MARCH 12

Good morning on what looks to be nice sunny and somewhat warm--mid 50s perhaps. I have begun the process of cleaning up the patio, pulling the dead plants, and rearranging the containers. I did find that the chives in one of the containers is pushing up green shoots. I still have room in front of the chives clump to put some small pants. Doing a little at a time I should have the entire process done my mid April and can decide when to start some of the seeds I have. Transplants won't come until late April or early June. The weather is so crazy deciding when to put in the more sensitive plants is a bit of a crap shoot. I did get some needlework done over the last couple of days but, for some reason, my hands started aching so I cut the stitching time short.

So much of the news is ephemeral. Tariffs now, but a few hours later not. We haven't had to be too careful with how much we spent on what for several years. However, with the current political situation we will be paying close attention to costs. That isn't an unusual situation here. We have discussed often what we would do if we ran into economic difficulties. We'll see how long the new tariff war continues. Already the E.U. has announced that they are answering the $26B in tariffs Trump announced will be answered by Euro24Billion on specified goods. I half expect to see some signs in the grocery stores apologizing for a lack of product because their suppliers couldn't get tin cans. And I will be looking more closely at the prices of the goods they do offer.

Well, half the employees of the U.S. Department of Education have been put on leave which may turn out to be permanent. I am neither surprised nor shocked. I have been a reader and learner since I was in early elementary school and my mother taught me phonics, much to the annoyance of my teachers. They stuck to the "sight reading" techniques which frustrated me. Education for me meant learning new things or going into old things more deeply. I have had a love hate relationship with schools all the way through from elementary through high school through bachelor's degrees and master's degrees. I have hated those situations where the teachers tried to micromanage what I did. That was boring and I have a low tolerance for boredom. Those situations in which and teachers who let me direct what I learned. I never really fit in the system. And for some time I have thought that the education system doesn't really fit the country.

During the colonial and early Federal periods children were taught at home or through apprenticeships. Some more prosperous parents might higher a teacher to teach basic reading and arithmetic. It was very haphazard. I remember a movie about the life of President Andrew Johnson (TENNESSEE JOHNSON). He started out as a runaway apprentice who knew enough to be a somewhat successful tailor but he was illiterate. He learned to read late in life.

Catherine Beecher worked hard to establish formal, graded schools especially in the frontier areas. She and many other educational pioneers believed fervently in the "civilizing" power of education by which they ment that those being civilized would adopt white, middle class, and Christian values. Later the same fervent beliefs were applied to "Americanizing" new immigrants from eastern and southern Europe often from backward agricultural societies ill suited to an industrial society. However, the movement for universal education was supported by the social, financial, and industrial elites because the wanted a specific kind of worker: sober, punctual, literate enough to understand directions and obedient.The American system of education did a good job of turning out such workers in large numbers.

But the U.S. has long since gone from the industrial age to a post industrial economy which doesn't need so many "educated" employees. Though our elites may give lip service to education they don't really need the massive numbers of literate, obedient, punctual and sober employees. The economy we have needs subsistence workers who will accept low wages and can be dispensed with easily. Isn't it interesting that there are hard right politicians who are trying to lower the age at which children are allowed to work even in dangerous lines of work. In the late 19th century working poor families eked by on the labor of a low paid man, his wife earning half his wage, and their children (often as young as 6) who got a quarter of the man's wage. We have politicians and industrialists who wouldn't at all mind if that situation was recreated in the here and now.