The Weekly Sam: Reprint from February, 1929, The Journal of Educational Psychology. THE “SIGHT READING” METHOD OF TEACHING READING, AS A SOURCE OF READING DISABILITY SAMUEL T. ORTON, A.M. M.D.
Reprint from February, 1929, The Journal of Educational Psychology.
THE “SIGHT READING” METHOD OF TEACHING READING,
AS A SOURCE OF READING DISABILITY
SAMUEL T. ORTON, A.M. M.D.
New York City
I feel some trepidation in offering criticism in a field somewhat outside of that
of my own endeavor but a very considerable part of my attention for the past four
years has been given to the study of reading disability from the standpoint of
cerebral physiology. This work has now extended over a comparatively large
series of cases from many different schools and both the theory which has directed
this work and the observations gained therefrom seem to bear with sufficient
directness on certain teaching methods in reading to warrant critical suggestions
which otherwise might be considered overbold.
I wish to emphasize at the beginning that the strictures which I have to offer
here do not apply to the use of the sight method of teaching reading as a whole but
only to its effect on a restricted group of children for whom, as I think we can
show, this technique is not only not adapted but often proves an actual obstacle to
reading progress, and moreover I believe that this group is one of considerable
educational importance both because of its size and because here faulty teaching
methods may not only prevent the acquisition of academic education by children of
average capacity but may also give rise to far reaching damage to their emotional
life. The sight reading method (or “look and say” of the English) has been credited
with giving much faster progress in the acquisition of reading facility than its
precursors and this statement I will not challenge if the measure of
accomplishment be the average progress of a group or class. Average progress of
large numerical units, however, makes no allowance for the study of effect in
individual, particularly if certain of them deviate to some degree from the others in
their methods of acquisition and therefore in their teaching requirements. To the
mental hygienist whose interest is focused on the individual and his problems
rather than on group progress the results as determined by average accomplishment
are of little value whereas the effect of a given method on the individual child is all
important.
Outstanding cases of so-called “congenital word blindness”—a complete
inability to learn to read—have been recognized and studied for a number of years
at first chiefly by physicians. It has also been recognized by teachers and
psychologists that there is a large group of children who have a much greater
difficulty in getting started in reading than would be expected from their ability in
arithmetic, from then ease in auditory acquisition and from their general alertness.
In the past there has been a tendency, at least among medical men, and to a
considerable degree among psychologists as well to exclude the minor cases of
slow learning in reading from the category of congenital word blindness. This
largely derives from the work of Hinshelwood1 who made the first extensive study
of these cases following the pioneer work of Kerry
and Morgan.
Hinshelwood’s
statement in this is “. . . the rapidity and ease with which children learn to read by
sight vary a great deal. No doubt it is a comparatively common thing to find some
who lag considerably behind their fellows, because of their slowness and difficulty
in acquiring their visual word memories, but I regard these slight defects as only
physiological variations and not to be regarded as pathological conditions. It
becomes a source of confusion to apply to such cases as has been done of late the
term of ‘congenital word blindness’ which should be reserved for the really grave
degrees of this defect which manifestly are the result of a pathological condition of
the visual memory center and which have proved refractory to all ordinary
methods of school instruction.” Unfortunately, Hinchelwood’s criterion is a
double one, neither part of which can be looked upon as of sufficient diagnostic
accuracy to establish a clear-cut entity. Not only has no pathological condition of
the visual memory center yet been substantiated in such cases but there are certain
neurological and clinical data which suggest that no such condition exists. Again,
the “ordinary methods of school instruction” does not prove to be an accurate
measure. Such methods vary widely and our own figures indicate that the number
of children who show a significant handicap in reading is to some degrees related
to the teaching method in use. Bachmann
has called attention to the looseness of
the concept of congenital word blindness and related to this the striking variation in
the frequency of such cases as recorded by various authors. Without some fairly
clear objective symptoms on which to establish the entity, the choice of cases to be
included naturally rests on the judgment of the examiner as to the severity of the
disability.
My own initial work
in this field led to a firm conviction that we were
dealing here, not with two separate groups—a physiological and a pathological—
but that those children who were specifically retarded in reading (thus excluding
cases of general mental defect) formed a graded series extending from the normal
to the extreme and that they showed consistent characteristic performance which
not only would serve for diagnosis but which also was highly suggestive of the
reason for their lack of progress and which gave excellent cues to methods for
retraining. I was convinced not only that the specific reading disability formed an
entity of much greater numerical importance than had been recognized before but
that it was (even in the extreme cases) an obstacle of a physiological nature rather
than a pathological condition and that therefore adequate special methods of
teaching should correct it.
I can not here go fully into the details of the anatomical background for our
present theory of this disability but some presentation is necessary in order to
illustrate the basis for the criticism of teaching method which is here offered.
Only a small portion of the retina of the eye is used in acquisition of reading.
This is the focus of central vision or the macula lutea, so called because it is seen
as a yellow spot in ophthalmoscopic examinations. The rest of the retina receives
only general and less detailed impressions coming from outside the rather small
area to which we are directing our attention. This point is noteworthy because the
nervous connections of these two divisions of the retina are quite unlike. The
peripheral retina or outer zone has connections with only one-half of the brain
(there are some complexities here but these need not concern us). The macula
lutea, however, which receives impressions with greatest detail and which is hence
used exclusively in learning to read, has a double connection with the brain. The
nerve fibers arising here divide and one-half of those starting from each macula
lueta to the visual area of the hemisphere of the brain of the same side and the
other half to the corresponding area of the opposite hemisphere. Thus impressions
received by either eye, or by both eyes, are relayed simultaneously to both
hemispheres of the brain. This double implantation does not give us a double
sensation in consciousness, however, as a touch on both thumbs would do. The
simultaneous activity of both areas results in our seeing but a single image. The
visual sensation, however, is not a unitary function.
There is apparently need for
the simultaneous or additive activity of several parts of the visual cerebral
mechanisms to complete the linkage of a printed symbol with its meaning and the
steps in this process arc shown in relief by differential losses such as are seen when
certain parts of the back of the brain are destroyed by disease. When all of that
part of the brain which has to do with vision is destroyed the individual becomes
totally blind. The eyes, however, are not damaged and they can still be moved and
they will turn toward a sudden sound and the pupils will respond by closing and
opening to increase and decrease of the amount of light which strikes them. This
condition is known as cortical blindness, to differentiate it from blindness due to
disease of the eyes or optic nerves. We may, however, see things surrounding us
with sufficient clarity to avoid colliding with them, that is to guide our general
body movements but without being able to appreciate the meaning of things which
we see.
This was first demonstrated by Munk in dogs in which much of this part
of the brain had been removed. They were able to avoid collisions but did not
recognize their master or even food by sight alone, and did not cringe from a whip.
To this condition Munk gave the name of mindblindness and its parallel has since
frequently been recorded in cases of disease of the human brain. Apparently at the
first level the visual area of the brain serves as a very accurate guide to motion and
it probably also furnishes the element of awareness of the external origin of a
sensation (as contrasted to & memory). In psychological terms it furnishes the
pure perceptual element to sensation but simultaneous or additive activity in other
higher level visual areas are requisite to attach meaning and again we know that
this is not accomplished in one step. If destruction of brain tissue happens in a
certain area there results a condition in which the patient not only can see correctly
but can also understand the meaning of objects seen, but in which the ability to
read the printed or written word is entirely lost.
That vision in the ordinary sense
is normal, is shown by the fact that such a patient can copy printed material but
cannot read either the original or his copy. Thus we see from these differential
losses that the process of linking a printed word to its meaning passes through at
least three stages of elaboration in the brain before it is completed.
There are differences, however, in the brain destruction necessary to produce
losses at these different elaborative levels. Destruction in one hemisphere only is
not sufficient to produce either cortical blindness or mindblindness. At these first
two levels of elaboration, that is in perception and recognition of the meaning of
objects, apparently destruction must involve the areas subserving these functions in
both hemispheres before their loss results. The two hemispheres are apparently of
equal importance here as it apparently makes no difference which side is affected;
i.e., either hemisphere is alone adequate for these functions. Exception must be
taken to these statements in the case of peripheral vision but, as noted before, this
is not of interest to us here since central vision is used exclusively in learning to
read.
When we come to the third plane of elaboration, the situation is strikingly
different, this is the level at which the written or printed symbol is linked with its
meaning and hence it is variously described as the associative, concept, or
symbolic level. Here not only is damage to one hemisphere sufficient to destroy
function but it makes a difference which hemisphere is affected.
If the hemisphere
which is known as the dominant happens to suffer, a complete loss of this function
results and the patient becomes word blind. If, on the other hand, the damage
occurs in the other hemisphere—the non-dominant—nothing apparently happens.
So entirely without result is a destruction here that this area of the brain takes its
place with certain others among those which the surgeons called the “silent areas”
of the brain. Obviously, the visual records implanted in both halves of the brain
are not requisite for reading. This situation also exists in the field of understanding
of the spoken word, and of speech and of writing. In all four of these functions
destruction in the dominant hemisphere in the so-called language zone is
meaningful while destruction in exactly similar parts of the opposite hemisphere is
meaningless.
Thus we learn to understand, to read, to speak, and to write words from sensory
records or engrams of one hemisphere only. This fact is so striking that we have
been prone to overlook what must happen in the inactive side. We believe today
that the completed growth and development of nerve coils is largely a result of
stimulation. If cells do not receive stimuli they do not reach their full
development. The two sides of the brain do not show much, if any, difference in
size or complexity and certainly no such difference as we see in function as
outlined above. To account for equality of growth we must accept equality of
stimulation—equal nervous irradiated of the two sides—and if they are equally
irradiated, records must be left behind in each; i.e., engrams must be formed in the
non-dominant as well as in the dominant hemisphere.
