This reading was very interesting, the concepts that most stood out to me were the discussions on charity schools and juvenile delinquent centers and the concepts of conditioning patriotism in the minds of youth. I thought it was very interesting that Webster thought that he could actually influence what these children would think if he brainwashed them in a sense with patriotism concepts. Websters tactics reminded me of Hitler in the sense that he felt that the Anglo-American culture was the best and he wanted to impose his views on the minds of others, I found him to be a little fanatic. The concept of charity schools in my understanding were created as a way for the elite to socially impose their views on the society. In my opinion they seemed to think that only poor people without family structure were criminals and if they gave them a little education they would still be poor in reality but atleast they wouldn’t become criminals, I found that frame of thinking a little disturbing.
Do present institutions like Juve and local detention centers hold true to their roots of “the House of Refuge for Juve Delinquents” or are contemporary practices in these centers birthing criminals themselves? Has the educational system succeeded in its orignal efforts to create perfectly moral human beings? If so how does this concept of education affect the individual being molded? In terms of the concepts of childhood or lack thereof, what do you think has been or could be (if any) a trickle down effect of the broken family structure especially amongst African Americans?/ and is it plausible to say that the A. American family structure hass been cursed due to its history of broken family structure?
