June 14 Liberal war on Education
Hello, I'm George Caylor and today's session of Get Real is going to be about education, homeschools especially, the philosophy behind education. This is brought to you by the Caylor Group, Wealth Management. If you'd like to know what we do and whether you'd like to do that with us, go to the CaylorGroup.com.  I'm with my dear old friend, military advisor, life advisor, John Vassar. I went to a one-room school, eight grades, one teacher, and you would think that we would be handicapped. We didn't have what the big cities did, and yet our school usually ranked number one in the whole Pennsylvania state. We had the highest test scores, and I think it might be because of the way we were taught. We taught each other. We had a decent library, mainly donated to us because we didn't have all that much money. The first graders heard the eighth grade lessons. The second graders heard the eighth grade lessons. Everybody heard the eighth grade lessons until they were in the eighth grade, and then they were the eighth grade lessons, and we helped each other learn. We asked each other questions. It was magical.I wish it were still there. John, did you go to a one-room school or talk to me about education? What's your philosophy of it? I'm glad you mentioned the one-room schoolhouse. It brings back a memory for me. I was in St. Augustine, Florida, and the sun was starting to set. It was one of those long summer sunsets, and I walked into a building that was labeled the oldest one-room schoolhouse in America. I walked into this schoolhouse, and it was dead quiet. The light was dimming. I was walking around through the desks, and it was perfectly preserved. I looked up at the wall, and in the fading sunlight, I started to read some of the assignments, the papers that the students had written in this very primitive environment. I was stunned at the sophistication of the writing that I saw by these grade school students. I was a university professor for 17 years. I think only one of my graduate students could have written as eloquently as these young people did. And then later on, I stumbled upon a story about a man who was 21 years old living on the eastern shore of Maryland, and a Quaker woman had opened up a one-room schoolhouse, but the 21-year-old man did not know how to read or write. She invited him during the winter when there was nothing to do on his farm, or there was very little to do on his farm, to come to the one-room schoolhouse. And under the tutelage of this Quaker woman, he finished the first and second grade, and he had an idea. He wanted to find out where the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay was. He couldn't seem to understand where the Chesapeake Bay came from. So her husband was a wealthy man. I think he spent something like $500 to equip him with a boat and equipment and enough equipment and supplies to go find the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. I read an excerpt from a book that he supposedly wrote called Towards the Ice Age. I read the last chapter where he finds the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. He practically had to carry me out of the room when I read this by one of the most beautiful science books ever written. That chapter, that last chapter where he discovers it and the beauty that he wrote, this man with a second grade education in a one-room schoolhouse. It wasn't a science book.It was literature. This is one of the problems that I see as a college professor. I'm no longer teaching, much to the delight of many of my students, was that I could look at a classroom and I could tell who went to public school, who went to a parochial school or a Christian school or the Jewish school, synagogue, who was homeschooled.. I could tell the difference just by the way they wrote, by the way they acted. And I was always amazed at the difference. And I did a little bit of research and I found out, you know, the typical homeschool student is testing out on standardized tests as high as two grade levels above their age group.You believe that, George? That is, as a university professor, that's astonishing. And then I wanted to know the history of our education system. There was a fellow by the name of the Reverend Dr. McGuffey who came up with a concept called the McGuffey Reader, where you wouldn't have to go to school if you're on the frontier, there are no schools, so you would get the McGuffey Reader and it would start you off teaching you how to read.In the 1930s, there was a monument put up to Dr. McGuffey and I watched, I listened to the radio broadcast, I watched the newsreel and then listened to the radio broadcast where all of these famous men, inventors, Henry Ford and other people that came up and talked about how Westinghouse and Edison and all of these great men had been raised on the McGuffey Reader. So I got a set of McGuffey Readers in the library and I started going through them and I'll tell you, the 12th grade McGuffey Reader would challenge any of our graduate students today. So Dr. McGuffey put this Reader together so you could take a man on the frontier who knew nothing and he would eventually come out with the equivalent of what I call a modern master's degree.But let's say the McGuffey Reader wasn't enough for you. Our universities such as Harvard and other schools, they had their own version of it. Harvard's was the most famous because they called it six feet of knowledge.They had the Harvard program, the program of great books which is still practiced today at St. John's University in Annapolis, Maryland, which is right across the street from the Naval Academy. If you ever get up there, you need to take the tour. It's an amazing college.It's a classical education. And the Naval Academy is not bad either, go across the street. So these great books and you would read these great books and you would write, you would answer questions corresponding with the Harvard faculty.And then have you gone through this, you would have a classical education probably equivalent today to I would say a professional doctorate since you're not doing research or anything, I'd call it a professional doctorate similar to what I have. And you would have this amazing education living on the frontier, having never sat in a schoolhouse, just learning how many people in this country of some of our greatest people came up through this kind of system. You know, people don't realize this, you know, that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were basically self-educated, you know, and this is the, I'm going on and on, George.I know it's a, it's, it's a big glitch. He reminded me of my dad. He graduated the eighth grade.He died a multimillionaire, raised seven kids, had a farm, eighth grade. Before you denigrate someone who graduated with the eighth grade, I suggest you go to Google and look up the eighth grade examination of the 1930s. It was about the same from about 1890 to 1930s.And I dare you to take it. The questions are there, take it. And John, do you think that most college kids could pass it today? Oh, definitely not.I have a little piece of information for you, George. Did you know that most of the people working on the Manhattan Project had an eighth grade education and some of the higher level tradesmen graduated from the 10th grade? We had some of our most outstanding military aviators were high school dropouts during World War II. And this was back when you actually had to fly the airplane yourself.So I never denigrate someone. I'll tell you about, I've got a story for you. It's going to blow your mind here.We had a family friend, Judge Willis B. Fentress. He went to school and they kicked him out of school. He went home, taught himself how to read.One day he picked up a law book. He thought this was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. So he just sat down and just read law books in the law library because it was the easiest place to go to.Someone suggested that he take the bar exam. Well, he went on to become a very distinguished lawyer. He became our family lawyer and went on to become a judge.There's an old, I've got a Judge Fentress story. I've got to do this for you folks in Virginia. The story was Judge Fentress was about to make this Italian fellow a citizen.It was during World War II. He was a refugee from fascist Italy. And the man went up to Judge Fentress and the whole court was there.He was going to swear at me and say, he says, a Judge Fentress, I cannot be an American citizen. You see, my English is no good. I can't seem to learn your language and I struggle so much with words.And Judge Fentress stood up and he looked at the man. He said, I don't hear anything wrong with you. You sound perfect to me.That's the kind of man he was. One day, another Judge Fentress story, a man gets during the Great Depression, a man gets pulled into court for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. Judge Fentress finds the man $1 and he also find everyone in the courtroom $1 for allowing this man's family to go hungry.I told you about my book, Surviving Georgie and the One Room School. I read it for people over 70 so they could enjoy the early 1950s and the joy that we had back then, maybe to laugh at my stories. But the main fan mail came from like 10 year old boys where things really like that.One of them said, who took it? And I wrote back, honey, nobody took it. We just let it go. And I think that's the way it is with the public education system we had back then.It began with prayer and I'm talking public schools. Prayer and Bible study began the school each day. And we felt accountable not just to each other, not just to the teacher, but to a holy God who would hold us accountable.And it set the tone. John, I want you to tell us what went wrong. I mean, nobody took it.We just let it go. H

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