Our Schools Need Mandatory Morality Classes

No, the snow wasn’t waist deep and no, it wasn’t uphill both ways. However, I distinctly remember walking the half-mile from my house to Merchantville Elementary School every weekday morning, except for holidays and summer vacations, starting at the age of 4.

Today, parents are afraid to let their kids play in their own front yards – let alone walk or bike across town – and justifiably so, because our once safe streets have deteriorated into war zones, especially in the inner city.

Sadly, arriving safely at school is only part of the equation. According to many professional educators, bullying is at an all-time high and students who act out – sometimes violently – aren’t always disciplined because administrators are fearful of parent-initiated lawsuits. And so, the charming days of Dobie Gillis, Welcome Back Kotter, and Boy Meets World have been replaced by South Park on steroids.

Nowadays, some hallways more closely resemble Saigon or Kabul in the days preceding America’s final withdraw… and classrooms aren’t much better. You can almost picture teachers and administrators barricading themselves in the principal’s office awaiting evacuation by a team of Navy Seals or Airborne Rangers.

So, what’s the answer? Do we simply give up on our public school system or is there some way to salvage it? Well, I have an idea…

Require mandatory classes in ethics and morality.

Whose ethics and whose morality, you ask? How about starting with the 10 Commandments and then expanding to include the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our school system and our society at large were founded.

Excuse me, Dale? Did you just suggest that the American educational system was founded on biblical principles and that we should use the Bible as a teaching tool to instill proper ethics and morality in our school children? I sure did!

“But what about the First Amendment?” I can just hear the Progressive talking heads on CNN and MSNBC screaming and screeching. Doesn’t that prohibit the inclusion of Christianity or any other religion in our public school system?

To answer that question and refute that false premise, let’s consult a few of our Founding Fathers as well as some other great Americans, beginning with John Adams, our second President.

“I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen.”

Adams also famously said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Patrick Henry and Ulysses S. Grant both held the Bible in equally high regard. “The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed,” wrote Henry. “The Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties,” said Grant.

Many other presidents concurred, including Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. “A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education,” Roosevelt said. “The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life,” wrote Hoover.

Yes, but they were both Republicans, Dale. What did our Democratic presidents think?

Referring to the Bible, Andrew Jackson said, “That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.” Oops… do you mean that Old Hickory, who is celebrated by Democrats with Jefferson-Jackson Day fundraising dinners each year, believed that the Bible is the foundational pillar of America? As Al Gore would say, that’s an “inconvenient truth.”

OK, so maybe Jackson was having a bad day when he said that. What about Woodrow Wilson, the father of modern-day Progressivism?

“There are great problems, ladies and gentlemen, before the American people. There are problems which will need purity of spirit and integrity of purpose such as has never been called for before the history of this country. I should be afraid to go forward if I did not believe that there lay at the foundation of all our schooling and of all our thought this incomparable and unimpeachable Word of God. If we cannot derive our strength thence, there is no source from which we can derive it.”

Ouch!

But Wilson didn’t stop there. He went on to say, “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in the audience that from this night on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations – that if they would see America free and pure, they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Scripture.”

Gulp!

It must be a vast right-wing conspiracy, you say. Well, the esteemed Daniel Webster would disagree. After all, the venerable senator from Massachusetts wrote that “There is no solid basis for civilization but in the Word of God… If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity… If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”

Even the Supreme Court of the United States once held that the Bible should be read and taught in our public schools. In 1844’s Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, Justice Joseph Story wrote, “Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the [school] – its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?… Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”

Game, set, match.

The bottom line is this: if we want well-mannered students to learn – and educators to teach – in a safe educational environment, we must reintroduce ethics, morality and yes, the Bible in our public schools.

Why would anyone oppose such a proposal? Maybe Horace Greely had the answer. “It is impossible to enslave mentally or socially a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.”