PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION!       DO 1832       14/1/84

       1. YOU WOULD HAVE LEARNED LOTS IF YOU'D LIVED ON A FARM! That's why people are so ignorant today, they just live in cities & they don't know anything. They don't hardly even realise that God made the World & grows the food! On the farm you're really dependent on the Lord & the rain & the weather, so you know there's a God! You have to really pray that He'll give the rain so things will grow. In the cities they never hardly see a tree or a flower or even the bare ground, it's all "asphalt jungle"!--And a lot of weird savages too, more dangerous than the jungles of the Tropics!
       2. THEY USED TO SING THE CUTEST LITTLE SONG ABOUT THE MISSIONARY COMING & TELLING THE NATIVES ALL ABOUT CIVILISATION:
       "Oh, bonga bonga bonga,
       I don' wanna leave the jungle,
       No no no no no no!
       Oh, the missionary lady,
       She tells me so & so"

       --& it goes on about how she tells him all about the marvels of civilisation & scares him half out of his wits!--And he was right! Ha! He's better off in God's natural jungle than in the asphalt jungle!
       3. (TO TECHI) THE ASPHALT JUNGLE IS THE CITY, Honey, where they've got nothing but pavement & streets & sidewalks & they never see the bare earth. They live like rats, they have burrows underground called subways & they have caves that they live in called apartments. They've gone back to cave-dwelling & burrows like rats & hardly ever see the sun or the sky, much less the moon!
       4. DEAR ALF & I WERE OUT THERE DISCUSSING THE MOON--I suppose you know there's a beautiful moon nowadays--but I doubt if very many people here could even tell me the phases of the moon or what they mean. Nearly all of you have heard of the full moon, right? And maybe some of you have heard of the half-moon. Some of you would go out there & tell me that's a half-moon, when you can only see half of the moon, but it's actually a quarter-moon. You're only seeing a quarter of the moon, not half of it! You say full moon when it's perfectly round, when actually that's only a half-moon, because the other half is on the other side & dark, you can't see it.
       5. IT'S QUITE A LESSON, HOW TO DISCERN THE SIGNS IN THE SKY! They were smarter than that in Jesus' day, they knew how to discern the signs of the weather & the signs of the sky. But He said, "You don't even know how to discern the signs of the times, you don't even know how late it is!" (Mt.16:3.)--But they were soon to find out, because their city was destroyed & millions of their people were destroyed for their sins just a few years later, the sins they were stacking up then & the crowning crime of all when they crucified Jesus!
       6. BUT I COULD TELL YOU A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE SUN & THE MOON THAT PROBABLY YOU HIGHLY-CIVILISED, HIGHLY-EDUCATED PEOPLE RIGHT HERE COULDN'T EVEN TELL ME! I'll bet you couldn't go out there tonight & tell me whether that's a first quarter or a last quarter. How many of you have seen that half-of-a-moon out there these nights? Isn't it beautiful? Is that the first quarter or last quarter? Raise your hand if you know. (Nobody knows!) Now there's a test of your modern education! How's that, Alf? You weren't so dumb after all--at least you weren't any dumber than the rest of them! Well, I taught Alf how to know whether it was the first or last quarter.
       7. I'LL JUST ASK YOU THIS, WHAT IS THE "NEW MOON"?--WHEN THE SLIVER IS ON THE RIGHT SIDE OR THE LEFT SIDE? There're two people at least who know! It shows you how much better education they get in Europe. Americans don't learn anything, & they're learning less all the time until it's getting to be a serious concern. They're finally getting concerned about it because they're turning out so many dumb idiots who don't even know how to read, much less write. Well, they were concerned about it even when I was in high school. My brother was head of a California Educational Commission that was studying the problems of American high school students who were arriving in their universities still unable to read & write--high school graduates! That's what they call Progressive Education!
       8. PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IS THE LATEST, MOST MODERN KIND OF EDUCATION--WHETHER YOU CAN READ OR WRITE OR NOT, WHETHER YOU STUDY OR NOT, WHETHER YOU MAKE GOOD GRADES OR NOT, THEY'LL PROGRESS YOU FROM GRADE TO GRADE EVERY YEAR! That's a fact! After all, what else could they do? Otherwise some of those guys would be six feet tall still sitting in the first grade along with the little kids! They used to have quite a bit of that when I was little. I can remember classes when I was in 1st & 2nd grade & there were great big guys, full-grown teenagers sitting there in the lower grades!--Because in those days they refused to pass them if they didn't study & learn something & actually pass the tests.
       9. NOWADAYS IN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION THEY JUST PASS THEM ALONG ACCORDING TO AGE GROUPS, REGARDLESS! Maybe they're about right, though, because if they're not going to learn it by that time, they're never going to learn it. Also because some guys just prefer to horse around & do nothing but play around. Of course, there have been a few geniuses who did the same thing & I've told you about a few of those in some of the Letters.
