six months?
I've been spending some tangent time recently, collecting articles that mention (but may not be "about") Rose Wilder Lane. The following was written by R.C. Hoiles and is from 1953. What's noteworthy is all the "minimal formal education" references in connection to Lane; I see them repeatedly throughout the 40s and 50s. I gather that Rose promoted the idea herself, but you have to pay attention to semantics. Rose Wilder was on the school roll in Mansfield and Spring Valley. She graduated from high school in Crowley... She was definitely on the school roll in De Smet for years, not months. Whether Rose actually showed up for school is another question entirely, but I can tell you that she indeed had more than six months of schooling in De Smet, and she was rarely tardy.

Few of the younger generation know what the Index Librorum Prohibitorum means. It is a proclamation made years ago by the head of the Catholic church as to what books Catholics were allowed to read and still remain in the church. It covered most all literature. Around the first of the century it was not so inclusive as it was prior to that time. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that: "All books concerned with the religious sciences and with ethics are submitted to preliminary censorship, and in addition to this ecclesiastics have to obtain a personal authorization for all their books and for the acceptance of the editorship of a periodical. The penalty of excommunication ipso facto is only maintained for reading books written by heretics or apostates defense of heresy, or books condemned by name under pain of excommunication by pontifical letters."

As I understand it, Catholics who are doing research work are not permitted to read books that are not permitted to be read by Catholics who had not widely studied religious and ethical subjects.

There is, of course, a certain amount of danger in giving any human being authority to determine what other people may study.

Most Protestants object to the Catholic Index. They, however, do not seem to object to another kind of an index issued by the various states. And that index is that children are obliged to read certain books prescribed by state boards of education. These state boards of education realize that some people object to this, therefore they are very cagey about recommending too many "must" books that children must read. In California we have one book that must be read by every child in the eighth grade or the principal and the superintendent and the members of the board of education can be fined $100 a day and the money that the state returns to the school district can be withheld from that district for not using this "must" textbook.

The state boards of education have a large list of other books that may be used. But no local board of education dare use any textbook that is not in the "index" of the state boards of education. Thus we have a reversed Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The principle, however, is just about the same. The state takes up so much of the time of the youth reading the books that they prescribe that most of them never have any time to read any other books. Thus the State Boards of Education have almost complete ability to indoctrinate children who do not have a natural desire and curiosity about natural laws. These state boards of education are thus molding -- not developing -- the youth to believe in what these state board members think they should believe.

The true liberal of course detests any agent of the state having the right to direct the thought of the children in the state.

Since state education is one of the essentials in promoting socialism and collectivism, we are reaping exactly what we have been sowing in America -- the belief in bigger and bigger and more oppressive government. Those people who have never been indoctrinated by the state regard this index method of education as being the primary tyranny or tyranny naked. As this column has repeatedly reported, Isabel Paterson says that tax supported schools are tyranny naked and Rose Wilder Lane says they are the primary tyranny. Isabel Paterson only went to school two years when she was a little girl and thus was never indoctrinated into the belief of collectivism. Rose Wilder Lane only went to school six months when she was a little girl and thus was never indoctrinated in statism. Those of us who were indoctrinated in State Schools but who have read other books than those in the "index" prescribed by the state boards of education on social, ethical and moral questions are convinced that it is giving any group of men too much power to either set down books that should not be read or books that must be read. They are about the same thing.

It is especially a dangerous policy when done by the state because we are all under the state's control, while if it is done by a religious organization those people who do not believe in it are free to separate themselves from such religious organization. This is not the case when it is done by the state, so the state "index" can do untold harm to the general welfare of the nation.

Truly, we are reaping exactly what we are sowing by state "indexes" of education.

- posted by pioneergirl at 11:09 PM