Before our U.S. Constitution was ratified, the Northwest Ordinance established America’s first federal law to address education. That law was passed by the same Founding Fathers who gave us the First Amendment to the Constitution later on.

Article III of the law directly linked religion and formal education together by proclaiming: “Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Please note that, of these three essentials, religion was mentioned first.

Religion was defined as a fundamental system of beliefs concerning man’s origin to the cosmic universe, as well as his relationship with his fellowmen. Morality was described as a standard of behavior, distinguishing right from wrong. Knowledge was defined as an intellectual awareness and understanding of established facts relating to any field of human experience or inquiry (i.e. history, geography, science, etc.).

In order to know about morality, you had to know religion and the Bible. In order to get knowledge, you also had to know about religion and the Bible.

Daniel Webster, a committed Christian, famous politician, diplomat and a great orator, said in 1843 regarding Americans: “Wherever they went, the Bible came with them … the Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity and his equality with his fellowman.”

Our present education establishment, (both public schools and colleges), has been ordered not to teach Bible principles or Christianity in the classrooms. The Founding Fathers would have counted this extremely important missing piece in the education of our young people, which has undoubtedly caused a steady moral decline and a gigantic push toward the coming destruction of America.

Bob Nesbit

Owatonna