       10. --LIKE THE FAMOUS HENRY J. KAISER, HEAD OF THE GIGANTIC KAISER STEEL CORPORATION, WHO MADE THE LIBERTY SHIPS FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DURING WW2 & MADE MILLIONS, in the days when millions were like billions! He didn't make good grades in school just because he wasn't interested in school. He was excellent in mathematics, he was a genius at invention, but he wasn't interested in school because he was too busy out building boats! He loved the water, he loved boats, loved to build boats & he was a genius at building boats. There was nothing dumb about him, he just didn't like all the rest of that crap that he figured wouldn't be of any practical use to anybody, & most of it wasn't!
       11. MOST OF THE JUNK YOU LEARN IN HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE, VERY LITTLE OF IT WILL EVEN TEACH YOU HOW TO FIX A LIGHT SWITCH OR MAKE AN EXTENSION CORD or do necessary maintenance like the boys & I have been doing. You learn very little that's practical & that can be used around the house as a handyman--which is one of the most important things you could learn if you're ever going to have your own house or live in this house or any house, to be able to fix things, repair things, mend things & maintain things. And of course the System girls couldn't care less about learning to cook or sew or make dresses or mend or anything like that. They all plan to be movie stars, so why should they worry about mundane things like that?
       12. YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THE PHASES OF THE MOON, & most of you don't know which phase is on the right side or the left side. But here's a little hint, if the new moon is on the right side, probably the first quarter is the right.
       13. WE REALLY GOT TURNED AROUND & MESSED UP WHEN WE WERE DOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA! Of course, most people don't even look at the moon & don't even know what's going on. I had already heard that the water goes down the drain a different direction if you don't swish it around with your hand--I can never remember exactly which is which, whether South of the Equator it goes down the drain clockwise or counter-clockwise--but if you just leave a still bowl full of water & you pull out the plug, it will eventually start going around & around like a cyclone or a waterspout in reverse. In the ocean we used to call it a maelstrom, a waterspout in reverse. A waterspout is when the storm sucks the water right up in the air. How many of you have ever seen a waterspout? It's a very rare thing to see!
       14. HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE EVER SEEN AN ACTUAL TORNADO? Now watch out, a hurricane is not a tornado, a storm is not a tornado. A tornado is a storm, but it is a very small storm, sometimes not any bigger than a few feet around, but powerful enough to flatten a house & pick up an automobile! One of the girls is nodding her head because she comes from Tornado Alley!--Ha! In fact, that town she comes from has been flattened several times by tornadoes!
       15. A TORNADO IS A VERY SMALL CIRCULAR WIND, HARDLY EVER BIGGER AROUND THAN THIS TABLE! I don't know that they've ever had a tornado even as big around as this room, but it's so powerful, going around at so many hundreds of miles an hour, that it can pick up whole houses, automobiles & people & throw them hundreds of yards someplace else!--A wind so powerful that it's been known to take a straw--you guys don't even know what straws are, the only kind of straws you know about are the kind they give out in restaurants--but a piece of straw is the stalk of the grain, & I can remember seeing a picture taken in Oklahoma where the tornado had driven the straw right into a telephone post, it had that much power! In other words, it was hurtling with such velocity that it drove it right into the post! Now that's virtually impossible, because a straw is such a small little light thing. I just challenge you to even take a drinking straw & try to drive it into a wall or a telephone post!
       16. WELL ANYHOW, A WATERSPOUT IN REVERSE IS A MAELSTROM, & THAT'S A MAELSTROM YOU'RE WATCHING AS THE WATER GOES DOWN THE DRAIN IN THE WATER BOWL.--Only sometimes they have huge ones out at sea during storms, peculiar formations or peculiar conflicting currents that sometimes used to swallow whole ships! I think they used to have quite a few out there at sea off South Africa. We were right at Cape Town & there were conflicting wind currents from different directions. Into the Maelstrom! was a famous book!--Was it by Jules Verne or H.G. Wells?
       17. WELL, ALL THESE MARVELLOUS WONDERS OF GOD'S CREATION, EVEN THESE ODDITIES OF GOD'S CREATION, I DOUBT IF VERY MANY OF YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT CAUSES THEM. Very few of you have probably ever seen them & you probably couldn't have cared less. Most people are more interested in the maelstrom of civilisation & the waterspout of making money & hardly ever see God's wonderful creation or know how it works. I doubt if you could tell me what causes some of these things or if you even understand the phases of the moon--obviously you didn't.
       18. BUT WHEN WE WERE IN SOUTH AFRICA WE WERE SHOCKED THAT NOT ONLY DID THE WATER GO DOWN THE DRAIN THE WRONG WAY, BUT THE PHASES OF THE MOON TRAVELLED THE WRONG WAY! Actually, they weren't travelling any different than they always do, the only trouble is, down there we were standing on our heads looking at the moon from a different direction! For example, only if you're right on the Equator is the sun directly overhead, or the moon, it's usually off at a slight angle. The sun & the moon will rise at the horizon, go like that, & set over the horizon at quite an angle. In the North in the Wintertime it's very low. Normally Northerners, those North of the Equator look at the moon in the South sky. They watch the shadow of the moon--actually sunlight or shadow, whichever you want to call it, depending on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist--travel across the face of the moon, & it travels from right to left. Most Northerners don't stand on their heads to look at the moon, they look at it in the most convenient position possible, facing it, in which case in the Northern Hemisphere the new moon & the first quarter, etc., start on the right side & go to the left side.