To account then for the
difference in effect of damage in the two sides we must assume that the engrams of
one side become the controlling pattern through establishment of a physiological
habit of use of that set and that the other set of recorded engrams is latent or elided.
Variations in the completeness of this physiological selection, i.e., failure of elision
of the non-dominant engrams, forms the kernel of my conception of the reading
disability. Such a theory conforms nicely to our observations that these cases are
not to be divided into two categories, that is, cases of word blindness and cases
of slow acquisition of reading, but that they form a series graded in severity
according to the degree of confusion which exists in choice of engrains and it also
offers an explanation of certain errors and peculiarities which characterize their
performance.
The two halves of the body are strictly antitropic, that is, reversed or mirrored
copies of each other. The muscles and joints of the right and left hand, for
example, are alike but reversed in arrangement. This is also true of the groups of
nerve cells in the spinal cord which control the simpler motor responses (spinal
reflexes) and also of the cells in the brain which combine or integrate these simpler
spinal units into more complex acts.
The movements of the left hand, therefore,
which are the exact counterpart of the right will give a mirrored result. Thus, the
movements of sinistrad (mirror) writing with the left hand are exactly comparable
to those of dextrad writing with the right hand and it seems therefore highly
probable that the engrams which are stored in the silent areas of the non-dominant
hemisphere are opposite in sigh, i.e., mirrored copies, of those in the dominant. If
then these opposite engrams are not elided through establishment of consistent
selection from one hemisphere we would expect them to evince themselves by
errors or confusion in direction and orientation and this is exactly what we find in
cases of delayed reading.
This description is really “putting the cart before the horse” as our observations
of tendency to reversals came first and the theory developed therefrom but this
method of presentation has been adopted for the sake of clarity. Many workers
with word blind children have noted their tendency to reversals but none, so far as
I am aware, have offered an adequate explanation of it.
My original studies in a small group of cases convinced me that there were
certain “symptoms” in reading disability which seemed to characterize the whole
group and these were confusions between lower case b and d and between p and q,
uncertainty in reading short pallindromic words like was and saw, not and ton, and
on and no; a tendency to reverse parts of words or whole syllables as when gray is
read as gary, tarnish as tarshin and tomorrow as tworrom; a greater facility than
usual in reading from the mirror, and frequently a facility in producing mirror
writing.
These observations have been adequately supported in an extended study
of a much larger group of cases. Many other types of errors are to be found in the
performance of retarded readers but they appear to me to be secondary effects due
to the failure of association which has resulted from the obstacle presented by
confusion in direction. The relation of the cardinal symptoms to the theory as
above outlined is obvious and I think has direct bearing on the teaching method.
Visual presentation will, hypothetically at least, result in the implantation of paired
engrams and certain other factors must determine which of these is selected for
associative linkage.
What these factors are as a whole, we can not consider here
although it may be well to suggest that heredity probably plays a part in the
establishment of dominance here comparable to that which it plays in stuttering
and in left-handedness. Undoubtedly training influences may be brought to bear
on this process of choice, however, and from the theoretical standpoint the most
promising of these should be that of kinesthetic training by tracing or writing while
reading and sounding and by following the letters with the finger (a method under
taboo today) to insure consistent direction of reading during phonetic synthesis of
the word or syllable.
Under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, an extended field study was
carried out in 1926-27 in Iowa by the organization, as a part of the research work
of the State Psychopathic Hospital, of a Mobile Mental Hygiene Unit to visit
schools in various communities and a Laboratory Unit to study selected cases more
intensively. Fuller reports of these studies are to appear elsewhere but certain
observations may be quoted here. In my original group of reading disability cases,
I was surprised at the large proportion of these children encountered. Fifteen out
of one hundred twenty-five children sent by their teachers to our experimental field
clinic for a variety of problems6 seemed to me to show evidence of this trouble. In
our extended work we have found in every community visited no less than two per
cent of the total school population to be retarded readers showing this
characteristic picture. Our studies were not carried out as a survey and hence these
figures probably fall far below the actual numbers.
There was however a difference
in the numbers of cases encountered in certain communities which seemed to bear
directly on the subjects here considered. Of two communities of about the same
constituent population, in one we found about two per cent of the school
population to be retarded in reading to a significant degree and to show
symptomatic evidence of the specific disability, while in the second we found more
then double this percentage. In the community with the lesser number of cases,
sight reading methods were employed but when children did not progress by this
method, they were also given help by the phonetic method. In the town with the
larger number, no child was given any other type of reading training until he or she
had learned ninety words by sight.
Aside then from theoretical considerations, this strongly suggests that the sight
method not only will not eradicate a reading disability of this type but may actually
produce a number of cases. Moreover, our retraining experiments7
seem to indicate clearly that such children can be trained to read properly with adequate
special methods devised to eradicate the confusion in direction and in orientation
and this has also been borne out by the remedial efforts of other workers.
Our studies of children with reading disabilities has also brought to light certain
other aspects of the problem which are of educational importance but which can
not be elaborated here.
Among these were notably the effect of this unrecognized
disability, upon the personality and behavior of the child. Many children were
referred to our clinics by their teachers in the belief that they were feeble-minded,
others exhibited conduct disorders and undesirable personality reactions which
upon analysis appeared to be entirely secondary to the reading defect and which
improved markedly when special training was instituted to overcome the reading
disability.
In brief, while “sight reading” may give greater progress when measured by the
average of a group, it may also prove a serious obstacle to educable children who
happen to deviate from the average in the case of establishment of a clear-cut
unilateral brain habit. These physiological deviates form a graded group extending
in severity from the normal to extreme cases (congenital word blindness). They
can be detected by appropriate examinations and trained to overcome their
handicap by specific methods of teaching. While the number of children who
suffer from such a severe grade of the disability as to be practically uneducable by
ordinary methods is quite small, the number in whom the disability exists to a
sufficient degree to be a serious handicap to school performance and to wholesome
personality development probably is of real numerical importance and moreover
there seems to be reason to believe that even those who make a spontaneous
adjustment without special training, and thus learn to read, may never gain a
facility in this accomplishment commensurate with their ability in other lines.
REFERENCES
1. Hinshelwood, James: “Congenital Word Blindness.” Lewis, London 1917.
2. Kerr, James: The Howard Price Essay of the Royal Statistical Society, 1896.
3. Pringle, Morgan W.: “A Case of Congenital Wordblindness.” British Medical Journal,
July 11, 1896.
4. Bachmann, Fritz: “Uber Kongenitale Wortblindheist.” Karger, Berlin, 1927.
5. Orton, S. T.: “Wordblindness” in School Children. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry,
Vol. XIV, Nov., 1925.
6. Lyday, June F.: The Greene County Medical Clinic. Mental Hygiene. Vol. X, No. 4,
October, 1926.
7. Monroe, Marion: Genetic Psychology Monograms. Oct.-Nov. Nov., 1928.
Edited by Donald L. Potter on 5/31/03 from an OCR scan of a Reprint.
www.donpotter.net
The above article came from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives- a free on-line recourse. Please visit and sign up; http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
Samuel Morse’s Telegraph; and slavery conditions in early U.S. described by his father, Jedediah Morse, “Father of American Geography” – American Minute with Bill Federer
The world of communication was revolutionized by Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who died April 2, 1872.
Samuel F.B. Morse invented the Telegraph and the Morse Code.
He graduated from Yale in 1810, and became one of the greatest portrait artists.
He founded the National Academy of Design, and served as its president for 20 years.
In 1831, Morse was appointed to the first chair of fine arts in America, the Professor of Sculpture and Painting at New York University.
Morse obtained a patent for his telegraph, but found it difficult to get financial backers.
During the anxious days between failure and success, Samuel F.B. Morse wrote to his wife:
“The only gleam of hope, and I can not underrate it, is from confidence in God. When I look upward it calms my apprehensions for the future, and I seem to hear a voice saying:
‘If I clothe the lilies of the field, shall I not also clothe you?’ Here is my strong confidence, and I will wait patiently for the direction of Providence.”
In 1843, Congress agreed to underwrite Morse to erect the first telegraph lines between Baltimore and the U.S. Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C.
In 1843, Congress agreed to underwrite Morse to erect the first telegraph lines between Baltimore and the U.S. Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C.He demonstrated the telegraph for the first time on May 24, 1844, allowing Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of a friend, to chose the message. She selected a verse from the Bible, Numbers 23:23,
“What hath God wrought?”
The Morse Code, considered the first digital binary code, became an international means of telecommunications.
It revolutionized the transfer of information and knowledge worldwide, and became the basis for all later advancements in communication.
Samuel Morse wrote:“Every child has a dream, to pursue the dream is in every child’s hand to make it a reality. One’s invention is another’s tool.”
“Education without religion is in danger of substituting wild theories for the simple commonsense rules of Christianity.”
Four years before his death, Samuel F.B. Morse wrote:
“The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, the grandeur and sublimity of God’s remedy for fallen man are more appreciated, and the future is illumined with hope and joy.”
Samuel F.B. Morse was the son of educator Jedediah Morse, known as “Father of American Geography.”
Jedediah Morse published:
- Geography Made Easy, 1784, the first geography book published in the United States;
- The American Geography, 1789;
- Elements of Geography, 1795;
- The American Gazetteer, 1797;
- A New Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent, 1802;
- A Compendious History of New England, 1804; and
- Annals of the American Revolution.
Jedediah Morse received his Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1795.
Morse was a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College during a fateful controversy.
