The Reformed Educational Influence in American Education

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The reformed doctrine of the ”Priesthood of Believers” greatly influenced the formation of American education. Individual responsibility was seen as essential, and discipline in morals, acuteness of intellect, firmness of purpose, and conscientiousness to duty were imperative. Much of this was strongly influenced by the reformed focus—each individual being responsible to God, and it was central in Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and in many other Protestant groups.

The Scots-Irish influenced greatly the new land. Their roots went back to Scotland. Most were Presbyterians and were Lowlanders coming mostly from the border regions of Galloway, Dumfries, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Argyllshire and Lanarkshire in the west and Edinburgh, the Lothians and Berwichshire in the east. They spoke English, not the language of the Highlanders.  Their history in Scotland had been difficult, for they found themselves caught, both geographically and politically, between the English to the south and the Highlanders to the north. They had moved to Ireland, and then on to America.

The Scots-Irish, like other groups of American immigrants, came to the New World to escape economic and religious hardships. At least one out of every 15 Americans was Scots-Irish, and they shared with the Scots a belief in the importance of education, plus a wariness of all ‘rulers,’ particularly those associated with ecclesiastical forms of government. They did not see the government as being responsible for the education of their children!

This church/religious movement had developed in a unique way in Ulster that was quite distinct from that of Scotland due largely to the particular pressures faced by the Scots settlers in Ulster. It can be observed that the religious ideas they formulated in Ulster underlie the culture of much of the United States, most particularly in the Bible Belt. Specifically these particular influences cluster around the concepts of the sovereignty of God and the ability of men to directly build their own covenant with God—”The Priesthood of Believers.”

In cultural terms, probably the core legacy was the influence of evangelical Presbyterianism. But Presbyterian ministers were required to be educated, and there were not enough coming to America from Scottish institutions. So the solution was for America to educate its own. Universities sprung up. In addition, the Scots-Irish embraced the conviction of John Knox to put a school in every parish for the education of the general public. Knox’s theological training had come from Calvin himself, and the Presbyterian government and Calvinist theology transformed the churches north of England, as the churches not only focused on the religious, but the educational as well.

Learning was important and most emigrants from Ulster who came to America could write their names on ships’ registers. They especially carried a belief in the importance of education with them into the frontier, as they moved westward, even as many became Baptists and Methodist, where there were no Presbyterian churches.

One Scotsman, the Reverend John Witherspoon, greatly influenced American education, religion and politics in the Revolutionary era. He was an original signer of the Declaration of independence and the Articles of Confederation, and he became the sixth President of Princeton College (1768-94), which he transformed into a college not only to train clergymen but one to heavily influence the leaders of a revolutionary generation.

The educational foundation established in the 18^th century carried on into the 19^th century. Billy Kennedy in the book, Our Most Priceless Heritage, notes that John Patterson MacLean, noted 19^th century historian, said of the Scots-Irish that: “They practiced strict discipline in morals and gave instruction to the youth in their schools and in teaching Biblical scriptures. To all this combined in a remarkable degree, acuteness of intellect, firmness of purpose and conscientiousness to duty.” Here was a foundation on which to build!

However, the tide began to turn in the second half of the 20^th century in America, since  the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963 when prayer and Bible reading were removed from the public schools.  There has an overall academic decline and a real decline in morals, an increasing lack of intellectual vigor, a growing purposelessness, and a great insensitivity any sense of duty to God, others, or even themselves. The American Protestantism of the nineteenth century was replaced with the secular humanism of the twentieth.  And who knows what will happen in the 21^st century, if things don’t change?

Parents, particularly Christian parents, are rightly very concerned with the breakdown particularly as evidenced in public education. In response it is estimated approximately 12 percent of American children are now in private schools, 80 percent of which are of some religious affiliation, the remaining 20 percent non-religious. And it is estimated about a million children are being educated through home schooling.  Many parents have given up on public schooling where the pattern seems more on graduating everybody rather than really educating, especially educating in the things that really influence true character building.

Proverbs 22:6 counsels: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” But are our public schools doing it? THE REFORMED EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE IN AMERICAN EDUCATION NEEDS TO BE RECAPTURED. But if the thinking continues to rotate continually to and from secular humanism instead of the Bible, the picture is getting very much blurred much like the direction of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), WHICH HAS MOVED FROM A RIGHT FOUNDATION TO A MORE HUMANISTIC FOUNDATION. THINGS NEED TO CHANGE.

by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net