Confirmation and Indoctrinationrnby E. Christian KopffrnInstitutions survive because the old teach the young. ThernQuakers who founded Haverford and Swarthmore collegesrnin Pennslvania had to admit that the Hoi) Spirit could use thernhelp of explicit teaching to back up I lis direct conversation withrnthe human heart. For ages the Church has asked the young tornmemorize its basic teachings before their first communion.rnThe creeds and catechisms are memorized because it takes maturit’rnto understand the meaning of these age-old formulas, oftenrntranslated from Greek into Latin before finding a more orrnless comfortable home in English. Recitations of the Lord’srnPraver or the Apostles’ Creed are an emptv chatter unless we arcrntold what they mean. These phrases stav with us our wholernlies. God commanded, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”rnMartin Luther explained that He is not only forbiddingrnlying, but enjoining us “to put the best construction on everything.”rnThe word “religion” comes from the Latin religare (“tornbind”). The new religion which binds together the globalistrnNew World Order promised us by President Bush needs to instructrnits children, too. Like Catholic and L.utheran schools,rnpublic schools provide a place where eager, slightlv hyperactivernchildren may learn the lessons of their community. The idealsrnof traditional American education were “liberal” in the oldrnsense, appropriate for a free citizen. Its opposite was servile, banausic,rnpractical, training for a craft. A free man learns to thinkrnand speak freely through the study of languages, his own, otherrnpeoples’, and that complex and abstract language which isrnmathematics. This is the education sketched in Jefferson’srnl^otes on the State of Virginia. It can be found elsewhere inrnmodern times, from Luther and Elyot’s Governour to Mill’srnE. Christian Kopff is a professor of Greek and Latin at thernUniversity of Colorado in Boulder.rn”Inaugural Address” at St. Andrews. It is toda’, of course,rnhopelcssl}’ obsolete. Free citizens needed to know foreign languagesrnand mathematics. The subjects of the New World Orderrndo not.rnWhen the National Center for Educational Statistics reviewedrnrecent scores on the NAEP (National Assessment of EducationalrnProgress), they lamented, “These figures show thatrnmany students appear to be graduating from high school withrnlittle of the mathematics understanding required by the fastestrngrowing occupations or for college work.” David C. Berlinerrnand Bruce J. Biddle responded in their book The h4anufacturedrnCrisis (99S):rnIn an unusual display of agreement, dozens ofrneconomists have predicted that growth is likeK in the servicernsection of employment—and this means more jobsrnfor janitors, limousine drivers, word processors, salesrnclerks, and the like. We’ve also seen estimates that thernhospitality industry—e.g., tourism—is now cmplo ingrnmore people than any other and that the Wal-Mart chainrnwill soon be the largest single employer in America. Butrnmost jobs in hospitality and retail sales do not requirernhigh-level mathematical skills. So if schools do not preparerneerone to perform high-leel mathematics, perhapsrnit is because students and their teachers are respondingrnsensibly to the looming job market.rnThis is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1990, Motorola announcedrnit was investing in a computer chip plant in Scndai, Japan, becausernit could not find enough American workers with the necessaryrnmathematical skills. American students have the educationrnto serve as Wal-Mart checkout clerks, and their downsizedrncustomers cannot afford to shop anywhere else as manufactur-rnDECEMBER 1996/19rnrnrn