In 1803, Harvard’s Hollis Professor of Divinity, David Tappan, died, and the following year Harvard’s President, Joseph Willard, died.
Morse insisted faithful orthodox Christians be elected to take their places.
After a heated debate, Morse lost, and in 1805, liberals on the board elected Unitarian Christians Henry Ware as head of Harvard’s Divinity School and Samuel Webber as President of Harvard.
This was the pivotal moment beginning Harvard’s drift away from the traditional “revealed religion” of Calvinist Protestant Christianity, which the new leadership of Harvard increasingly saw as an enemy to be purged.
Historian Samuel Eliot Morrison wrote in Three Centuries of Harvard (1936):
“Thus the theological department of New England’s oldest university went Unitarian. Orthodox Calvinists of the true Puritan tradition now became open enemies to Harvard.”
In protest, Jedediah Morse and others founded Andover Theological Seminary in 1807 as the conservative Christian alternative to the liberal Harvard Divinity School.
An educator, Jedediah Morse was friends with Noah Webster –compiler of the Dictionary; Benjamin Silliman –Yale Professor who was the first to distill petroleum; and Jeremy Belknap –who wrote History of New Hampshire.
In 1798, Jedediah Morse delivered three sermons on the parties responsible for instigating the French Revolution, citing John Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against All The Religions and Governments Of Europe, Carried On In The Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.When presented with the information, President George Washington wrote:“It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States.
On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am.
The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavored to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation).
That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.”
(The Writings of George Washington, Volume 14, 1798–1799, New York, G. P. Putmans Sons, 1893, p. 119).
In his 1792 edition of The American Geography, or a View of the Present Situation of the United States of America, Jedidiah Morse wrote:
“The island Madagascar … has several petty savage kings of its own, both Arabs and Negroes, who making war on each other, sell their prisoners for slaves to the shipping which call here, taking clothes, utensils and other necessaries in return …
… The negroes of Africa … are subject to the most barbarous despotism. The savage tyrants who rule over them, make war upon each other for human plunder! and the wretched victims, bartered for spiritous liquors, are torn from their families, their friends, and their native land, and consigned for life to misery, toil and bondage …Near the river Niger … the Negroes are governed by a number of absolute princes. The inhabitants are mostly pagans and idolaters … The greater part of the poor Negroes in the West-Indies and the southern states, were brought from these two countries (of Guinea and area of West Africa.)”
At the time John Newton, former slave-trader who composed Amazing Grace, and British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce, were fighting to end Britain’s slave trade, Jedidiah Morse condemned the slave trade in The American Geography, 1792:
“But how am I shocked to inform you, that this infernal commerce is carried on … by English men, whose ancestors have bled in the cause of liberty …
I cannot give you a more striking proof of the ideas of horror which the captive negroes entertain of the state of servitude they are to undergo.”
Morse estimated the number of armed citizens:
“The number of inhabitants in the United States to be three millions, eighty three thousand. Deduct from this five hundred and sixty thousand, the supposed number of negroes …
Suppose one sixth part of these capable of bearing arms, it will be found that the number of fencible (capable of defense) men in the United States are four hundred and twenty thousand.”
Morse gave contemporary accounts of the condition of slavery in the early states:
“NEW HAMPSHIRE … Slaves there are none. Negroes, who were never numerous in New-Hampshire, are all free by the first article of the bill of rights.”
“NEW HAMPSHIRE … Slaves there are none. Negroes, who were never numerous in New-Hampshire, are all free by the first article of the bill of rights.”MASSACHUSETTS … The Negro trade is totally prohibited in Massachusetts, by an act passed in the winter of 1788 …In 1656 … laws in England, at this time, were very severe against the Quakers … many were confined in prisons where they died … King Charles the second also, in a letter to the colony of Massachusetts, approved of their severity …
These unhappy disturbances continued until the friends of the Quakers in England interposed, and obtained an order from the king, September 9th, 1661, requiring that a stop should be put to all capital or corporal punishment of his subjects called Quakers …
They are a moral, friendly, and benevolent people, and have much merit … particularly for their exertions in the abolition of the slavery of the Negroes.”
“RHODE ISLAND … (After the Revolution) the slave trade, which was a source of wealth to many of the people in Newport … has happily been abolished.The legislature have passed a law prohibiting ships from going to Africa for slaves, and selling them in the West-India islands …
This law is more favorable to the cause of humanity, than to the temporal interests of the merchants who had been engaged in this inhuman trade.”
“NEW YORK … There … is … ‘The society for the manumission of slaves, and protecting such of them as have been or may be liberated.'”
“NEW JERSEY … County of Burlington … On the island are one hundred and sixty houses, nine hundred white, and one hundred black inhabitants. But few of the negroes are slaves.
There are two houses for public worship in the town, one for the Friends or Quakers, who are the most numerous, and one for Episcopalians.”
“PENNSYLVANIA … Of the great variety of religious denominations … the FRIENDS or QUAKERS are the most numerous …
They came over to America as early as 1656, but were not indulged the free exercise of their religion in New-England.
They were the first settlers of Pennsylvania in 1682, under William Penn, and have ever since flourished in the free enjoyment of their religion.
They believe that God has given to all men sufficient light to work their salvation … They neither give titles, nor use compliments in their conversation or writings, believing that whatsoever is more than yea, yea, and nay, nay, cometh of evil.
They conscientiously avoid, as unlawful, kneeling, bowing, or uncovering the head to any person. They discard all superfluities in dress or equipage; all games, sports, and plays, as unbecoming the Christian.
‘Swear not at all’ is an article of their creed, literally observed in its utmost extent. They believe it unlawful, to fight in any case whatever; and think that if their enemy smite them on the one cheek, they ought to turn to him the other also.
They are generally honest, punctual, and even punctilious in their dealings; provident for the necessities of their poor; friends to humanity, and of course enemies to slavery …”
“… THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY for promoting the ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, and the relief of FREE NEGROES unlawfully held in bondage, was begun in 1774, and enlarged on the 23d of April, 1787 …
The legislature of this state have favored the humane designs of this society, by ‘An Act for the gradual Abolition of Slavery;’ passed on the 1st of March, 1780;
wherein, among other things, it is ordained, that no person born within the state, after the passing of the act, shall be considered as a servant for life; and all perpetual slavery is, by this act, forever abolished …
There is the Protestant Episcopal Academy–a very flourishing institution, The Academy for Young Ladies, another for the Friends or Quakers, and one for the Germans; besides five free schools, one for the people called Quakers, one for Presbyterians, one for Catholics, one for Germans, and one for Negroes.”
Morse continued:
“MARYLAND … There is … an indolence and inactivity in their whole behavior, which are evidently the effects of solitude and slavery. As the negroes perform all the manual labor, their masters are left to saunter away life in sloth, and too often in ignorance.”
“NORTH CAROLINA … The women, except in some of the populous towns, have very little (communication) with each other … They possess a great deal of kindness, and, except that they suffer their infant babes to suck the breasts of their black nurses, are good mothers, and obedient wives.”
Morse described how slavery was in disobedience to Christianity:
“SOUTH CAROLINA … The mischievous influence of slavery … in … southern states … the absolute authority which is exercised over their slaves, too much favors a haughty, supercilious behavior.
A disposition to obey the Christian precept, ‘To do to others as we would that others should do unto us,’ is NOT cherished by a daily exhibition of many.”
Morse included in The American Geography:
“VIRGINIA … A sensible gentleman… traveled through the middle settlements … has given the … following …
The women … are immoderately fond of dancing, and indeed it is almost the only amusement they partake of …
Towards the close of an evening, when the company are pretty well tired with country dances, it is usual to dance jiggs; a practice originally borrowed, I am informed, from the Negroes.
These dances are without any method or regularity: A gentleman and lady stand up, and dance about the room … in an irregular fantastical manner.'”
Morse quoted Jefferson’s History of Virginia:
“‘In the very first session (1777) held under the republican government, the (Virginia) assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves.
This will in some measure stop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature …
In October 1786, an act was passed by the Virginia assembly, prohibiting the importation of slaves into the commonwealth, upon penalty of the forfeiture of the sum of 1000 pounds for every slave.
And every slave imported contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, becomes free …
By the (Northwest) Ordinance of Congress, passed on the 13th of July, 1787 … Article 6th. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
Morse described further:
“Much has been written of late to shew the injustice and iniquity of enslaving the Africans …
From repeated … calculations, it has been found, that the expense of maintaining a slave … is greater than that of maintaining a free man;
and the labor of the free man, influenced by the powerful motive of gain, is at least twice as profitable to the employer as that of the slave.
Besides, slavery is the bane of industry … Industry is the offspring of necessity … Slavery precludes this necessity; and indolence, which strikes at the root of all social and political happiness, is the unhappy consequence …
The injustice of the practice, shew that slavery is impolitic (unwise). Its influence on manners and morals is equally pernicious (destructive).”
Morse again quoted Jefferson:
“Jefferson observes, ‘Commerce between master and slave is … the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other …
‘And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
‘Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever;
that considering numbers … a revolution of the wheel of fortune, and exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference? — The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.'”
Morse wrote:
“Under the federal government which is now established, we have reason to believe that all slaves in the United States will in time be emancipated …
Whether this will be affected by transporting them back to Africa; or by colonizing them in some part of our own territory, and extending to them our alliance and protection until they shall have acquired strength sufficient for their own defense; or by incorporation with the whites; or in some other way, remains to be determined.
All these methods are attended with difficulties. The first would be cruel; the second dangerous …
Deep-rooted prejudices … recollections … of the injuries … new provocations … would tend to divide them into parties, and produce convulsions … But justice and humanity demand that these difficulties should be surmounted.”
