One of the childhood stories in my father’s arsenal is set at lunchtime in his local public school. Although he went home for lunch, he often heard his teacher leading the classroom in a group rendition of “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest,” as he gathered his things before walking across the street. A few short years later, the winds changed, and he was bawled out in class for disagreeing with a lesson due to his Christian beliefs.

His experience prompts an important question: Should Christian prayers take place in public schools?

American answers to that question all depend upon where one lives, a recent Pew Research report found. Many states – particularly in the South and middle portions of the country – say yes. But more states either oppose or are evenly divided on the issue than those which favor it.

The fact that so many states favor Christian prayers in public schools may come as a surprise to those who have long been told that the American education system is a bastion of secularism, the place where that proverbial “wall of separation” between church and state reigns supreme.

Such surprise may be lessened, however, if we look at what the American founders anticipated being taught in the nation’s schools. Here are four of those interesting recommendations – religious or otherwise.

1) Christianity

Benjamin Rush, a signer of both the Declaration and the Constitution, recommended teaching religion, particularly Christianity. “[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion,” he wrote, noting that the virtue religion teaches is the seed of liberty necessary for a republic to survive.

Rush said that he would rather see “the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth” than see them raised in the void of secularism like we see in today’s classrooms. “But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is that of the New Testament.”

Why? “[A]ll its doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society, and the safety and well being of civil government,” Rush wrote, expounding several reasons in favor of Christianity’s instruction in the classroom:

A Christian, I say again, cannot fail of being a republican, for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self-denial, and brotherly kindness, which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy and the pageantry of a court. A Christian cannot fail of being useful to the republic, for his religion teacheth him, that no man ‘liveth to himself.’ And lastly, a Christian cannot fail of being wholly inoffensive, for his religion teacheth him, in all things to do to others what he would wish, in like circumstances, they should do to him.

2) Character

The esteemed Benjamin Franklin noted the importance of character training in American education, particularly through an examination of history, observing how those who have gone before advanced or declined because of their character or lack thereof. He encourages instruction in “the Advantages of Temperance, Order, Frugality, Industry, Perseverance,” as well as “the Beauty and Usefulness of Virtue of all Kinds, Publick Spirit, Fortitude, etc.”

In recent years, the government has endorsed classroom behavior policies that focus more on the color of a student’s skin rather than the content of his character. This has left many classrooms in disarray, with teachers physically injured thanks to student violence, while other students endure chaos, unable to learn much of anything. Perhaps reinstating Franklin’s curriculum of character would be a first step toward remedying many of these overwhelming issues.

3) Cultivation of Heroes

Although not a signer of the Declaration or Constitution, Noah Webster is often considered an American founder for his role in shaping the nation’s education system through his speller and dictionary. Contrary to popular wisdom today, which suggests that our American heroes should be vilified and erased from memory, Webster believed students should be taught to honor and imitate those who went before:

But every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen, who have wrought a revolution in her favor.

Such focus on American heroes, Webster implies, creates a love of country in students and helps them to understand it better – a fact which will help them to wisely join in its governance and guidance in future years.

4) Cursive

“All should be taught to write a fair Hand, and swift, as that is useful to All,” Benjamin Franklin wrote in his “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania.”

America ignored that advice when it threw cursive writing instruction out the window in 2010 thanks to Common Core standards. As a result, an entire generation of students cannot write legibly or swiftly, a fact which decreases their brain power to remember and retain information.

These four recommendations – broad and wide-ranging as they are – were accepted as givens by the American founders, necessities that should be a part of every American child’s education. Yet they’re almost non-existent in today’s public schools – the same schools that are in vast disarray. Perhaps that disarray might be quickly remedied if we began implementing the lessons those who established our nation thought so essential to its survival?

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Picryl