American Dream.

And a lot of these young adults are not being productive members of society at all.  In fact, this new report from the Census Bureau found that one out of every four 25 to 34-year-old Americans that are currently living at home do not have a job and they are not going to school either.

In other words, they need to get a life.  I really like how a recent CNBC editorial made this point…

One of the most memorable Saturday Night Live sketches ever was broadcast in 1986 when guest host William Shatner played himself appearing at fictional Star Trek convention. After fielding one childish question after another from costumed fans in their late 20s and 30s, Shatner loses his cool and shouts: “GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! … Move out of your parents’ basements! Get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP!”

Thirty-one years later, it sure seems like all of America needs to heed that message. Here’s why: The Census Bureau now says that more 18-34 year-olds are living with their parents than with a spouse.

But a lot of young men these days do not even want to go down the traditional route of marriage, family, career, etc.

In fact, a lot of them are forsaking the concept of marriage together.  Author Suzanne Venker says that a lot of these men are blaming their lack of desire to get married on modern women…

When I ask them why, the answer is always the same: women aren’t women anymore.” Feminism, which teaches women to think of men as the enemy, has made women “angry” and “defensive, though often unknowingly.”

“Now the men have nowhere to go. It is precisely this dynamic – women good/men bad – that has destroyed the relationship between the sexes. Yet somehow, men are still to blame when love goes awry.”

“Men are tired,” Venker wrote. “Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.”

On the flip side, a lot of women are extremely distressed that so few men seem to have the willingness to commit these days.  So many men just want to run around having sex with an endless series of women without ever putting a wedding ring on any of their fingers.

Of course many men figure that if they can get some of the best benefits of marriage (sex, companionship, etc.) without having to make a commitment then that is a pretty good deal for them.

Personally, I am a huge advocate of marriage, but the rest of society is moving in the exact opposite direction.  According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of 18 to 29-year-old Americans now believe that “marriage is becoming obsolete”.  And for a lot more numbers like this, please see my previous article entitled “43 Facts About Love, Sex, Dating And Marriage That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe”.

But of course not all young adults that are living at home are doing it for the wrong reasons.  Thanks to our long-term economic decline, it is much more difficult for young people to find good paying jobs today than it was several decades ago.  The following comes from CNS News…

“More young men are falling to the bottom of the income ladder,” says the Census Bureau study. “In 1975, only 25 percent of men, aged 25 to 34, had incomes of less than $30,000 per year. By 2016, that share rose to 41 percent of young men (incomes for both years are in 2015 dollars).”

I have absolutely no problem at all with young adults that are living at home temporarily for economic reasons.  These Millennials are simply victims of our failing economy, and thus we should not be so quick to judge them.

And many of these young people graduate from college already saddled with tremendous amounts of debt.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of going to college has increased by an astounding 63 percent since 2006.  We assure our youngsters that they will get good paying jobs when they graduate that will enable them to pay off those student loans, but once they do finally graduate many of them are discovering that the good paying jobs that we promised them do not exist.

Today, Americans owe more than a trillion dollars on their student loans.  It has become a major national crisis, and it is financially crippling an entire generation.

So the next time you hear of a young adult that is still living at home, don’t be so quick to judge until you know the facts.

Yes, there are many that need a good kick in the pants to get them going in life, but there are also millions that are simply victims of our ongoing long-term economic collapse.

Copyright © 2017, Economic Collapse.com, All rights reserved.