       19. IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE YOU'RE STANDING KIND OF ON THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH & IT LOOKS TO YOU LIKE THE PHASES OF THE MOON ARE TRAVELLING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, but it's the same moon travelling in the same direction, same sun, same shadow, everything, you're just standing on your head, that's all! Maybe that's what makes those Aussies so crazy, they spend all their lives standing on their heads on the bottom of the World without even falling off! How about that? When we were way down in South Africa we were standing on our heads on the bottom of the Earth! Here's the North Pole, South Pole & here's Australia way down here. The Aussies live way down here where they're standing on their heads. When they're standing up they're sticking out this way, see?
       20. SO WHEN WE WERE IN SOUTH AFRICA, WE WERE WAY DOWN HERE TOO LIKE THE AUSTRALIANS.--Not clear on the bottom, that's Antarctica! Only people like Admiral Byrd have ever been there. He was kind of exploring it when I was a kid & you'll see something about him in my Diary. (See No.1714.) I was talking about how I was listening to the Byrd expedition on radio when he was exploring, one of the first explorers of Antarctica. He got kind of tired of exploring the Arctic because nearly everybody had been to the North Pole by that time.
       21. BY THE TIME I WAS BORN & YOUNG THEY'D ALREADY DISCOVERED THE NORTH POLE & A LOT OF PEOPLE HAD BEEN THERE, so they had to start trying to get to the South Pole instead. Down there you'd really be standing on your head!--Not actually standing on your head, you're standing on your feet, but your head's going down. And down there in South Africa our heads were sticking down, in Australia your head's sticking down too. No wonder those Aussies are so crazy!--And maybe that has something to do with why everybody thinks the South Africans are a bit weird, but I think they're some of the sanest people on Earth, really!
       22. SO DON'T BELIEVE ALL THAT PROPAGANDA YOU READ ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA! We found it was one of the most Christian nations we had ever been in, with some of the most wonderful people you'd ever want to meet, including the Blacks, Asians, Indians & all! [DELETED]
       23. [DELETED] I'M CONVINCED THAT THE BOERS WERE JEWISH, ESPECIALLY THE BRUDERBOND. [DELETED] [EDITED: "--But"] they're Christians, all converted to Christianity. [DELETED] And you know the old Orthodox Jews, if one of their children converts to Christianity they bury'm! Don't get scared, kids, they don't actually bury the child, most of them by that time are big enough they couldn't very well force'm to be buried, although they'll beat'm up & all kinds of other things. But they take a coffin & they have an official burial service, & as far as they're concerned, from then on their child is "dead." And if anybody asks them [DELETED] "Where's Isaac or Abe or Izzy?"--They'll say, "Oh, he's dead!"
       24. WE HAD THAT HAPPEN TO SEVERAL FRIENDS OF OURS, IN FACT CONVERTS, THEIR RELATIVES OFFICIALLY BURIED THEM! You've heard me speak of Abe Schneider, his family officially buried him! Harry Jules, one of our converts in Miami, his family in New York officially buried him! If they'd write their family letters or anything they'd just throw them away, "No, he's dead." They probably started that practice many many years ago to hide the fact that their children were converted, to deliberately try to deceive others, particularly other Jews, that the child had actually been converted to Christianity. They didn't want to confess that so many of their number were being converted, so they just said they were dead & had an actual funeral & burial service for them, actually buried an empty coffin in the graveyard & put a stone over the head. The Orthodox do it to this day!--Maybe not as much as they used to do when I was a kid, it was very common then.
       25. ANYHOW, THE BRUDERBOND, I'M CONVINCED, WERE BROTHERS IN BONDAGE TO NOT ONLY THE CLUB OR EACH OTHER, BUT TO THE LORD. [DELETED] But that's another subject, I won't get on South Africa tonight, you've heard enough about that!
       26. I NEVER DID FINISH TELLING YOU ABOUT WHAT MY BROTHER DID ON THAT COMMISSION & what the Commission recommended on Progressive Education. The California Board of Education appointed a Commission of all these top educators, smart men like my brother & a lot of others, rabbis, preachers, priests & top laymen on it as well as educators, & they worked on their reports for two or three years, making investigations & getting all kinds of proof & evidence & everybody's stories & talking to teachers & educators & high school principals & all the rest until they finally came up with this:
       27. TO MAKE IT BRIEF, IT JUST SAID, "TOSS OUT ALL OF THIS PROGRESSIVE EDUCATIONAL ROT! We need to institute tough discipline, tough study & just the old basic three R's again to teach these high school kids!" It was high school they were particularly reporting on: "Teach'm how to read, teach'm how to write, teach'm how to do arithmetic so they can go to college & at least be able to read & write, but throw out all that other rot!"