Morse concluded:
“In the middle and northern states … Societies for the manumission of slaves have been instituted in Philadelphia and New-York; and laws have been enacted, and other measures taken in the New-England states to accomplish the same purpose.
The FRIENDS, (commonly called Quakers,) have evinced the propriety of their name, by their goodness in originating, and their vigorous exertions in executing, this truly humane and benevolent design …
The time, however, is anticipated when all distinctions between master and slave shall be abolished;
and when the language, manners, customs, political and religious sentiments of the mixed mass of people who inhabit the United States, shall have become so assimilated, as that all nominal distinctions shall be lost in the general and honorable name of AMERICANS.”
Jedediah Morse founded the New England Tract Society in 1814, and the American Bible Society in 1816.
He was a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1811-19.
In an “Election Sermon” given at Charleston, Massachusetts, April 25, 1799, Jedediah Morse stated:
“To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys.
In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions;
in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism.
I hold this to be a truth confirmed by experience …”
Morse concluded:
“If so, it follows, that all efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness.
Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.”
On his tombstone is written:
“In memory of Jedediah Morse — The Father of American Geography — Born in Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut — August 23, 1761 — Died in New Haven, June 9, 1826 — In the Joy of a Triumphant Faith in Christ”
Reposted with permission by The American Minute https://americanminute.com/
Sandra Merritt Asks SCOTUS To Take Planned Parenthood Case
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Liberty Counsel has filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the previous ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals against Sandra Merritt in Planned Parenthood’s multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit for her undercover investigation of the abortion giant. The implications of this case have far-reaching First Amendment consequences involving free speech and undercover journalism.
In the petition for writ of certiorari, Liberty Counsel asks the High Court to consider “whether the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause protects newsgathering journalists, who operate under an alias to document and expose what they reasonably believe to be unlawful conduct, from being subjected to punitive liability for ‘fraud.’ This case concerns whether, and to what extent, the press may raise the First Amendment as a defense against generally applicable tort laws when undercover journalists gather and publish truthful news of significant public importance. Accordingly, the First Amendment not only protects the publication of news; it also protects the newsgathering process, including undercover investigations, because ‘without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated.’”
Merritt and David Daleiden, founder of Center for Medical Progress, released videos in 2015 exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal trade in aborted baby body parts, after a 30-month undercover operation. The videos showed Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts and discussing how they change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs.
In October 2022, a three-member panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled against Merritt and Daleiden regarding numerous errors of the trial court, including: (1) the award to Planned Parenthood of millions of dollars in “damages” involving publication of Planned Parenthood’s own words, without any proof that the undercover videos were false or deceptive, in violation of the First Amendment; (2) the use of Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to punish constitutionally protected undercover journalism intended to expose unethical and criminal wrongdoing; (3) the award to Planned Parenthood of “damages” involving legally recorded conversations without allowing the jury to hear those conversations, and without requiring Planned Parenthood to prove that the conversations recorded in public places were “confidential;” and (4) the failure of the district court judge to recuse himself from this case, despite the appearance of impropriety resulting from his connections to Planned Parenthood.
Liberty Counsel then filed a request for an en banc (full court) review and presented argument that the appeals court should reverse the lower court’s ruling, order a new trial, and strike the punitive damages award. The Ninth Circuit denied the request.
In 2019, the case was heard by San Francisco’s U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III, who is the founder of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center that houses the Planned Parenthood of Northern California facility in its complex. In 2017, the defense requested that Orrick recuse himself from the case and he refused. Judge Orrick severely restricted the evidence, and at the end, gave instructions to the jury on how they should rule on critical issues. The jury decided in favor of the abortion giant on each count, including RICO, and awarded more than $2 million in damages. The court subsequently awarded Planned Parenthood nearly $14 million in attorney’s fees and costs, for a total judgment of over $16 million.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Sandra Merritt is asking the Supreme Court to undo the blatant injustice of this case. Every journalist and person who values free speech and a free press should be concerned with the implications of this case. We will fight for the free speech rights of all people.”
Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost.
(The above is a news release from Liberty Counsel http://www.lc.org
Camp Constitution Pleased to Announce Two New Sponsors
Camp Constitution is pleased to announce two new sponsors:
Scott Lively Store https://scottlively.store which features the books authored by Dr. Scott Lively including The Pink Swastika Homosexuality in the Nazi Party-a book which was banned from Amazon
And:
MAP Estate Planning https://www.mapestateplanning.com/ Throughout six decades, MAP Estate Planning grew from a small solo practice into a successful, multi-faceted wealth management firm, achieved by employing the same level of service, integrity and knowledge founder Tom Ziniti brought to his clients from day one. Tom’s family still run the firm
Our sponsors help make Camp Constitution possible. If you own a business or manage or support a like-minded non-profit, please consider becoming a sponsor. For more information, contact Hal Shurtleff (857) 498-1309 or campconstitution1@gmail.com
Biden Administration environmental injustices
Federal agencies proclaim ‘climate justice’ to justify controlling every aspect of our lives
President Biden recently issued a 5,400-word executive order directing all federal agencies to emphasize “environmental justice” in every decision they make.
After ducking questions for weeks on what remediation, remuneration and environmental justice the administration is providing East Palestine, Ohio residents following a toxic railway chemical spill, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained the EO in her inimitable style:
The President has “the most ambitious climate agenda than any other president in history, and one way that you can look at this today is that he’s continuing to deliver on that ambitious agenda, and he’s not done yet. This is a continuing continuation of what he’s promised the American people.”
In plain English, the order enables each agency to implement this infinitely malleable “justice” concept to justify whatever policies and regulations it is implementing in the name of abating the “climate crisis” and “fundamentally transforming” America’s energy and economic systems. It also allows agencies to ignore any “justice” issues that might interfere with their plans.
The Environmental Protection Agency quickly issued a press release citing justice and “equity” rationales for eliminating coal and gas power plants, internal-combustion vehicles, and gas stoves, ovens, furnaces and water heaters – all of which it says contribute to global warming.
EPA claims “children are uniquely vulnerable” to climate-related impacts like rising temperatures that can cause “lifelong consequences” for their concentration, learning, academic achievement and earnings potential. Moreover, these effects “disproportionately fall on children who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color, low income, without health insurance, and/or have limited English proficiency.”
Of course, air conditioning reduces high temperatures in schools and homes, thereby avoiding these far-fetched problems. During wintertime, gas furnaces (or reliable, affordable coal or gas-generated electric heat) keep students warm when outdoor temperatures plummet to deadly lows.
However, both cooling and heating systems will become unavailable or unaffordable to these same classes of people in the wake of government decrees that coal and gas be banished, and electricity provided by expensive, weather-dependent wind and solar. That’s already happening in Europe.
The Economist reported that 68,000 people died in Europe this past winter because energy prices have rocketed so high that many families can no longer afford to heat their homes properly.
Meanwhile, EPA asserts that closing coal and gas power plants would prevent 1,300 “premature deaths” by 2042 from global warming. That’s a hypothetical 65 deaths annually.
Allowing for Europe versus US population differences, more than 30,000 Americans would die needlessly every year, if energy prices soar as high as they have in Europe. Minority and low and middle income families would be disproportionately affected and least able to afford proper winter heating. Without affordable, dependable AC, thousands more would likely die during sweltering summers. Just keeping lights on and computers running requires reliable, affordable electricity.
EPA didn’t consider these realities in its news release, regulations or “environmental justice” contortions, because the agency is pushing an agenda, not providing honest, scientific evidence. The agency and Biden EO routinely ignore inconvenient realities like the following, as well.
Eliminating coal and gas power plants will triple America’s need for electricity generation, to replace that power and provide battery backup storage. Rushing to do this before America has sufficient reliable alternative electricity supplies will destabilize power grids, causing repeated blackouts, disproportionately affecting families that cannot afford emergency backup generators (most of which require fossil fuels).
EPA rules dramatically reducing tailpipe emissions will force families to buy electric cars that average over $65,000 in price – and light, medium, heavy-duty and long-haul trucks that could cost twice as much as gasoline or diesel versions. Blue-collar families will be hammered hardest.
Farmers will be compelled to pay far more for electric tractors, and for natural-gas-based fertilizers and pesticides that will likewise be much more expensive. Food prices will soar still higher, forcing disadvantaged families to choose between food, heat, clothing and other needs.
Families and landlords will also be required to replace high-efficiency gas furnaces with pricey electric systems … or expensive heat pumps that don’t even work well in sub-freezing weather.
Middle class families will see their living standards plummet. Poor households will be unable to improve their lives. Rural communities will become increasingly isolated, turned into energy colonies for heavily Democrat urban voting blocs, with wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines horizon to horizon.
Federal agencies will likely just parrot the Bank of England’s callous, imperious attitude: People just “need to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power.” Ruling elites will do fine. Why would they worry about us commoners?
Soaring prices for intermittent electricity will force many factories and businesses to close. Workers will have to take low-pay jobs installing, maintaining, repairing and replacing wind turbines, solar panels and other equipment – and hauling worn out, obsolete and broken parts and dead battery modules to enormous rural landfills.
“Clean, renewable, sustainable” energy technologies require vastly more non-renewable, unsustainable metals, minerals and other raw materials than their fossil fuel counterparts. The overseas mining, processing and manufacturing operations run on fossil fuels and emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide and toxic air and water pollutants, generally under minimal or no laws governing pollution … or slave and child labor, workplace safety, health, or other environmental justice and human rights issues.
