Little boys like playing with toy cars. I have a model of a 1930’s postal delivery van. It was made by Matchbox, the toy company that specializes in detailed miniature replicas. This model is a 1-to-40 scale replica of a four-cylinder Ford truck built on a model-A chassis as used by the Post Office at the time. It is accurate in all its details. Except one.
The original models had a “G” and “R” flanking the royal coat of arms on the side of the van. That stood for George Rex, King George V who was the monarch at the time. But then, more recently, the Canadian government ordered 80,000 more of these models to be made to be sold exclusively in post offices. Now the G and R have been removed, and instead of saying “Royal Mail”, the banner “Postes Canada Post” flies across the crest.,
What happened here? The label Postes Canada Post was unheard of in the 1930’s. As Ted Byfield puts it, “The habit of uniting French and English into acronymic gibberish would not be invented for another 40 years” [Western Report; July 31, 1989]. But the Canadian Government wanted to brainwash modern young minds with the idea that Canada had always been a bi-lingual, bi-cultural nation without ties to the British monarchy.
We see here the philosophy that grips how history is viewed and taught, and which pervades our entire education system. In a biblical perspective, the past really happened and it shaped the present. The best way to truly understand the present is to know its roots. The past is valued. Today, however, only the present is valued. It is believed that what we say about the past should be shaped by whatever we want to happen in the present. Lie about the past if it will help you get what you want today.
The Matchbox toy is one such lie. The Canadian government wanted to advertize the Post Office, but did not want to advertize the fact that Canadian institutions grew out of British roots. That would not serve the current need for a united French-speaking / English-speaking tolerant, liberal nation that somehow had always been there. So the facts are changed and history is re-written.
Such deception occurs countless times throughout our entire education system, though it is not considered morally reprehensible. If the greatest good is the creation of a new tolerant society, then such techniques are viewed as ethically commendable. But that’s the difference between ethics and morality: morals have reference to absolute standards like “lying is wrong”.
This is just one more reason why Christian Education is vital. To send our children into the public school system is to expose them to a re-writing of history intended to shape their view of the present in ways that separate them from the past. It’s bad enough to be severed from the connectio to the reign of King George, but it’s even worse to have the reign of King Jesus replaced by secular humanist platitudes when in fact all of history is His Story.