       28. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE CALIFORNIA BOARD OF EDUCATION DID WITH THAT REPORT?--THEY DIDN'T THROW OUT THE ROT, THEY THREW OUT THE REPORT & YOU SEE WHERE IT GOT'M! It was one of the biggest & most important jobs my brother felt he had ever done in the educational field. He thought, "Boy, now at last I've done some good in the World!"--But you see how much good it did, they didn't want to. They didn't want to crack down on the kids & make'm behave, it's hard work. They didn't want to crack down & really teach'm, really work hard teaching like dear Sara & some of you other teachers do to teach them to read & write. It's hard work, right? It's a lot easier for a teacher to come in & sit down in the classroom & put his feet on the desk & read a book while the kids do whatever they want to do!--That's Progressive Education!
       29. SO THE TEACHERS THEMSELVES VOTED AGAINST IT! Think of it! They didn't want to do it. The report was very unpopular, to put it mildly, & the teachers raised a big howl that they didn't want to do it, said they couldn't do it, & of course a lot of them said it's too late--which it was--& now you can read the results in the newspaper almost every day of the horrible mess that U.S. education is in! They still can't read & write!
       30. THE U.S. USED TO PRIDE ITSELF ON LITERACY, but by actual testing, the U.S. is now way down the list on literacy with one of the lowest standards of the ability to read & write of some of the most rich & industrial nations of the World! (Fam: I read a report that said the literacy of Sri Lanka is higher than that of Washington, D.C.!) I don't think it's hard to believe, & if you ever lived in D.C. you know why! In fact, my four kids were about the only White kids in their whole school!
       31. WASHINGTON, D.C., IS 95% NEGRO! Now you know why they vote all those laws to favour the Negroes. [DELETED] What if you were sitting up there in the Capitol Building [DELETED], wouldn't you vote favourably for the Blacks?--Ha! Well, God knows they needed it! [DELETED]
       32. SO ANYHOW, THAT'S THE SAD END OF THAT STORY ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION THAT WAS TRYING TO REFORM THE HIGH SCHOOLS. Mind you now, that's when I was in high school 45 years ago now. 45 years & they've done nothing about it, in fact, they've done worse! No wonder they've got such a bunch of hell-scallions--hellions & rapscallions! I can't think of bad enough names for most of that youth! We've got the best of them, thank the Lord! We got you, saved you out of it, & I really believe they all had a chance in the U.S. then.
       33. BUT IT'S PITIFUL HOW IGNORANT THIS GENERATION IS! They have forsaken the Lord Who is the Source of all wisdom & all knowledge that is good, helpful & useful. They have abandoned God, & with Him they've abandoned the greatest Source of knowledge & wisdom! They think they are becoming smarter & more scientific all the time, but they are actually becoming dumber & more ignorant all the time in the things that really count! They may be able to invent computers & automatons--robots to you--& all the rest of that mechanical junk, but that stuff is eventually going to lead the World to its destruction! "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools!" (Rom.1:22)
       34. IT JUST SHOWS YOU HOW THINGS CAN BE USED EITHER BY THE LORD FOR GOOD--LIKE WE USE COMPUTERS--OR BY THE DEVIL TO DESTROY THE WORLD, because every one of those missiles has a built-in computer to guide it to its destination! Even planes are flown by computers now. So computers can be used for good or evil.
       35. THE DEVIL TOLD THE TRUTH WHEN HE SAID IT WAS THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL! Up to that time all they had was the knowledge of good, because everything was good, there was no evil except for the Devil. But when they partook of that tree, they got the knowledge of evil--good & evil!
       36. YOU SAY, "HOW COME THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD?"--BECAUSE UNTIL THEY HAD THE KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL, ALL THEY HAD WAS GOOD & THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT GOOD WAS! It took the knowledge of evil to give us the knowledge of good, to understand good & what good is. Because without the bad you wouldn't have anything to compare the good with, to know it is good, & that's why the Lord let it happen, so you'd realise you never had it so good, & Adam & Eve never had it so good.
       37. THEY DIDN'T REALLY GET THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD, TO KNOW THAT IT WAS GOOD & WHY IT WAS GOOD & HOW IT WAS GOOD, UNTIL SATAN GAVE THEM THE KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL! Well, he didn't actually give it to them, they yielded to it by eating the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree that God warned them not to eat. That was, of course, the first evil, their lack of faith in the Word of God. The Devil planted doubts in their mind & they believed the Devil instead of the Lord & they partook of the fruit. But what God promised happened, & what the Devil promised happened too--at least half of it! When he said, "Thou shalt not surely die!"--That didn't happen, they did die, it was a lie! The Devil often tells people half-truths that are half-lie & half-truth to get'm to swallow the lie, his sugar-coated pill. (Gen.3:4.) But man did become "as gods"!
       38. BUT IT'S SAD THAT YOUTH TODAY IS SO IGNORANT! Although they have gained so much scientific knowledge about the Universe & the World, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Planets, Solar System, Universe & Galaxies, they're so ignorant of the beautiful order & perfection & marvellous synchronisation of simple little things like the phases of the Moon!
