Proof The Bible Is True

“Excellent article on the importance of a well educated, literate people to any society. Plus a look at the philosophy of early education in the US through quotes from Noah Webster. One cannot fail to see how far we’ve gotten away from what was considered important in the early history of this country regarding education and how as a society we are paying the price for it now.”  Admin

The earliest human records appeared about 3,000 or 4,000 B.C. – Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets in the Mesopotamian Valley. This was followed by Egyptian hieroglyphics on papyrus, and Chinese characters on bamboo books.

Writing was first an accounting method for scribes to keep track of all the king owned. Then it was used to keep record of the king’s decrees, genealogies and astronomy. Only kings, elites and scribes could read.

The thousands of cuneiform and hieroglyphic characters were not only difficult to learn, commoners and slaves were not allowed to learn them. It was a form of control, as kings wanted people who would blindly obey them, not think for themselves.

America experienced something similar to this prior to the Civil War when southern Democrat states made it a crime to teach slaves to read. Anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss wrote: “Ancient writing’s main function was to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings.”

Kings ruled by honoring and rewarding those who obeyed them and by dishonoring and striking the fear of death into those who did not.

The first well-recorded instance in history of an entire nation ruling itself without a king began when Israel broke away from Egypt’s pharaoh around 1,500 B.C.

When Moses came down Mount Sinai, he not only brought the law, he brought the law in a 22-character alphabet that was so easy to learn the entire nation was able to read the law. Israel is, perhaps, the first instance in history of an entirely literate population.

E.C. Wines wrote in “The Hebrew Republic” (Philadelphia: c1853): “A fundamental principle of the Hebrew government was education; the education of the whole body of the people. … An ignorant people cannot be a free people. Intelligence is essential to liberty. No nation is capable of self-government, which is not educated to understand and appreciate its responsibilities. … Upon this principle Moses proceeded in the framing of his commonwealth. … There is reason to believe, that the ability to read and write was an accomplishment, more generally possessed by the Hebrews, than by any other people of antiquity.”

via ‘An ignorant people cannot be a free people’.