Anyone wondering why Massachusetts is so much wealthier and more reality-based, which is to say more progressive, enlightened and politically independent, than other parts of the country, and the world, need look no further than this note about our glorious past from the archives of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities:
In 1642, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first law in the New World requiring that children be taught to read and write. The English Puritans who founded Massachusetts believed that the well-being of individuals, along with the success of the colony, depended on a people literate enough to read both the Bible and the laws of the land. Concerned that parents were ignoring the first law, in 1647 Massachusetts passed another one requiring that all towns establish and maintain public schools. It would be many years before these schools were open to all children. Only in the mid-nineteenth century was universal free public schooling guaranteed – in time, made compulsory — for Massachusetts children.
Note the discipline — everyone must learn to read and write — and the focus: education. It implementation was flawed — schools were not open to all children — but the basic idea was correct. Contrast this with the current Republican embrace of ignorance and its denigration of learning as a matter of rhetoric and budgets. Scott Brown’s campaign uses the word “professor,” for example, as an insult, and “Harvard” as if it was a name to be wiped from one’s shoe rather than the third largest employer in the Commonwealth (and, with the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Mass. General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital all of the top three employers). “I prefer ignorance” could be his campaign slogan. This shows how deeply he is out of step with Massachusetts values and the history that has made us great and is the key to our continued prosperity.
SomervilleTom says
Is the GOP so intellectually bankrupt that its flagrant embrace of ignorance is its only hope? It isn’t just the Scott Brown campaign, although his “elitist” attacks are emblematic of the phenomena — the entire GOP has seemingly embraced ignorance as the centerpiece of its campaign.
In so doing, they convey a contempt for the American voter that I simply astonishes me because of how insulting it is. The prospective GOP voter opposes education, sees a reliance on science as “liberal” (which the GOP has attempted to turn into an epithet), and embraces blind superstition. I certainly hope that this extraordinarily negative assessment of the American voter is mistaken — and if so, then these campaigns can only help Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party.
Christopher says
dcsohl says
That’s an interesting list of employers in the Commonwealth… It lists Harvard as being #3 with 10,000 employees and #8 with 7800 employees. I guess it depends on how you look at it?
Mark L. Bail says
Hartford Hospital, which I’ve never heard of as being a Massachusetts employer. Baystate Medical is a huge employer out here. I can’t find anything to say they are affiliated. Maybe they are, but I’ve never heard about it.