Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National Identity: Education's "Errand Into the Wilderness"Routledge, 2003 M05 14 - 184 pages Present-day America is perceived by many as immersed in a moral crisis, with national identity fractured and uncertainty and anxiety about the future. Public schools in this country are, historically and still today, the major institution charged with preserving and teaching the symbols of national identity and a morality that is the concrete expression of those symbols and the ideas for which they stand. A widespread belief is that only through schooling can America be saved from the current "crisis," but the schools have failed in this mission and must be reformed. In this book, Douglas McKnight develops a historical interpretation of how the New England Puritans generated a powerful belief system and set of symbols that have fed American identity and contributed to preserving and perpetuating it into the present time. He explores the relationship between the purposes of education (and how this term has shifted in meaning) and the notion of an American identity and morality--rooted in the Puritan concept of an "errand into the wilderness"--that serves a particular sacred/secular purpose. The phrase "errand into the wilderness" is taken from a 1956 book by Perry Miller with this title, where it refers to the Puritan dream of creating a city in the wilderness (the North American Colonies) that would be a utopian community--a beacon for the rest of the world for how to organize and live in the ideal religious community. Highly pertinent to the current debate about the purposes and crisis in education and in America, morality in schools, the cultural function of education, the changing nature of the language of education, the complex relation of schooling and national identity, this book explicates these elements within the American psyche by exploring the effects of the Puritan "symbolic narrative" at three different points in American history: Puritans during the 1600s and 1700s; the Gilded Age, when the urban Protestant middle class ascended to cultural dominance; and the present age. Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National Identity: Education's "Errand Into the Wilderness" makes an important contribution to the fields of curriculum studies and the history of education. It will interest students and scholars in these fields, as well as those in educational philosophy, religion and education, intellectual and social history, and American studies. |
Contents
Errand Into the Wilderness and the Jeremiad Ritual | |
Finding Order and Balance Between Faith and Reason Through Educational | |
Hopes and Fears of the AngloProtestant Middle Class | |
Reason to Preserve The Moral Imperative | |
William Torrey Harris and | |
Return of the Jeremiad Ritual | |
Afterword | |
Other editions - View all
Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National ... Douglas McKnight No preview available - 2003 |
Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National ... Douglas McKnight No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
1800s and early 19th century ambiguity American identity American institutions Anglo-Protestant Arthur Schlesinger assumptions became behavior believed Bellah Bercovitch child coherent colonial Puritans condition Cotton Mather cultural curriculum curriculum maps destiny developed discourse earthly effect embody emerged errand ethnic existence expression faith freedom function gift God’s human ideal identified immigrants impulse individual individual’s interpretation jeremiad John Winthrop knowledge language leaders logic Manifest Destiny means metaphor method middle-class Protestant mission moral crisis moral imperative national identity natural one’s participate perceived perpetuate Peter Ramus possible preserve produced progress Protestant middle class Protestant Reformation Protestantism public education Purpel Ramist Ramus reason reform religious rhetorical ritual role sacred/secular salvation Schlesinger secular sense shift social society spiritual Susan Blow symbolic narrative symbolic structure teachers teleology transmit understanding urban middle class wilderness William Torrey Harris Winthrop words wrote