MASONIC EDUCATION page 3

Early History of the National Educational Association

The NEA had its early beginnings in 1857 when 43 teachers met in Philadelphia. They chose the name National Teacher's Association. By 1870, three groups merged to form the National Educational Association. They were the National Teacher's Association, the Association of School Superintendents, and the American Normal School Association. The NEA was incorporated under a federal charter as tax-exempt in 1906. The NEA did little until 1919 when it moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C. In the capital the NEA could lobby for its goals and could also work WITH the Federal Government.

After World War I, American Freemasonry began lobbying the Federal government for federally funded public schools. Mackeys' Encyclopedia of Freemasonry outlines the story: "The Supreme Council Southern Jurisdiction, United States of America, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in 1920 openly declared itself in favor of the creation of a Department of Education with a Secretary in the President's cabinet..." Mackey further informs us that the Scottish Rite was responsible for 'the passage of what was then known as the Smith-Tower Educational Bill embodying the principle of Federal Aid to the Public Schools in order to provide funds for the equalization of educational opportunities to the children of the nation. The Brethren declared their belief in the compulsory attendance of all children upon the Public Schools..." (Public Schools").

In this article, Mackey reminds the Brotherhood that when compulsory education becomes a reality, Masons are to encourage parents to make the schools so efficient "that their superiority over all other schools [meaning Church related schools] shall be so obvious that every parent will have to send his children to them..." ("Public Schools").

In the 1920s, 33rd degree Mason Earl Warren was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California. He had not yet received his appointment as Chief Justice to the Supreme Court. In his 1936 annual message to the Brethren in California, he said:

"...the education of our youth can best be done, indeed it can only be done, by a system of free public education. It is for this reason that the Grand Lodge of California, ever striving as it does TO REPLACE darkness with light, is so vitally interested in the public schools of our state. By DESTROYING PREJUDICE, [meaning Christianity] and planting REASON in its place it prepares the foundation of a liberty-loving people for free government..." (Fisher, p. 176).

Other organizations that played key roles in the development of the NEA were the Progressive Education Association and the John Dewey Association. In the early I 930s both groups worked out their blueprint to "Socialize America." Their intent was publicized by a devout group of socialist/Marxist educators known as the "frontier thinkers." The pro-socialist teachers were first and foremost John Dewey, then William Heard Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, Jesse H. Newland, and George S. Counts. These men were "doers," not just talkers as they implemented the New Education, which would usher in the New Social Order for America.

Dr. George S. Counts made the call to build the New Social Order by challenging teachers to "...deliberately REACH FOR POWER and then MAKE THE MOST of their conquests...To the extent that they are permitted to FASHION THE CURRICULUM and PROCEDURES of the schools, they will definitely and positively influence the social attitudes, ideals, and behavior of the coming generation.. It is my observation that the men and women who have affected the course of human events are those who have NOT HESITATED to use the power that has come to them" (Dare the School Build a New Social Order?" a monograph by George S. Counts, 1932, pp.28-29).

These frontier thinkers sought complete control of the National Education Association [NEA] by placing THEIR men into places of top administrative positions (Blackboard Power NEA Threat to America, by Dr. Gordon V.Drake, p. 24).

Without fanfare, Dr Givens, chairman of the committee of the NEA Department of Superintendents, produced a statement entitled, "Education For the New America," It outright called for the "socialization" of the "credit agencies, the basic industries and utilities" of America. The document just matter-of-factly explained that a "dying laissez-faire [free enterprise economic system]must be COMPLETELY DESTROYED, and all of us including the owners, must be subjected to a LARGE DEGREE OF SOCIAL CONTROL" (a speech by Willard Givens, Report to the 72nd Annual Convention of the NEA, 1934). As a result of this speech and call for socialism, he was rewarded with the position of executive secretary of the NEA in 1935.

The Progressive Education Association was now just to fade away, since the "frontier thinkers" for socialism had now taken the key position in the NEA. The well respected NEA would now serve the socialists to "change the minds of our children in the next two generations for socialism." Over the next ten years [1935-1945], Counts and Kilpatrick published a monthly called The Social Frontier, later changed to Frontiers of Democracy. It was the brainwashing tool to indoctrinate teachers and professors for the New Social Order (Blackboard Power NEA Threat to America, by Dr. Gordon V. Drake, pp.24-25).