The supply chains and even finished product chains increasingly run through China, which is also taking over electric vehicle markets. Especially under a Biden Administration that opposes almost any mining or processing in the USA, China will only increase its dominance of cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel and other critical material supplies, all but necessitating tepid responses to Chinese (and Russian) military and territorial ambitions. The injustices inflicted on Asian and African communities are serious and obvious.
Yet even doubling or tripling today’s global mining levels would not meet the soaring materials demands for the millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of battery modules, millions of heating systems and transformers, and hundreds of thousands of miles of new transmission lines that an American Net-Zero economy would require. Soaring demand for insufficient supplies will send prices skyward.
A global energy transformation would likely be catastrophic for affordable energy, economies, jobs, living standards, shortened human life spans, human rights, wildlife and environmental quality.
Abundant, reliable, affordable, mostly fossil fuel energy has liberated people from back-breaking toil. The energy scarcity and de-development promoted and imposed by Biden and other Western governments is rolling living standards, health and personal freedoms backward, in the name of “climate justice.” The adverse effects will be worst for women, the poor and people of color, especially beyond US borders.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism: “The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its actions felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social and educational institutions, and all the political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation.” [emphasis added]
That description sounds all too appropriate for the situation America and the world increasingly confront today. The gravest threat to our living standards, freedoms and true justice is not from climate change. It is from dictatorial edicts imposed in the name of controlling Earth’s perpetually fickle climate.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.
Constitutional Minute #23 Wanted: Critical reading skills (again)
We have been told for ages that the President is permitted to make a “recess” appointment of someone whose nomination has already been blocked by the Senate (Article II, Sec. 2, clause 3); that once the Senate goes into recess, the President may slip in there and make a “recess” appointment of his rejected nominee!
Rubbish.
The constitutional plan (Article II, Sec. 2, clause 2) is that the President nominates – the Senate confirms or rejects the President’s nomination. This is the “check” which Our Constitution imposes on the President’s nominations. The purpose is to protect us from the loons, incompetents, or toadies whom various presidents have, from time to time, nominated.
NOW let us see what Our Constitution says about recess appointments. Article II, Sec. 2, clause 3 says:
“The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.” [emphasis added]
Is this not clear?
If the Senate did not approve a president’s cabinet pick, is this a vacancy that happened during a recess? Turn your thoughts away from when the recess happens. Concentrate on when the vacancy happens!! Have we elected people who cannot even read English?
Check It Out In The Federalist Papers # 67 and #76.
Now you know how to look things up in Our Constitution and check it out in The Federalist Papers. Political consultants, journalists, TV pundits, talk show hosts, candidates for office, people in Congress, in the Executive Branch, and sitting on Federal Benches don’t know how to do this. So you must do it and spread the Word if we are to restore our Constitutional Republic.
For more details and links to original sources, go here: https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/category/recess-appointments/
www.buildingblocksforliberty.org
The Weekly Sam: The Miracle of Alpha-Phonics A Teacher’s Testimonial by Paul Lukawski
(The following was written in 2008);
I have been a high school English teacher for 14 years. I remember in college wanting to
know how to teach children to read. I went to a teacher college established in 1910. The
school had one of the oldest colleges in the country. Its College of Education
enjoyed an excellent reputation. I asked three different professors how do you teach
reading I received three different vague responses.
After I completed my second year of teaching. I realized that my students could not read. I
taught grades nine through twelve. The second year, I had three classes of ninth graders. I
assigned the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird for them to read. I realized that most of my
students could not read the novel’s literate narrative.
It was during this time that I heard Samuel Blumenfeld interviewed on shortwave radio.
At this time the Rodney King verdict had come in and there was rioting in the streets of
LA. He said that the reason the people were rioting was that they did not have jobs. They
did not have jobs because they were illiterate. He said you could tell they were illiterate
by listening to the lyrics of the songs they listened to and by the way they talked.
I was intrigued by what he said because it verified my experience as a high school
teacher. He then said the schools were at fault because of the way they taught reading. I
was again intrigued because of my experience in college trying to determine how to teach
children to read. I was never taught it in college.
Mr. Blumenfeld had made two provocative statements on the radio, but I knew them to be
true because of my personal experience. I then decided to buy a couple of his books,
including Alpha-Phonics. My third year of teaching, I had a class of ninth graders that
consisted of the worst performing students in the school These students were in the
dropout prevention progI3IIL They were waiting until they turned sixteen to drop out of
schooL I teach in our state’s poorest county and our district at that time had a high drop
out rate. Also in the class were several students from Mexico and one from Haiti. These
students were speakers of other languages (ESOL). Their only problem was that they had
a limited understanding of English. Every day in the class was a strugg1e with disruptive.
behavior, and if I could finish class without a student being sent to the office for
discipline problems, I considered it a success.
(Sam Blumenfeld teaching children)
The students bad chronic discipline problems; they bad trouble with the law, every
problem you could imagine. After two months of getting absolutely nowhere with the
students I decided that I would try an experiment. I was going to use Alpha-Phonics
beginning with lesson one to teach those that wanted to learn how to read. I told the class
that those that wanted to learn would sit 0n this side of the and those that did not
were to sit on the opposite side of the 100m. The only rule was a student could not
interfere with the Alpha-Phonics lesson.
Until this time, everyone sat scattered around the back of the room, as I did not have a
seating chart. Any student, when given the option will not sit in the front of the room
with the teacher. The stage being set, I began the first day by reading the directions from
the “Teachers Manual” to Alpha-Phonics and beginning with lesson one. I wondered
what response I would get.
I was shocked by the response of the students. Nothing could have prepared me for what
happened. If someone had told me what would happen I would not have believed them.
With the exception of a few students who sat on the other side of the room because they
did not want to participate, all of the students followed along as I wrote the lessons on the
board. l would write the lesson on the board, read it out loud, and then have them read.
The students leaned forward in their desks and followed along.
The next day the students all sat in the front of the room. Everyone would raise their band
and want to read. Indeed, after the first few days, the students would fuss among
themselves to read out aloud. They fought over who could write the lessons on the board..
Everyone wanted to read aloud. Everyone sat in front of the room. There were no
discipline problems. The entire class had been transformed. I bad discovered a disturbing.
truth.
We worked through the book; and about halfway through the book, we began reading
Sounder and The Old Man and the Sea.. One youth in the class who could not read and
who had been a behavior problem told me that every night he would sit with his dad as
his dad read the sports section ofthe papers.. He said be always wanted to read the paper
with his dad, but he could not because he did not know how to read.. A few weeks after
starting Alpha-Phonics, be entered the class one day and told me that as he was driving
down the road be began to sound out the words on the signs.. He was excited because he
was never able to do that before.
We had started Alpha-Phonics in October and the semester ended in December. I would
not be seeing the students anymore. We had completed about three-fourths of the book
and read the two novels. I would begin each class by doing about 15 minutes of Alpha-Phonics and then read from the novels. The students were eager and well behaved. The
youth who began reading the signs told me that in evening he could now sit with his dad
and read the sports section along with him. They would talk. about what they had read.
Three: Spanish-speaking students learned English this way
The following year, I tried another experiment. I had one student who was identified as
having ADD/ADHD. He was notorious. He was a ninth grader. This was his first year at
our school. I had another student who was in trouble with the dean’s office constantly. I
gave both of them Sam’s Blumenfeld Oral Reading Test (BORT), and they scored
between the 1st and 2 grade levels. I made an arrangement with other teachers to have
both students come to my class fifteen minutes while I did an Alpha-Phonics lesson
with them.
Because I began in August, I was able to finish the whole book with them by Christmas. I
gave both students the BORAT test. One boy had doubled his reading score and the
other was close behind him. The boy with ADD/ ADHD was never antsy or hyperactive
when he was working on the lessons. He was a completely different child when he was
with me. 1ndeed, his teacher would often allow him to stay the whole hour with me
because he bad many behavior problems in her class. He never bad a behavior problem
when working on Alpha-Phonics, neither did the other child who was constantly getting
into fights and being When these two youngsters worked on Alpha-Phonics
with me they were totally different children.
The following year, I worked with some other children. I had developed a system where I
would set aside ten minutes each class period and do a few lessons while the rest ofthe
class would work: quietly on their own at their desks. I would use the BORAT to identify
the illiterates in my class. I would then ask them if they bad ever had an A in English.
Invariably they would say, “‘No.” I would ask them if they would want one. They would
say, “Yes.” I then would say that all they had to do was work with me for ten minutes a
day on Alpha-Phonics until we were done with the book. When we were done with the
book, I would choose several pages at random for them to read from. If they could read
the pages to me., they would receive an A. I told them that that was all they had to worry
about in the class. I was not interested in what they did regarding the usual coursework..
That was the incentive I offered them. It was up to them.
One youth bad failed the ninth grade and was taking his ninth-grade English class over
again with me. He was also taking his tenth grade English class. His tenth grade class met
next door to mine first period. He would then come to my class second period. His tenth
grade teacher was the same one he took the year before, the class, which he bad failed. He
was working ten minutes a day on Alpha-Phonics for several weeks, when one day the
door that communicated between my room and the neighboring room opened. It was his
tenth grade teacher. She called me over to her and asked what it was I was doing with
him. I told her Alpha-Phonics. She said, “Look!” The whole class was watching Channel
One and chatting. It was during homeroom. The whole class, except this youth, who was
busy reading a book I had given him. The teacher was flabbergasted. She knew he was
illiterate and could not believe that be was able to read.