       39. ALF WAS MARVELLING WHEN I WAS TELLING HIM HOW YOU COULD ALMOST TELL WHAT DAY OF THE MONTH IT IS JUST BY LOOKING AT THE MOON! You can at least guess what week you're in! Then I asked him, "Well, how long does it take the new moon to travel over until it becomes the old moon?--From a growing crescent on this side to a little fading crescent that's just beginning to disappear on the other side?" Finally you have a new moon, there's a little crescent reappearing on the right, & you have the new moon. (In Northern Hemisphere--opposite in Southern Hemisphere.)
       40. WELL, I SUPPOSE THEY'VE TAUGHT YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT NOWADAYS & YOU KNOW WHY YOU CAN SEE THE MOON EVEN WHEN THE SUN IS ONLY SHINING ON THE BACK SIDE OF IT? Well, you can still see even the part of the moon that's in the shadow, but why can you see it? (Fam: The sun's reflection on the Earth?) Right! While we sometimes enjoy Moonshine down here, they enjoy Earthshine up there, if anybody's there, maybe some spirits & angels, whatever. But the reason that's the only time you can see that is because almost the whole moon is dark & the light of the sun reflecting on the Earth is shining on the dark side of the moon! Actually the moon is not completely dark. When you can barely see it & there's only a sliver here & a sliver there & you see the dark side, the other side is all nice & bright & sunny, because the sun is still shining on the moon, except during an eclipse of some kind.
       41. "WELL, DAD, WHAT'S ALL THIS BUSINESS ABOUT CREATION & who cares about the phases of the moon & all the university of empty blab?" Well, I don't think it's as empty as some of that junk they taught you in school! People were a lot smarter in those days, before they had clocks & calendars, they could tell you what time of the year it was, what month of the year it was, what week of the month it was, & if they were real good at it, tell you what day of the week or the month it was just by looking at the moon or the stars!
       42. SO GOD HAS MADE A LOT OF MARVELLOUS THINGS & HE PUT THEM UP THERE FOR THAT REASON, HE SAID FOR LIGHTS, TO LIGHT THE DAY & THE NIGHT, & TO BE FOR SIGNS & SEASONS SO YOU'D KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! (Gen.1:14) And long before people had calendars or clocks or any other way of telling time, that was the way they told time. And it's still there & it still works & you can still do it. If you ever got lost out in the woods or out in the desert or somewhere, as many people have, people who were smart & knew about these things managed to find their way home.--People who didn't just died out there, starved to death & died because they didn't know which direction was which or which way to go!
       43. SO GOD HAS MADE EVEN THE PLANETARY SYSTEM OF THESE TWO LITTLE PLANETS, THE EARTH & THE MOON, TO BE A MARVELLOUS TIME CLOCK TO BE ABLE TO TELL TIME BY, & even the day of the year, think of that!--If you're smart enough to be able to read the signs in the sky that God put there for that purpose. Well, maybe you're a little smarter, because you're certainly smarter than the Scribes & the Pharisees. In those days they could read all those signs & tell you what the weather was going to be, etc. Even in those days they had ways of discerning the signs in the sky & the weather, even though they had no meteorologists, so they were pretty smart. But He said, "You can't even discern the signs of the times! You don't even know what day it is spiritually or in history or what's happening right here in your little country!"--I started to say "stinking" country, but it wasn't stinking quite so bad then as it is now, now it's causing the whole World to stink!
       44. BUT YOU FOLKS KNOW THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES! You know what day we're living in--speaking of the term "day" in a broad sense--you know this is the Endtime & we're about to get to the End of things of this Age of history. PYL! Hallelujah! TYJ!
       45. THEY SAY THAT PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE ENTERING THE PERIOD THEY CALL "EL NI{\ul Ñ}O." --Which "El Niño" they're talking about, I don't know. In Catholic countries "El Niño " means the Baby Jesus, but to call this devilish wind that, shows you the perversion of modern people or the demon-worshippers of the past. "El Niño" is a very severe weather period caused by certain conflicting air currents & sea currents & a lot of things that I don't have time to go into now, causing severe changes in the weather, extreme cold like they're having in the U.S., extreme storms like they've been having some places, extreme droughts like they've had other places, extreme floods some places--terrible weather!
       46. IT'S JUST LIKE THE DEVIL IS CUTTIN' UP HELL ALL OVER THE EARTH, & IF YOU ASK ME, HE'S THE "EL NI{\ul Ñ}O " THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT, the little guy that's causing all the trouble & upsetting the climates & the weather in so many different places in so many different ways--which means extreme weather & climactic disturbance, subnormal or abnormal or peculiar. So the "El Niño" period is apparently coming upon the Earth & it's more severe than it's ever been. They've been having earthquakes & volcanic eruptions & all of this seems to have something to do with it. So if you ask me, "El Niño" is the "little Devil," only he's a pretty big Devil at that, causing a lot of trouble all over the World!--Which of course God is allowing for man's sins.