The 1930s saw America ripe for their diet of socialism caused by the Great Depression. The International Bankers had just caused this Great Depression with the collapse of the stock market and bought up all the stock for pennies on the dollar. They had begun creating monopolies in the market place with THEM holding the stock. President Roosevelt was swept into office with the promise of the New Deal for America. That New Deal was socialism. He started programs such as NRA, WPA, NYA, and PWA to get people working again, but CONTROLLED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It was during this climate of frustration and hunger and economic depression that an American educator named Walter Hamilton wrote in 'The Social Frontier" [of the NEA] that the "commitment to collectivism [socialism] is beyond recall" (October 1934). In this same issue an editorial promised that "The Social Frontier [of the NEA] will throw ALL the strength it possesses ON THE SIDE OF THOSE FORCES WHICH ARE STRIVING TO fashion a form of COLLECTIVISM that will make paramount the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population" (Ibid, p. 4). The editorial went on to challenge teachers and parents to "make clear by all means at their disposal that a COLLECTIVIST SOCIAL ORDER...[was needed] to secure a free democratic life" (Ibid, p.4).

During the 1930s, the discussion among the Socialists was HOW to teach collectivism to their students. Dr Theodore Brameld was an activist in promoting Socialism in the schools. He told teachers who were FOR Socialism to "influence their students, subtly if necessary, frankly if possible, toward an acceptance of the same" (The Social Frontier November 1935, pp.53-55). Teachers were to use the classroom to teach revolution, and to undermine the present form of government. Dr. Theodore Brameld, in his book Ends and Means in Education, stated that the future world "should be a world in which national sovereignty is utterly subordinated to INTERNATIONAL AUTHORITY [world government].

Another Socialist educator was Dr Harold Rugg, who wrote a series of textbooks concerning collectivism for the grade school, high school, and teachers colleges. Dr. Rugg wrote the textbook, Man and His Changing Society, where he proved to be a master at propaganda and was for immediate social reconstruction TO collectivism. He was social studies editor for Scholastic Magazine during the 193 Os, which is an educational magazine used throughout the school systems all over the United States.

"Between the years 1928-1935, Scholastic Magazine featured articles written by KNOWN Communists such as Langston Hughes. Two members of' the advisor,' board, who were also contributing editors, were KNOWN Communists. Harold Rugg authored numerous articles eulogizing Soviet Russia and its Communist youth organizations" (District of Colombia Appropriation Bill for 1937, Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriations, 74th Congress, 2nd Session, 1936, pp. 709-710, as recorded in Blackboard Power; NEA Threat to America, p.26).

Dr. Rugg was flying high toward socializing America when he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt entitled "The Battle For Consent: Gentlemen, This Is Our Moment - If" Rugg urged the President [32nd degree Mason] to have the federal government pass into law a minimum wage for ALL - whether you worked or not. Huge amounts of money was to be used for economic planning by the government to regulate all society.

Dr. Rugg also stated that educators "want to write [great socialist ideas] ... into the new textbooks that will be made to HERALD the new day." He talked of the "thrilling experience." He said: "...I know for I tried to do it [print socialist textbooks] during the great depression in my 'Man and His Changing Society,' a series of books which was studied by some 5,000,000 young Americans UNTIL the patrioteers [non-communists] and the native Fascist press well-nigh destroyed it between 1939 and 1941" (Frontiers of Democracy, December 15, 1942,p. 75-81).

Roosevelt, in 1942, let Rugg's letter be laid aside with no action. Rugg went to work immediately. He called upon his colleagues at teachers colleges to: "Let them become powerful national centers for the graduate study of ideas, and they will thereby BECOME forces of creative imagination standing at the very vortex of the ideological revolution. Let's make our teachers education institutions into great direction finders for our NEW SOCIETY.. pointers of the way.. dynamic trail blazers of NEW FRONTIERS [meaning socialism]" (Frontiers of Democracy, May 15, 1943, p. 247-254).

In the 1940s and 1950s people began to wake up to the propaganda in our schools. Informal groups began to come together to force Socialism out of the schools.

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