Old Paths Bible Ministries © 2007 Richard St.James

America's early public schools provided a Christian education. In the public schools "absolutes" were taught and discipline existed. It is the reason why the first Dewey (George Dewey) could say to his teacher, "I never cease to be grateful to you. You made a man of me. But for the thrashing you gave me, I would probably be a state prisoner." The second Dewey (John Dewey) ruined our public educational system with his rejection of the Bible.

The First Dewey

"Admiral Dewey, the hero of Manila in the Spanish-American War, tells us that a good whipping kept him from being a criminal. An Indiana farmer, in 1898, published the following remarkable story telling how the boy who later became Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila in the Spanish-American War, was an unprincipled bully as a boy, headed for a life of crime and saved for society by a genuine whipping. The whipping was delivered by Z.K. Panghorn, Major in the Civil War and later Congressman.

Here's what it said:

"Major Panghorn, of Jersey City, the only man who ever whipped Admiral George Dewey, was nominated for Congress a few days ago by the Republicans of Hudson County District, New Jersey. Major Panghorn whipped Dewey while he was a student at a backwoods school near Montpelier, Vermont, one half a century ago. When Dewey was a boy, Panghorn, according to the story, being fresh from college, undertook the management of a district school in Montpelier.

The school had been in rebellion. Dewey was the leader of the 'Anti-teacher Brigade.' Several teachers had been removed, and one had been stood on his head in a snow-bank. It was generally said in Montpelier that nobody could govern that school. When Panghorn appeared the first day, he noticed Dewey up a tree throwing stones at small boys. 'Stop that!' the teacher said sharply. 'Go to blazes!' Dewey said from his perch. Panghorn provided himself with a rawhide which he tucked away over the schoolhouse door.

He placed several clubs of good hickory on the top of a pile in an old wood box. The following day, Panghorn was about to punish some unruly scholars when Dewey stepped up to his desk and said, 'Look here, teacher, we're gonna give you the best lickin' you ever had.' 'Take your seats!' ordered Panghorn. Dewey shot out his right fist and it landed dangerously near Panghorn's jaw. Instantly, the teacher seized the rawhide and Dewey was writhing under the lash!

When the other boys tried to go to Dewey's help, the teacher seized the hickory clubs and, with one piece in each hand, struck the boys around him with such vigor they soon ran. He gave it to Dewey hot and heavy and it wasn't long before the future conqueror of the Philippines was begging for mercy, for the first and only time of his life. That put an end to the rebellion.

Dewey and Panghorn have been warm friends ever since. Dewey recently said to the Major, 'I never cease to be grateful to you. You made a man of me. But for the thrashing you gave me, I would probably be a state prisoner.' Many another man, as with Admiral Dewey, was saved from prison by a good whipping. Many others are in jail who could have been saved to society as good citizens by discipline."

The Second Dewey

America's early public schools provided a Christian education. In the twentieth century this was changed. John Dewey, a "change agent", helped to remove from the United States of America the Bible as our foundation. John Dewey was that atheistic, immoral, evolutionist who can rightly be charged to have destroyed our educational system by excluding the God of our AV1611 Bible. It was John Dewey who taught that children should be critical of custom and authority. The man believed in "situation ethics", claiming that the morality of an action depended on the situation and not on the application of a law. For John Dewey there would be no absolutes (just relativity). What's more, he interpreted moral judgments as being dependent on values and evaluation, hence on a value theory. Hello out there! Have you ever heard of Values Clarification? Old John Dewey was steeped in "HEDONISM," believing that only pleasure is good as an end.

Here is the Creed John Dewey Had For America's Public Schools:

1. The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the test of right and wrong.

2. One ought to do that act of all those available in the circumstances that would produce the most good.

3. The ultimate end is the full development or perfection of the self.

4. Moral principles cannot be proved.

5. There are no moral truths.

6. Morality has no rational basis.

7. The difference between right and wrong is merely a matter of taste or convention.

8. There is no one correct moral code for all times and peoples.

The sum of it is like this.

Gone are the old ways of our forefathers- a God-fearing people. "Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days. Some remove the landmarks." [Job 24:1-2a]

We have steadily, almost imperceptibly at times, removed one by one the great principles that were part of the formulation of this nation. We have been busy for generations removing the anchoring landmarks that came as a result of the revivals God blessed this country with in its early years with the preaching of the word of GOD. We have disobeyed the commandment in Proverbs 22:28:"Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set."

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