       47. BUT GOD'S CREATION IS FASCINATING! Ever since I was a little kid I've been fascinated with the marvels of His creation & all the things that creation can tell you & all you can learn from it! You can see the Hand of God, hear the Voice of God in it & learn so much about God from it, until the Lord Himself said that "He which is even invisible can be seen in the things that He has made!" (Rom.1:20) That's what that Scripture means. It has kind of a funny wording, but that's what it means.--That in seeing what He has made, what is visible, you can see & know the existence of He Who is invisible, by seeing His handiwork.
       48. THAT'S WHY THE DEVIL HAS TRIED SO HARD TO DEBUNK CREATION & CREATE A LIE SUCH AS EVOLUTION! And I believe that's also why--although they claim to be such great scientists & astronomers & all the rest--they try to pervert astronomical knowledge into a batch of lies, instead of Truths that the Earth can tell you & the rocks can cry out & tell you! They pervert geology into palaeontology, which is nothing but a pack of lies!--Trying to tell you how many millions of years old the World is & how many millions of years old this fossil or that skeleton is, blah blah, a lot of baloney!--No, it's worse than that, I'm just going to say shit, because it's the Devil's shit, it's his horrible lies!
       49. THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW HOW MARVELLOUS THE CREATION IS! They don't want you to know how marvellously designed & planned & how perfectly it operates, better than a clock or any of their machinery! They don't want you to know! They don't want you to marvel at it! But true scientists, honest scientists, are beginning to marvel more & more at it! When I was a kid in the '20s when evolution was first extremely popular, only about 25% of those listed in the American Handbook of Scientists confessed that they believed in God or a Supreme Being or Designer or Creator behind all of this. The last I heard a few years ago, some 70% now believe there was a Designer, Creator or some Supreme Power behind this marvellous Universe!--So true scientists are becoming believers!
       50. THE MORE THEY LEARNED ABOUT HIS CREATION, THE MORE THEY SAW THE HAND OF GOD & THE DESIGN & THE PLAN & THE PERFECTION! Many great scientists have confessed this & I've quoted some of them to you. That's why these modern anti-Christ educators don't want you to learn simple things like the phases of the moon, unless you take Astronomy. Maybe they even gave you that a little bit in General Science, I don't know, but you probably had it one day & forgot it the next. A lot of kids nowadays don't even take General Science, it's too difficult, it's too hard to understand, too scientific & all that stuff. "Who wants to know about how all those things operate, properties of water & properties of matter & physics & all that sort of thing?"
       51. WHEN I WAS A KID, GENERAL SCIENCE INCLUDED HOW THE TOILET OPERATES, how the electric lights & the fuses operate, how the things around the house operate & how to fix'm! How many of you had a General Science book like that, that told you how to fix things around the house?--Just the Europeans! That's where you get a good education, not in the United States!
       52. I ALREADY TOLD YOU HOW MY BROTHER WAS ON A COMMISSION TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALL THESE HIGH SCHOOL GRADS IN CALIFORNIA WHO WERE ARRIVING IN UNIVERSITY & COULDN'T EVEN READ YET, MUCH LESS WRITE! He was one of those big-wig educators once-upon-a-time, because of which he kind of got too far from the Lord, & the whole works & the whole thing went crash! He got to making too much money for Aerojet & a few other things when the War industries were gobbling up the intellectuals, etc. His whole life was wrecked, of course, when he first left the Lord's service & left the Lord. Now he's back, thank the Lord, loves the Lord, had a stroke & will probably die soon, but now he loves me & believes I'm doing a great work! Thank the Lord! There aren't too many people who believe that except the Family, & he certainly didn't believe it in my younger days, that's for sure!
       53. HE USED TO MAKE FUN OF ME FOR SERVING THE LORD & FOR NOT GOING ON & GETTING A GREAT EDUCATION! He'd say, "A guy with an I.Q. like yours, 178, you could go places in the educational field, be a college president, be somebody important & influential & make a lot of money too!"--So he did. He never actually got to be College President, but he was the Vice President of three different colleges: San Francisco State--where they later had all the trouble, you see how much good education does--Oakland State & San Jose State. He was Vice President of three different State Colleges. So the State of California Board of Education had appointed him & his lofty Commission to try to see what to do about illiteracy in the U.S.A. Illiteracy means they can't read or write. Even Techi here can read & write!--At four years old!
       54. THIS WAS AFTER PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION HAD MADE ITS INROADS IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA--one of the most progressive liberal-minded States. Progressive Education not only meant that you just passed them from grade to grade--they have a special name for it--but the fundamental theme of the progressive educators was, "Don't make them learn if they don't want to. Catch them in the mood. Try to interest them, & if you can catch them in the mood when they're curious, if you can rouse their curiosity & you can interest them in something that they want to know, then teach'm, then tell'm, then give'm a book on the subject to read."