One day I was working with this boy at my desk when we had a new student enter the
class. He had just been released from a juvenile detention. He knew the youth I was
working with and sat by him as we worked together. He was curious about what we were
doing, and I explained it to him. He said that he could not read either. He explained that
he started having trouble reading in the third grade. He said that when the time came to
read aloud be would intentionally get into trouble so be would be sent to the office so that
he would not have to read. He could not take the embarrassment. He did not want anyone
to know that he could not read. The boy I was working with chimed in and said that he
was the same way. They both recounted events when they would get into trouble on
purpose so they could avoid reading. They wouJd even start fistfights. The boy who had
been in juvenile detention was sent there because be bad set fire to the junior high school
The following year I had finely established my regular ten-minute routine in my class,
and every year after- that I would have students who would participate. One year I was in a
staffing meeting for a boy who was labeled as a special education student with learning
disabilities. The special education staffer, whom I had never met before asked me what I
was doing with the boy. The reason she asked is that she was with the boy’s science
teacher when the science teacher had reported that the boy began volunteering to read
aloud. The science teacher was astonished. We live in a small community and the teacher
had known the boy ever since kindergarten and had known that he could not read, thus
the placement in the special education program: Here he was volunteering to read aloud
in her class. I told them what it was I was doing.
There is one case that haunts me. I had a big strapping youth who was seventeen years
old. He had failed ninth and tenth grade English because he could not read. He was in my
ninth grade English class. I had given him the BORAT test, and he was at about the 1-2
grade level. A typical case. We began working ten minutes a day. After a month I gave
him the book Sounder, and he told me he was reading it at home. We wen: about halfway
through the book when he no longer showed up in my class. I learned that he had moved
away. I do not know if he ever completely learned how to read. He was a decent well-mannered youth who would show up ever day, was polite and carried a big stack of books
with him. He was waiting for someone to teach him to read.
My daughter was born in 1996. I remember seeing the little girl read in the Hooked on
Phonics commercials and wished my daughter could read like her. When she was two, I
began to teach her how to read during my summer vacation. She would take naps then,
and I followed the advice in the teacher’s manual. I set up a routine. Every day, before she
took her nap, we would sit together. Following Sam’s advice, I appealed to her intellect. I
said, “”It is time for our lessons.” I began by following the alphabet pre-reading exercise in
the back ofthe book. Again, following Mr. Blumenfeld’s advice, I did not pressure her or
scold her, regardless ofher behavior. Some days, she wuuId kick at the book and giggle. I
would say, “You did a good job today!” And I put the book away. We would continue
tomorrow. It went on like this for several months.
When school started again, she would do the lessons with me before we went to bed. She
enjoyed the routine and the lessons. One evening, while my wife was in tbe room, she
took out the book on her own and began reading from lesson two: “Am, Sam, Hear the S
sound,” she said Then, – “Sam sat.” My wife could not believe it. “Did she
memorize those words?” She asked. “No,” l replied, and then explained the method.
When she was three, we were driving down the road when she said, “Look Momma,”
pointing to a sign, “‘Marshal’s, there is your store.” My wife could not believe it. When
she was three, there was one occasion when our daughter was at Sunday school. Her
teachers were arguing over whether or not she was reading the colors on the crayons..
‘”She’s memorized them,” said one. “‘No, she is reading them,” said the other. The colors
she was reading were purple~ fuchsia and magenta. Magenta was her favorite.
The spring before my daughter began kindergarten, she could read fluently any word in
front of her. We were at a spring festival when my daughter and her friend bought soft
drinks. My daughter” read the inside ofthe cap, whicb told whether or not you had won a
prize advertised on the side ofthe can. My daughter read the label effortlessly, which
included the words vacation and discovery. “‘She is a genius!” exclaimed the father.
My daughter’s friend asked her dad to read the soft drink label to her. I told the girl’s
father that his daughter could read as well if he used Alpha-Phonics with her. I said,
“‘Follow the lesson manual and be patient, do not pressure your child, as Mr. Blumenfeld
said and in a year or so she will be like my daughter.”
That fall I saw the girl’s parents and asked how she was doing. He said his daughter had
not really taken to the book yet. (His daughter” had just started kindergarten, as mine had.).
I said “be patient and keep going. ” Meanwhile, my daughter” was reading at 2nd grade
level; and during kindergarten reading time, she would go to a second grade class for
reading instruction. The following year I saw the girl’s dad again and asked him how she
was doing in first grade. He said that his daughter was reading at a second grade level and
was being tested for gifted and talented.
Meanwhile my daughter entered the first grade and soon afterwards was referred to the
gifted and talented program. She won the spelling bee and Math bash just as she did in
kindergarten. I used Samuel Blumenfeld’s How-to-Tutor to instruct her in math. In
second grade, she read at the seventh-grade level and won all of the reading, spelling and
math prizes and was elected to the school’s hall of fame. She has bad straight A’s in
every class. She learned to read with Alpha-Phonics and learned math with How-to-Tutor.
While my daughter was in first grade, I was asked to sit on a parent teacher committee.
While on the committee, the mayor of our town complained to the principal that be had
been on the committee for three years and that the committee was always talking about
doing something outside of the box when it came to improving the school’s reading
scores. Regardless of what the committee did to improve reading scores., they were
always the same. The principal said that he was open for suggestions outside of the box.
No one had any suggestions so I said that I was familiar with the method of reading
instruction in the public schools and that was what was at fault I said that I had a method
that worked better. Indeed, I said that I drop my daughter- off at school at 7:30, I could
walk into any class, give a ten-minute lesson and still arrive at the high school where I
teach in time to sign in a 8:00 am. I said that if anyone doubted me, I get a paycheck.
every two weeks with a comma in ii. ~ let’s put it on the table and keep the tourists out.” I
wanted to let them know my intentions were serious.
,
. They took me up on the offer, and a first-year teacher volunteered her class. I began the
first Monday after spring break. I only had six weeks to work with the children. I made
transparencies of the Alpha-Phonics lessons and followed the teacher’s manual. I only did
a ten-minute lesson. The teacher combined her bottom students with the reading
teacher’s bottom students. After two weeks, the mother of one of the children
approached me. She said, “‘I am glad you are working with my daughter. A while back the
school called me up to their office and told me there was something wrong with my
daughter. She bad a learning disability. I cried for two days,” she said. I told her not to
listen to anything the schools told her, to be patient and to watch what happens.
A week after school was over, I saw the mother again and I asked her how her daughter
was doing. She said that the school had called her up again and told her that they had
given her daughter an end of the year reading test showing that she had a 40%
improvement in her reading and they and were going to put her into an advanced class.
The following year, I was asked to do the project again with a first-grade class. I worked
ten minutes each morning. I was only able to complete three-fourths of the book. The
school’s diagnostic test revealed that of the children who were able to complete the
project successfully, not one had a reading disability. The makers of the diagnostic test
said that you could expect 20% of the children to have reading disabilities.
I once was explaining to a student why children have reading problems. When I finished,
a girl from the other side ofthe class, who I thought was not listening, said, “This is what
happened to my brother. He is in the fourth grade, hates to read and gets stomach aches
and headaches.” I told her that his troubles were over and gave her a copy of Alpha-Phonics. Four months later, I asked how was her brother doing. She said be completed
the book and reads just fine.
I had the same success with students in special education, who were labeled as
learning disabled or educatable mentally retarded. I have 100% per cent success with
every student. The only variable is the speed at which students progress. You must follow
Dr. Blumenfeld’s advice and be patient. Do not pressure the child.
I have many other- heartbreaking stories about children who have quit school because they
did not know how to read, and no one will teach them. I have had children take a copy of
Alpha-Phonics and keep it to teach friends they know, how to read. I encouraged
everyone to try Alpha-Phonics. The results you see in the child are truly miraculous.
It must be seen. to be believed.
(Copies of Alpha-Phonics can be ordered from Camp Constitution’s on-line book store: https://campconstitution.net/product/alpha-phonics-by-sam-blumenfeld/
And, the free on-line version with all 128 lessons in either video or audio: https://campconstitution.net/blumenfelds-alphaphonics/
Camp Constitution’s 15th Annual Family Camp Less Than Two Months Away
Camp Constitution’s 15th Annual Family Camp at the Singing Hills Christian Camp https://www.singinghills.net/ Plainfield, NH is less than two months away. It will run from Sunday late afternoon July 16 to Friday July 21, and while we are filing up, rooms are still available.
Returning instructors include Pastor David Whitney of the Institute on the Constitution; Professor Willie Soon, world renowned astrophysicist and climate realist; Catherine White of The Constitution Decoded; Alex Newman, author and host of the Sentinel Report, and Rev. Steve Craft, Camp Constitution’s chaplain. First time instructors include NH State Rep Valerie McDonnell, the youngest elected official in the United States, and Vincent Ellison, and author Vince Ellison. Mrs. Edith Craft returns to direct the program for the Junior Campers. In addition to the classes, the camp will offer marksmanship courses, martial arts, hiking, basketball, volleyball, wiffleball, an optional field trip, and swimming, chess, gaga and corn hole tournaments. Campers and staff end the day with an evening campfire.
Camp Constitution’s annual camp is a family camp open to entire families, unaccompanied minors, and adults. The cost for the week which includes lodging, meals and class handouts is $300 for those 13 and over. $200. For campers 12 and under, and three and under with parents are free. A link to the camp registration: https://campconstitution.net/camp-registration/
Can’t attend but would like to help? Consider making a donation to Camp Constitution. Donations can be made via our PayPal account accessed via our website’s homepage https://www.campconstitution.net
The Weekly Sam: Sex Education and How It Got Into the Schools By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
The idea that people needed to be educated about sex probably began with the founding
of the birth control movement by Margaret Sanger, who launched a crusade early in the
20th Century to provide women with birth control information. It was Sanger’s work as a
visiting nurse that turned her interest to sex education and women’s health. Influenced
by anarchist Emma Goldman, she began to advocate the need for family limitation as a
means by which working-class women could liberate themselves from the burden of
unwanted pregnancy.
