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I have said before, and it bears repeating, that we don't
need better leaders or public officials as near as much as we need better
citizens.
Historically, the American founders knew that freedom could only last
if regular citizens had the same level of education as our Governors, Senators,
Judges, experts and Presidents.
When any nation is divided between, on one hand, a class of
political experts who read and understand the fine print of what is really
happening and, on the other hand, the rest of the people who don't read or get
involved in such intricate details, freedom is inevitably lost.
There are no exceptions to this in history.
We will either become
such citizens, or our freedoms will be lost.
If this is too much to ask of
modern citizens, then freedom is too much for us to handle. Just consider what
Samuel Williams, a Harvard professor in the American founding era, said about
the average education of American children in 1794:
"All the children
are trained up to this kind of knowledge: they are accustomed from their
earliest years to read the Holy Scriptures, the periodical publications,
newspapers, and political pamphlets; to form some general acquaintance with the
laws of their country, the proceedings of the courts of justice, of the general
assembly of the state, and of the Congress, etc.
"Such a kind of
education is common and universal in every part of the state: and nothing would
be more dishonorable to the parents, or to the children, than to be without
it."
Such people were deep readers. And the freedoms they fought
for and maintained showed it.
The only way to get back such freedoms is to once
again become such citizens.
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Social Leader Daily by Oliver DeMille
