The struggle for who controls the educational worldview of the next generation is at the heart of the culture war in every generation.
For example, in the early twentieth century, Adolf Hitler notably focused on the education of the German youth in his attempt to create the Aryan man who would populate and propagate his thousand-year reich. In Mein Kampf he wrote,
“By educating the young generation along the right lines, the People’s State will have to see to it that a generation of mankind is formed which will be adequate to this supreme combat that will decide the destinies of the world.”
In fierce opposition to Hitler’s “theme of tyranny,” Winston Churchill asserted that Hitler’s answer to the education question reduced man to “mere chattel in a State machine;” in response, the famous English Statesman contended that “the flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide,” and that “State Schools are open to all sects but there are certain parts of the Christian worship which are common to all sects…the Bible without comments…might fairly be used.”
Given that Churchill was what his last private secretary, Anthony Montague Browne, called “an optimistic agnostic,” it seems Churchill indubitably understood what was at stake in who determined the worldview that would guide a nation’s educational system.
The American-born, English poet, T. S. Eliot, concurred. He also recognized the intrinsic relationship between education and the culture and knew that no culture is ever truly secular (i.e., neutral) and without owing itself to a particular presuppositional worldview. He wrote in his essay, The Idea of a Christian Society, that,
“If you will not have God…you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”