Ann writes: > I believe our Founders were in the > main embued with not only a classical education but were schooled too in > contemporary philosophical thought. The tiny minority were. The bulk of the folk who fought the wars to take the land, tilled the soil, made the hardware and furnishings of everyday life, were schooled in religious thought of specific types, but little else not associated with a trade until well into the 19th century. The slaves who did so much of the practical work were by law not allowed to have book-education. Some "contemporary philosophical thought" justified the practices of enslavement and colonialism. The 19th- and 20th-century inheritors of the State of the classically-trained Founders thought it wise to eradicate cultures, tear apart social fabric by use of schooling as a political weapon, using prevailing "philosophical thought" as rationale: Manifest Destiny, White Man's Burden, and so forth. Judy