In 1914, Sanger published the first issue of The Woman Rebel, which advocated militant
feminism and the right to practice birth control. She also wrote a 16-page pamphlet,
Family Limitation, which provided explicit instructions on the use of contraceptive
methods. In August 1914, Sanger was indicted for violating postal obscenity laws. She
jumped bail in October and set sail for England.
In England she became acquainted with a number of British radicals, feminists, and neo-Malthusians whose social and economic theories helped her develop broader scientific
and social justifications for birth control. She was also deeply influenced by psychologist
Havelock Ellis and his theories on female sexuality and free love.
In 1915, Sanger returned to the United States. The government’s case against her was
dropped. In 1916, she opened the nation’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New
York. After nine days of operation, the clinic was raided, and Sanger and staff were arrested. She spent 30 days in jail. However, the publicity surrounding the clinic
provided Sanger with a base of wealthy supporters from which she began to build an
organized birth control movement.
In 1917, Sanger published a new monthly, the Birth Control Review, and in 1921 she
embarked on a campaign to win mainstream support for birth control by founding the
American Birth Control League, the forerunner of Planned Parenthood. She focused her
efforts on gaining support from the medical profession, social workers, and the liberal
wing of the eugenics movement. Havelock Ellis had converted her to the eugenics creed.
She saw birth control as a means of reducing genetically transmitted mental or physical
defects, and supported sterilization for the mentally incompetent. She advocated “more
children for the fit, less from the unfit-that is the chief issue of birth control.”
In 1922, Sanger married oil magnate James Noah H. Slee, thus insuring her financial
independence. Slee, who died in 1943, became the main funder of the birth control
movement. By connecting with the eugenics movement, Sanger was able to gain the
backing of some of America’s wealthiest people.
In 1930, Sanger opened a fantily planning clinic in Harlem with the approval of the
Negro leadership, including communist W.E.B. DuBois. Beginning in 1939, DuBois also
served on the advisory council for Sanger’s ”Negro Project.” The financial support of
Albert and Mary Lasker made the project possible. In 1966, the year Sanger died, the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “There is a striking kinship between our movement
and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts.”
From the end of World War II to the present, Planned Parenthood has become the world’s
largest enterprise promoting birth control and abortion. In 1960, the Food and Drug
Administration approved the sale of the birth control pill. In 1961 President Kennedy
defined population growth as a “staggering” problem and formerly endorsed reproductive
research to make new knowledge and methods available worldwide.
In 1961, a Conference on Religion and the Family brought together the medical director
of Planned Parenthood, the director of the National Council of Churches of Christ, and
the leader of the marriage counseling movement in the United States. Out of that meeting
came the idea for creating SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of
the United States. It was Dr. Mary Calderone, one of the founders, who introduced the
concept of sexuality in 1964. It encompassed much more than the biological meaning of
sex. Thus, sexuality education replaced the term sex education to emphasize its more
comprehensive scope.
A SIECUS Report (Vol. 27, No.4) states: “In February 1999, SIECUS conducted a
public poll on our Internet site to ask the general public who had the greatest impact in
bringing about a positive change in the way America understands and affmns sexuality.
The top ten, chosen from a list of 100, were Judy Blume, Mary Calderone, Ellen
DeGeneres, Joycelyn Elders, Hugh Hefner, Anita Hill, Magic Johnson, Madonna, Gloria
Steinhem, and Ruth Westheirner. They represent diverse perspectives and views, and
each has helped American think about sexuality in a new and different way.”
Getting back to our chronology, in 1963, the U.N. General Assembly approved a
resolution on population growth and economic development. In that same year, the U.S.
government established the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD). Part of its mandate was to support and oversee research in reproductive
science and contraceptive development.
In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut ruled that
Connecticut’s law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples violated a
newly defined right of marital privacy. As a result, ten states liberalized their family
planning laws and began to provide family planning services with tax funds.
In 1969 the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws, now known as the
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, was founded.
In 1970, Congress enacted Title X of the Public Health Services Act, which provided
support and funding for family planning services and educational programs and for
biomedical and behavioral research in reproduction and contraceptive development. Title
X also authorized funding for a Center for Population Research within NICHD. This
marked the fust time Congress had ever voted for a separate authorization of family
planning services.
In that same year, New York state enacted the most progressive abortion law in the
nation, and Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, New York, became the fust affiliate to offer
abortion services.
In 1973, Humanist Manifesto II was published. It advocated a doctrine of sexual freedom
that clearly clashed with traditional views of sex. The Manifesto states: “In the area of
sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and
puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion,
and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating
forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction,
sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration
should not in themselves be considered ‘evil.’ Without countenancing mindless
pennissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one.
Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be
permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire ….
Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and
sexual maturity.” Among the signers of the Manifesto was Alan F. Guttmacher,
President of Planned Parenthood.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional right of
privacy extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, thereby legalizing abortion
throughout the United States. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of
Central Missouri v. Danforth struck down state requirements for parental and spousal
consent for abortion and set aside a state prohibition against saline abortions.
In 1976, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, named after Planned Parenthood’s president,
published 11 Million Teenagers, the first nationally distributed document to focus
attention on the problem of teen pregnancy and childbearing in the United States.
In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court found the Massachusetts statute restricting minors’
access to abortion unconstitutional. It ruled that if states required minors to obtain
parental consent for an abortion, they must also give minors the alternative of obtaining
the consent of a judge, in confidential proceedings and without first notifying their
parents.
In 1981, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published Teenage Pregnancy: The Problem that
Hasn’t Gone Away, an analysis of teen sexuality, contraceptive knowledge and use, and
pregnancy experience. It emphasizes the need for making confidential contraceptive
services accessible to sexually active teens.
In 1982, Planned Parenthood published “Sexuality Alphabet,” as tool for sex education.
George Grant, in his book, Grand illusions, writes of this publication: “Planned
Parenthood’s sex education programs and materials are brazenly perverse. They are
frequently accentuated with crudely obscene four-letter words and illustrated by
explicitly ribald nudity. They openly endorse aberrant behavior-homosexuality,
masturbation, fornication, incest, and even bestiality-and then they describe that
behavior in excruciating detail.”
In 1953, staffer Lena Levine wrote in Planned Parenthood News: “Our goal is to be ready
as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage.
By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt.”
In 1985, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published its report on Teen Pregnancy in
Industrialized Countries, indicating that the u.S. teen pregnancy rate of 96 per 1,000 is
the highest in the developed world. A two-year study by the National Academy of
Sciences agreed with the AGI study and concluded that “prevention of adolescent
pregnancy should have the highest priority,” and “making contraceptive methods
available and accessible to those who are sexually active and encouraging them to
diligently use these methods is the surest major strategy for pregnancy prevention.”
In 1970, fewer than half of the nation’s school districts offered sex education curricula
and none had school-based birth control clinics. In 1998, more than seventy-five percent
of the districts teach sex education and there are more than one hundred clinics in
operation. Yet the percentage of illegitimate births has only increased during that time,
from a mere fifteen percent to an astonishing fifty-one percent. In California, the public
schools have required sex education for more than thirty years, and yet the state has
maintained one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation. (Grant, p. 128)
Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic, which began with eleven cases in 1979, had grown to
24,000 cases in 1986. In 1993, the number of cases was up to 339,250.
By 1987, Planned Parenthood had become the world’s largest non-government provider
of family planning services. It had also become politically active, joining more than 250
civil rights, civil liberties, religious, labor, education, legal, environmental, health, and
feminist groups that opposed the appointment of conservative Judge Robert Bork to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
(The above article was written in the mid 1990s before the promotion of “gender reassignment surgery” or it real term gender mutilation in the nation’s government schools. It was the acceptance of sex education being taught in government schools using the curriculum written by sex perverts that set the stage what we see today. Yes, there is something called a “slippery slope.”
Please visit the Sam Blumenfeld Archives, a free on-line resource for homeschoolers, teachers, historians, educators and those with an active intellect: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE The Lady with the Lamp (1820 – 1910)
To listen to this presentation click here
To view this presentation as a PowerPoint click here
12 May is International Nurses Day.
It is also the birthday of the most famous and influential nurse, Florence Nightingale.
Few people realise the enormous debt which the whole world owes to Florence Nightingale. This courageous Reformer transformed hospitals and pioneered the modern nursing profession. No other person in history has done more to alleviate suffering and establish so high a standing of health care for the sick.
The Degraded State
Before Florence Nightingale the condition of hospitals and the nursing profession was in a degraded state. Hospitals were dirty and over-crowded. Antiseptics were unknown. Scarcely any facilities for the training of nurses existed, and their pay was less than that for a common labourer in the field. Nurses were drawn from the “undesirable sections” of society and were commonly regarded as “vulgar”, “uneducated”, “unclean” and were notorious for their drunkenness and immorality.
Florence
Florence Nightingale was named after the town in Italy where she was born on 12 May 1820. Until that time, Florence was always understood to be a man’s name, but through her parent’s tendency to name their children after their town of birth, Florence has become an honoured woman’s name.
Home Education
Florence’s parents were wealthy and well-connected. Florence was highly educated. A governess taught her music and art, and her father, William, taught her Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, grammar, history, mathematics and philosophy. Florence loved books and immersed herself in her studies. She felt alienated from those around her and was profoundly dissatisfied with “the emptiness” of her existence. She was distressed at the pettiness of social life. She developed a passion for neatness and accuracy. Visitors described her as: “Stubborn”, “Strong willed”, “very intelligent,” and “Extraordinary!”
