If my memory serves, a grateful nation provided start up money to its veterans of World War II to go to school, to start businesses, to buy homes and to keep cheap insurance or convert it to slightly higher cost longer term life policies.             I was one of the lucky ones who returned alive and was paid to go to college, given a stipend upon which to live and buy that first house at a 4 ½ percent mortgage for 30 years. I found a job in a profession that lasted for over 40 years which provided me with upgrades along the way – from teaching history in high school to becoming a professor in college and then in a university.  That G.I. Bill was a great idea – for me.  Unfortunately, a great number of returning veterans wanted to get jobs and families and paid no attention to the largess offered by the U.S. Government. This G.I. Bill was not a great give-away, but an investment in its people and in the future of the country.

But, in going back a bit to other give-aways or incentives by government, I must remind my readers that one of the greatest ideas where money jump-started Americans to all sorts of great goodness’s that awaited them in their future lives.  This was the money that paid for their PUBLIC EDUCATION from elementary through high school.  You could always, if you could afford it, get a quite decent PRIVATE or PAROCHIAL education.  But it was always in the local or State Public programs which differed from region to region and section to section.  The truly great PUBLIC education systems were instituted on the EAST and WEST coasts with other centers in NORTH CENTRAL U.S.  Free education in many of these places included innovative practices of free College programs and then down into pre-school programs. This generated fear of a single “government” inspired system of one kind of education for all of America.

I think this was a great idea. I investigated the history of education and found that it never started as a grateful nation paying off its soldiers.  That came in the 20^th Century. It was a fearful public that had to be shown that what became our free, public and universal education system was cheaper than building prisons to house wild children turning to crime.  Property owners, fearful of anarchy, ordained that PUBLIC schools be started and over the 19^th Century created the system that we have seen slowly eroded away by interests who fear the government and “Liberal” arts. It is important to teach how to think and internalize the best of creative thought America and the World has produced.  This is better than teaching our children what to think.  This, I believe, supports my writing from time to time whose main idea is THAT THINKING IS ALLOWED.

Upon reflection I must add the following.  We teachers used to talk about our “profession” which was usually deprecated.  We evaluated what we were doing and found that our Public Schools were not really public, free and universal.  Many people fled these schools for something better.  Education is not free.  It costs quite a lot.  Not every child goes to school, learns and becomes a good citizen.  Some children are left behind. The remediation programs cost a great deal more and many still fall through the cracks.