Words of Wisdom on Education

Noah Webster :
“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”
[Source: 1828, in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English Language]

“The Bible was America’s basic textbook in all fields.”
[Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5]


“Education is useless without the Bible”
[Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5 ]


Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. [Noah Webster, The History of the United States 1832, pp. 336-337, 49]


“All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.” [Noah Webster. History. p. 339]
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Benjamin Rush:
"Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education”
Letters of Benjamin Rush, "To the citizens of Philadelphia: A Plan for Free Schools",
March 28, 1787
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Thomas Paine:
“ It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.”

“ The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal.” “The Existence of God--1810”

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Jedediah Morse:
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

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Samuel Johnston:
• “It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans (Muslims), pagans, etc., may be elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high office, [unless] first the people of America lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves.
[Elliot’s Debates, Vol. IV, pp 198-199, Governor Samuel Johnston, July 30, 1788 at the
North Carolina Ratifying Convention]

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Thomas Jefferson:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Vol. IV, p. 289. From Jefferson’s
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.

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Patrick Henry:
"This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
—The Last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

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John Jay:
“ Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” Source: October 12, 1816. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John
Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed., (New York: Burt Franklin, 1970), Vol. IV, p. 393.

“Whether our religion permits Christians to vote for infidel rulers is a question which merits more consideration than it seems yet to have generally received either from the clergy or the laity. It appears to me that what the prophet said to Jehoshaphat about his attachment to Ahab ["Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?"
2 Chronicles 19:2] affords a salutary lesson.”
The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 1794-1826, Henry P. Johnston

Math

I have resigned myself to the fact that I am going to have to master the subject of math. Isn't that a horrible thing for a homeschool mom to say? I can hear the tongues starting to wag. "How can she think that she's qualified to teach her kids how to do math, if she isn't that good at it herself?"
Hello? I learned how to do math, I just didn't like it, except for some parts of it that were more interesting than others. I just don't rattle off every fact and figure when a math related question comes up in conversation, they make calculators for that sort of thing. I enjoy topics like History, English, Science, and topics that aren't so cut and dry . Stuff you can talk about.

Okay, math is not exactly my favorite subject, but I would like for my kids to enjoy it, so they don't loathe it the way I do. Perhaps loathe is too strong of a word?


I know how important it is so, I really want my kids to have a good solid foundation in math, so they won't have any doubts or trouble later.

We use a program called Math U See. I really like it and more importantly the kids really learn from it. It has DVD lessons, teacher book, student textbook and test book and of course manipulatives. The program is levelled, and does not spiral, like most other math programs. That means that they learn all of one area before they move on to the next. So in some grades they won't necessarily score as high on standardized tests because they have not been taught to the test. This program is for the benefit of the students mastery, not the testing community. I prefer to go with what works best for my kids.
Another thing I like about the program, is once the student knows it, you just move to the next lesson, you don't have to keep doing worksheet after worksheet, and bore the kid to tears.
I look for my Sarah and my Noah to whiz through this sort of program quickly. They are naturally good at math, and enjoy it. It has such a straight forward progression, it makes it easy to grasp and move on to the next concept.

It does require some parent preparation time, about 30 mins per lesson per kid. That can be time consuming. Especially if the kids progress quickly.

Math U See
Reviews of Math U See
Another family who loves MUS

Here is a great interactive site for learning factor trees:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_202_g_3_t_1.html

The heat is on . . .

Politics in my area are beginning to heat up. I encourage everyone to read up on the relevant issues and potential candidates. The upcomming elections are very very important. Just remember people died to secure our right to vote. We live in a free country for a reason. Freedom is not free. Voting in America is not only a privelage, it is a responsibility! Please excercise your right to vote.

Some people do go out and vote, but, I am amazed at the amount of uneducated voters we have going to the polls. There are people who simply vote for a name they think sounds familiar to them, and they don't really know what that person stands for at all. Half the time they don't even know what the responsibilities that peticular office is responsible for doing.

It is sad. We promote "democracy" in other countries, yet do we really practice what we preach?

Cats Cats and more Cats!!!

Why do cats repopulate so quickly? Did you ever wonder about this. Didn't Ancient Egypt love their felines, how did they control their cat population?

I have a little problem, I'm trying to avoidably have 3 outdoor cats neutered. But, they aren't feral or friendly, they are somewhere in the middle. I can't find a reasonably priced clinic that will allow us to bring them in. I cannot afford to pay a huge price for their neutering, but I want to get them taken care of, so we don't have more litters of kittens.
These cats are from a second litter of stray cats we are trying to keep up with.

Any suggestions?