To the editor:

Douglas County has been our home for more than 80 years.

It’s hard to comprehend the changes in public school curriculum in comparison to our grade school days. It creates personal concern and concern for our families and our neighbors’ families.

I still have Bobbs-Merrill Reader, published by the state of Kansas, that I used at Willow Springs School in the early 1930s. I still marvel and appreciate the Godly wisdom they contain.

H.W. Longfellow’s poem, “When War Shall Be No More,” was an eighth-grade reader favorite. There were biblical Psalms that included 23,19, 24, 91 and 147. There were verses from the book of Proverbs, The Charity Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13; Where Shall Wisdom Be Found, Job 28; The Story of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15 and others that we often recall.

Evolution was not taught nor was it a question.

I’ve kept a yellowed clipping that spoke to the founding of our great universities.

“Christian schools, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others were established by Christians to train students for Christian leadership in America.”

The clipping includes a 1754 advertisement for King’s College, now Columbia University.

“The school’s purpose is to teach and engage children to know God and Jesus Christ, to love and serve him in all sobriety, godliness and righteousness … with a perfect heart and a willing mind.”

It’s difficult to understand how our education system, so important in shaping our future citizens, has become what it is today.

John Beeghley,

Baldwin