July 10, 2019 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
The Prudes of Colonial New England
The obvious reason for educating the entire
household to read and write was to enable them to read the KJV or the Bible of
the Church of England.
But the second and the surprising reason
for their education was to enable them to understand the colonial laws.
Rule of law therefore was a significant
factor in both these places.
Young boys who were interested to join the
church ministry were given easy access to colleges such as Harvard (founded in
1636) and Yale (founded in 1707).
Young men in New England who sought to make
their careers in law or medicine were given options to go “abroad” to England
and Scotland which then had become the seat of advance learning.
I remember when I was a small boy (that
would be early 80s – India’s most bloody decade in modern history) my father
would often talk about London or Edinburgh and its systems when conversing with
me about law, medicine or sciences which suggests that for long England and
Scotland indeed were the sought after and highly esteemed cultural and
education centers of the world.
Oddly enough I never ever recall him (not
that my memory is reliable or dependable) talking about United States or its
universities to me.
The only universities that he ever talked
to me about were either the Cambridge or the Oxford which by the way even today
occupy the top slots in the world by various university rankings.
Religion – at least during the First Great
Awakening – need not necessarily be thought of as purely evil and dark and it
had its bright side too.
But then it was not all bright or rosy
either because the Protestants of the Colonial New England sometimes pejoratively
called the Puritans (“against pleasure” and antonym of hedonism) took a great
pride in proscribing anything that was either sexual or related to pleasure
more so if it would fall on Sundays the day of their Sabbath.
So much did pleasure disturbed the high
priests of Puritans/Protestants of New England that the Parliament outlawed even
their own Christmas festivals such as Christmas, Easter and Whitsun simply
because the holidays surrounding them were seen as impious and associated with
condemnable frivolity.
All sport, leisure activities along with
any sort of entertainments were discouraged on Sundays as they served means of
distraction from the observation of Sabbath and devotion to God.
Card playing and gambling was banned in
England during the First Great Awakening as was any kind of dancing that
involved intermingling and intertwining of the two sexes as this was believed
to eventually lead to fornication, one of the cardinal sins of Christianity
outside marriage.
Alcohol in moderation was not opposed
though the Puritan-controlled government controlled the wine shops and ale
houses both in England and New England.
Sexuality was curtailed to only within the
boundaries of a legal church-held marriage.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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