Called
On 7 February 1837, just before she turned 17 years old, Florence wrote: “God spoke to me and called me to His service.” Florence travelled widely throughout Europe and even to Egypt. She was well aware of the misery of the poor. She became convinced that God had called her to reform the nursing profession and devote her life to the alleviation of suffering for the sick. Her parents were horrified and expressly forbade her to pursue such a degrading occupation. So Florence carried on her investigations, studies and correspondence concerning Hygiene, Sanitation and Nursing in secret.
Intelligence and Intergrity
In her 20’s, Florence was described as: “Tall, slender, elegant and very straight, her hair of a rich brown, her complexion delicate, her grey eyes pensive, yet ready to light into mirth with a smile the sweetest and most winning.” Her personal charm, intelligence, wide reading and sincerity attracted many friendships and marriage prospects – which she spurned.
Seeking First God’s Kingdom
At the age of 30, Florence wrote: “I am 30, the age at which Christ began His mission. Now, no more childish things, no more vain things, no more love, no more marriage. Now Lord, let me think only of Thy Will.”
Training in Germany
Florence travelled to Germany to enroll at a college for Deaconesses. She was a star student at the Lutheran Deaconess Training Institute at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine in Germany. She lived a spartan life in this college, rising at dawn, doing all the menial services, sharing the frugal meals of the sisterhood and attending lectures on nursing. On her return to England she set up a Sanatorium for Sick Governesses run by a Committee of Fine Ladies. This establishment for gentlewomen in Harley Street, London was used to test her innovative ideas on health care. At first there was conflict with the Committee, but in time all the members came to respect her innovations and skill in management.
Hygiene and Fresh Air
In the treatment of the sick, her first principles were cleanliness and fresh air. Contrary to all the tenets that then held sway, Florence began by insisting upon large and open windows for all hospital wards. “Thoroughness, initiative and hygiene” characterised the routines established by her. She produced the most detailed study into the state of health care in Europe
The Crimean War
Florence was just about to assume the superintendence of Kings’ College Hospital when the Crimean War broke out. After the Battle of Alma, in September 1854, The Times correspondent wrote on the shameful lack of proper provision for the care of the wounded after their heroic victory.
Disaster and Disgrace
“There were not sufficient surgeons; no dressings and no nurses; no linen for bandages – and yet, no one was to blame!” This was the first war in which the telegraph was used to wire dispatches back home, so for the first time up-to-date reports kept the people in England informed on the course of the war and the horrors of having no proper medical care for the wounded.
To Care for the War Wounded
As an outcry of indignation arose throughout the country, the Secretary for War, Sir Sydney Herbert, wrote to Florence asking if she would go to organise the care of the wounded in the Crimea. Within two days of receiving the letter of appointment from the War Office, Florence Nightingale set out (21 October 1854) for Turkey. She was accompanied by 38 hand-picked volunteers, whose abilities she had proved. Her sister wrote that Florence “was as calm and composed in this furious haste…as if she were going out for a walk.”
Controversy
With the announcement of her government appointment, Florence Nightingale came under national attention and became the target of much controversy. It was only after Queen Victoria gave Florence her personal support that most of the accusations against her subsided. Many high officials objected to a woman taking charge of what was essentially “a man’s job.” Others were astounded that a rich, popular, young and attractive gentlewoman was prepared to abandon her life of ease and luxury in England to face dangers, horror and fearsome toil on the battlefield.
Scutari
Apparently Florence took no notice of her critics. She reached Scutari on 4 November, just in time to receive a flood of wounded from the Battle of Balaclava. While struggling to cope with the Herculean task of tending these casualties, a further 600 wounded arrived from the Battle of Inkerman. She endured the prejudice and opposition of military surgeons, endured unimaginable squalor, a devastating cholera epidemic and battled against bureaucratic bungling from the start.
Colossal Calamities
She reported that: “Far more soldiers had died of disease than on the battlefield.” She described the hospitals as “colossal calamities.” There was no furniture, and no cooking utensils. Toilets were blocked and overflowing. Rats were everywhere. The filth and stench of rotting wounds were overwhelming in the overcrowded, rat, cockroach and lice invested corridors and wards.
Decisive Action
When informed that essential items that she needed would take weeks of delay, authorisation from England, and that she needed to await official reaction to the Commission of Enquiry, Florence Nightingale used her own funds to set up a house in Scutari as a laundry, and requisitioned a consignment of 27,000 shirts, which had not yet been released by the Board of Survey. Florence ordered that the bales be opened at once, and the materials delivered to the hospital: “Red tape or no red tape.” Many officials were incensed: “Is this the way to manage the finances of a great nation! Miss Nightingale coolly draws a cheque!” In fact, Florence paid for many of the supplies out of her own funds.
Overcoming Obstructionism
Apparently unconcerned by the controversies and furore surrounding her, Florence continued her work of cleaning up the shambles she had found. Those of her helpers who would not submit to the strict discipline, or endure the necessary privations, were promptly sent home. Official obstructionism impeded her efforts at every step, but she overcame all opposition with her persistence and determination. As Florence wrote: “I have no compassion for men who would rather see hundreds of lives lost than waive one scruple of the official rules.”
Organisation
She organised staff, oversaw purchases, set up housekeeping, ordered furniture, supplied clothing, supervised daily routines, working an average of 20 hours every day, performing the duties of cook, housekeeper, washerwoman, general dealer and storekeeper along with scavenger and nurse. Florence began and ended each hospital day routine with prayers. She also provided reading rooms and library books for the patients.
Personal Care
It was her custom before retiring to make a last tour of the wards. Her tall slender figure in nurse’s uniform, rich brown hair covered by a white cap, passing, lamp in hand, down the long isles between the rows of beds, bestowing comfort on the wounded seemed like an angel to the hundreds of wounded and sick soldiers.
Battlefront Reforms
Florence visited the battlefront to set in place further reforms. Hospital mortality (the death rate of patients) before she took over the care of war-wounded in the Crimea was as high as 42%. Soon Florence brought hospital mortality down to only 2%,
Saving Lives
As Dr. Benjamin Jarved of Oxford declared: “Nobody knows how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals, how many thousands of soldiers who would have fallen victim to bad air, bad drainage, and ventilation are alive owing to your forethought and diligence.”
Fever
Towards the end of the war, Florence succumbed to a severe fever, which could have easily taken her life. She recovered, but her health was so damaged that she would never be the same again.
Steadfast
In spite of her sickness and weakened condition, Florence refused to leave her post of duty until the British army evacuated Turkey at the end of the war in July 1856.
Avoiding Publicity
Travelling under a false name, as “Miss Smith”, she avoided the enthusiastic receptions that had been arranged for her, but was received by Queen Victoria, whom she persuaded to support hospital reform. Prince Albert described Florence as “extremely modest.”
Nurses Training
Florence’s work in the Crimea was, to her, only a beginning. She founded the Nightingale Home for Training Nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital and published an 800 page report entitled: “Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army.” This formed the basis of a Royal Commission to reform medical care in the military. The Army Medical Corp was transformed as a result of her efforts.
India
Florence took a deep interest in the sanitary and health measures adopted in India and was in constant communication with the Secretary of State for India to reform sanitation and health in that vast country.
Health Care Reform
Florence launched the most significant campaigns to improve health care and prevent patients dying from causes which could have been prevented. She strove to learn from the past in order to save lives in the future. It was her goal to ensure that those who had suffered in Crimea had not suffered in vain. She changed forever the status of the nurse and the fate of the soldier.
Transforming Hospitals
Her “Notes on Hospitals” revealed that civilian hospitals were as bad, if not worse, than military hospitals. She worked late into the night establishing effective training for nurses, setting new standards for sanitation and drainage. Her research reports dramatically improved working conditions for the poor and health care for the sick. Her requirements for nursing included that they must be: “Sober, honest, truthful, trustworthy, punctual, quiet and orderly, clean and neat.”
In Spite of Ill Health
Struggling against ill health herself, and surrounded by a colony of cats, Florence Nightingale continued her crusade to save lives and provide efficient, effective health care for the infirm.
Notes on Nursing
The Florence Nightingale Museum records that she wrote 200 publications and 13,000 letters. Her most famous book: “Notes on Nursing” has been translated into many languages including German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Finnish. It remains a classic resource and textbook for nurses, managers and health planners to this day. It dealt with all aspects of health care, including hygiene, bedding and diet. It emphasised the two most important principles of nursing: observation (such as the pulse, appetite and breathing of a patient) and sensitivity to a patient’s needs and comforts.
Spiritual Health
Florence incorporated Bible studies and prayer meetings as part of her trainee nurse’s routines and appointed chaplains for the hospitals.
Worldwide Impact
Florence Nightingale’s writings on hospital planning and organisation had a profound impact on health care worldwide. Her far-sighted reforms saved innumerable lives and established nursing as a respectable profession.
A Most Productive Life
After a most productive life, at age 90, Florence Nightingale died on 13 August 1910. Over 1,000 nurses and many veterans of the Crimean War attended her funeral service at St. Paul’s in London. Lord Stanley delivered this eulogy: “I know of no person besides Miss Nightingale who, within the past 100 years…has voluntarily encountered dangers so imminent, and undertaken offices so repulsive, working for a large and worthy object, in a pure spirit of duty towards God and compassion for man.”
“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me…. Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” Matthew 25: 34-40
 |
 |
|
||||||||