My Son's Graduation (Values And Virtue)

Yesterday we celebrated my youngest child's graduation from High School. We, like all good families, bought him an iPod. ;-) He has done a good job of keeping it together and finishing the race and we are proud of him. He plans to go to the U of MN and major in constitutional law.

This means that, after 21 years of tuition payments totaling around $210,000, I finally wrote my last check to the school. Putting five children through private schools is not easy or cheap. Of course this is on top of my regular income and property and sales, etc. taxes that I pay as every citizen of the US does.

I just couldn't, in good conscience, put any of my children in the public schools. They were not an option 21 years ago and they are not an option now. What good does it do a country to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, and not teach virtue? "Who's virtue", you ask? "My idea of virtue" I reply. The schools do not teach absolute virtue anymore. They teach relative virtue. And as a result, they do not even have the power to teach the 3 R's.

Virtue and values are vital to any society. If you have them, you can have a peaceful and prosperous society. If you do not have them, then it makes no difference what level the people can read at. There will not be peace. Strife will be everywhere.

Now the only question is, whose values and virtue do we choose?