1)      “facilitate good citizenry”
2)      Teach “morality and knowledge”
3)      Teach “religion, morality, and knowledge”
4)      Teach “religion and morality”

The answer is 3. The following is a portion of our book (D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe), How Would Jesus Vote?

        The founders of this country never intended that religion should not be taught in our schools. The first Congress of the United States passed the Northwest Ordinance in which they said, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary for good government, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Schools? Yes. For what? Religion, number one. Morality, number two. Knowledge, number three.
        We got rid of religion; then we got rid of morality, and now we have gotten rid of education. Oh, we are pretty wise, aren’t we? We are so sophisticated and so modern . . . and so stupid. We are the dumb Americans, but we sure feel good about ourselves.
        What we hear from the school unions is that they need more money. Next time you hear that, just remember that we spend more money per student than any other nation in the world . . . and are producing abysmal results. It is not the money that is the problem; it is the philosophy that has gone wrong. We have brought about a moral
educational collapse equivalent to an attack by a hostile foreign power.
        You probably remember McGuffey’s Readers. They were first published in 1836 and sold over 122 million copies, and the whole series was thoroughly Christian. It was later expurgated of its Christian content by secularists, but it was originally all Christian. This is what William H. McGuffey, a Presbyterian clergyman and an educator, said in 1854:
        If you can induce a community to doubt the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures; to question the reality and obligations of religion; to hesitate, undeciding, whether there is any such thing as virtue or vice; whether there be an eternal state of retribution beyond the grave; or whether there exists any such being as God, you have broken down the barriers of moral virtue and hoisted the floodgates of immorality and crime.[i]
        Can you imagine a better description of what we have produced in this country today? William McGuffey said that in 1854, and he was right on target.
        All education was in the hands of the church and the clergy until 1830. That was the purpose of public education. Horace Mann, the founder of public education stated that what he wanted to do was to get education out of the hands of the church—to take away the Christian element. Well, we have taken it thoroughly away, and look what we have.
        But a more modern commentator, and probably known to more people, is Barbara Walters—as far as I know, never accused of being any kind of extremist.

 
Standing before a huge American flag, Barbara Walters looked sternly into the television camera. “The alarm has sounded,” she said. “The clock is ticking. But most of us are still asleep.”

Nuclear threat? Acid rain? An epidemic? Global warming?

No, Walters was referring to the deterioration of American education. Most high school students she surveyed thought the Holocaust was “a Jewish holiday.” Many could not locate the United States on a world map.

But the real crisis, Walters argued, is one of character. She said, “Today’s high school seniors live in a world of misplaced values,” she said. They have no sense of discipline. No goals. They care only for themselves. In short, they are “becoming a generation of undisciplined cultural barbarians.”

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