       55. WELL, THE ONLY TROUBLE WITH MOST OF THAT WAS THAT MOST OF THOSE LITTLE WILD HELLIONS COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT DOPE & DRUGS & MISCHIEF! That was all that interested them, therefore they didn't want to read, they didn't want to write, they didn't want to learn math, they just wanted to cause trouble!--Until the classrooms became bedlam & the teachers couldn't even be heard or keep order in the so-called "progressive education" system. They were progressing, all right, straight toward Hell, & have been going that direction ever since!
       56. UP TO THAT TIME TEACHING WAS A SACRIFICIAL CALLING, you did it because you loved the kids & you wanted to help them & teach them & train them, you really had a burden for children & young people. It was considered about the next thing to the Ministry & the old country doctor who paid visits & really tried to keep the people healthy, like Dr. Koger.--Now they pay'm to keep them sick!
       57. THE HIGHEST-PAID TEACHERS IN CALIFORNIA WERE THOSE WHO TAUGHT THE GRADE LEVEL I TAUGHT, WHICH HAD THE MOST DISCIPLINARY TROUBLES & PROBLEMS & WHERE THEY WERE HAVING ALL KINDS OF CRIME & JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, THE 13- & 14-YEAR-OLDS! The kids were big enough to cause trouble but not yet smart enough to stay out of it. So they paid the teachers that had to teach 7th & 8th grades the highest pay in the California secondary educational system, more than they paid them after the kids got to be juniors & seniors, because by that time they were getting a little bit smarter & found out crime didn't pay quite as much. Of course, I don't know about them now, they're probably just as bad, if not worse!
       58. IT GOT TO BE A COMMON SCANDAL THAT THE TEACHER COULDN'T DO ANYTHING, so he just sat down at his desk & read a book during class while the kids just had a free-for-all! This was in the average California high school, believe it or not, especially the big city high schools where there were a bunch of juvenile delinquents & criminals anyhow!
       59. IF YOU'VE EVER SEEN THE FAMOUS MOVIE ABOUT NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS, THAT'S WHERE IT ALL STARTED, IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, that New York, [DELETED] Hell-on-wheels, anti-Christ University! So much of the worst stuff that ever got into the U.S. came through that totally anti-Christ university! That's where Progressive Education was first taught & began, until the schools of New York had "sown the wind & they reaped the wild wind!" (Hos.8:7)
       60. THE MOVIE "ASPHALT JUNGLE" SHOWED TOO CLEARLY THAT THE TEACHER HAD BECOME THE VICTIM OF THE STUDENTS! They nearly killed their teachers, & in a few cases they have--& beat'm up! The students ruled the classroom, the gangs ruled the classroom! If the teacher didn't get the gang leader on his side it was a hopeless case, & the only way to get the gang leader on your side was to pass him & do him favours & do what he told you to do. There have probably been a few more movies made on that subject, because there's been plenty of it!
       61. BUT THAT WAS THE WHOLE PRINCIPLE OF MODERN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION: "LET THE KIDS DO WHATEVER THEY WANT TO, LET THEM DO WHAT THEY FEEL LIKE DOING!" Dr. Spock taught that & ruined a whole generation or two: "Don't spank the poor little kid or you might injure his psyche & you might impair him psychologically for the rest of his life! Don't say 'no'--it will result in frustration! Don't teach him right & wrong--it will result in a sense of guilt!"--The Devil's whole system from start to finish! He absolutely wrecked a whole generation of American youth by teaching their parents that, that they couldn't train their children, couldn't teach their children, couldn't exert discipline, spank or [EDITED: "be firm"] with them or say "no" & enforce it! "Just let the little rapscallion & the little hellion do as he pleases & that will make him happy."--That's a lie of the Devil!
       62. THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES ANYBODY HAPPY IS OBEYING THE RULES--the rules that God set down in the first place--obeying God & His rules & even some of the rules of the System. The System is here to preserve at least some kind of order & bring some kind of order out of chaos & anarchy, & we're to obey the "powers that be," the government. (Rom.13:1) But all this latest philosophy is anarchy & will result in total chaos as it's doing today!
       63. THIS IS ALL THE SAME THING THE DEVIL BEGAN BACK THERE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN WHEN HE SAID, "HATH GOD SAID? God said you shouldn't do that, well, that's because God doesn't want you to know that if you do this you'll have lots more fun!" Well, Adam & Eve did that & what happened?--They didn't have a lot more fun, they had nothing but trouble from then on. So that has been the Devil's system of education & his main sales talk & lie from the very beginning: "Hath God said thus & so? It isn't so! You do what I tell you & that's the way you'll have fun!" He even took the credit for sex & all the rest! "Enjoy sex & have fun!" Well, that's one time when he was actually right. Since the church has taken such a stand against it, the Devil had to take a pro-sex stand, but of course a lot of the things he advocates in sex are terribly wrong!
       64. SO THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION HAS TAKEN ON THAT ATTITUDE THAT THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES: "There's no God, therefore there are no commandments, there are no rules, there's no right & wrong, there are no absolutes, there's no reason why you should be considerate of your fellow man, there's no reason you shouldn't be for yourself--'me first'!" They've even got guys writing books now about "How to be happy is me first! Don't worry about anybody else, just think about me, I! The big I! The big me!"--Books!--Absolute lies of the Devil, because that's the way to be miserable!
       65. SEEKING THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS & TRYING TO HELP OTHERS & MAKE OTHERS HAPPY, AS GOD HAS ORDERED US TO DO, IS THE ONLY WAY TO BRING TRUE HAPPINESS, GENUINE HAPPINESS! That little song has got it all summed up beautifully: "The way to be happy is to make others happy & we'll have a little Heaven right here!" If you'll try to make others happy, it'll make you happy, & you'll have a little Heaven right here on Earth!--Contrary to the Preamble of ... is it the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?--That Americans are guaranteed the right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.--And they've been chasing it ever since & never found it! Because you don't find happiness by chasing it, happiness finds you by your bringing happiness to others. That's God's system, that's God's rule, that's God's way, that's God's Law of Love. God'll make you happy if you make others happy. It's that simple!
       66. I'VE EVEN TOLD PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN CHRISTIANS FOR YEARS THAT THAT WAS THE WAY TO BE HAPPY. I told that to one woman who'd married husband after husband after husband & couldn't find a man who could make her happy--Mary Ulm! I finally said, "Why don't you go out & try to find some dear old man that you can make happy, maybe it'll work!"--And she married the guy & last I heard she was still living with him & quite happy, until she crossed us! Well, PTL! The only way to be happy is to make others happy & you'll have a little Heaven right here!
       67. SO THAT SYSTEM OF PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION BEGAN IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, THE DEVIL'S OWN FIRST LESSON IN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION, THE LIES OF THE DEVIL, THAT THE KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL COULD HELP TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! Well, the Lord allowed it because He saw that the only way Man, His creation, would ever learn, was through that bitter experience, because you never learn as well as you do through experience. And Adam & Eve learned, let me tell you, when they were driven out of the Garden & had to go out & find clothes to wear & till the soil for their food instead of just running around naked in a perfect climate picking their food off the trees & enjoying sex to the full without even thinking that nudity & sex were evil!
       68. LET ME TELL YOU, THEY FOUND OUT WHAT GOOD WAS AFTER THEY LOST IT! They then realised they'd never had it so good as they'd had it in the Garden when they obeyed God & kept His rules & had perfect liberty & freedom in everything. The trouble was, you see, in the Garden before the Fall they didn't know what good was, because they didn't have anything to compare it with. So the Lord had to let the Devil in & He had to allow evil to come in, & He had to let the Devil lie to them & test them so that they would learn--not only what evil was, but for the first time in their life really understand & learn what good was! So it was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, because until they partook of that tree & the knowledge of evil, they never had known what the knowledge of good was. They never realised how good they had it! They really didn't understand good, that it was all good. How did they know it was good?--They didn't have any evil to compare it with!
       69. AS I'VE OFTEN SAID, YOU WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT LIGHT WAS UNLESS YOU'D KNOWN DARKNESS. You don't really appreciate health until you've known sickness. You don't appreciate wealth unless you've known poverty. You don't appreciate that marvellous Heavenly relief & release from pain unless you've known pain! Some of you poor folks who have headaches & things know what I'm talking about. I do too. Thank God headaches are usually not my problem, the Devil attacks me in other parts of my body. But I have known pain, & ah, it's such a Heavenly release & relief when the pain passes, then you appreciate health when you don't have that pain!
       70. THE LORD HAD TO LET ALL THAT HAPPEN SO THAT YOU WOULD REALLY LEARN & APPRECIATE THE GOOD & THE MARVELLOUS GOOD WORLD YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE IN THE FUTURE without all of that pain & evil, etc., the kind of World He expected you & wanted you to live in in the first place & which He made the World to be & the way it was to begin with, & the way Man was to begin with. But He saw that Man didn't really appreciate it, didn't really understand it, had nothing to compare it with to know it was so good & so beautiful & so wonderful & such Heaven-on-Earth & so perfect with no evil!
       71. SO HE HAD TO LET MAN EXPERIENCE EVIL TO REALLY APPRECIATE GOOD, TO EXPERIENCE SIN IN ORDER TO APPRECIATE SALVATION! So now when He re-creates a Heavenly life in the Millennium & puts you & me in it along with all the rest of those sinners, at least some of us are going to appreciate it & appreciate the difference! Don't you think you'll know the difference in the Millennium between that & the kind of a Hell-on-Earth the World is living in today?--In our Homes we have a little Heaven-on-Earth, but most of the World is living in Hell-on-Earth!
       72. SO THANK GOD FOR OUR TRULY PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IN WHICH WE'RE LEARNING MORE & MORE TRUTH EVERY DAY!--Amen?--And we're gonna have to teach it to the whole World in the Millennium!--So get all you can here & now for There & Then!--Amen? GBAKY learning more of God's real Progressive Education every day!--In Jesus' name, amen!
       Are you progressing in your Family's education?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family

       

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family