If you have ever wondered where our American system of public school education came from and why it exists, the answer will leave you dumbfounded.

For the centuries during the Dark Ages when illiteracy was widespread, persecution ran unchecked as the Word of God was kept from the common people. Countless atrocities were perpetrated in the name of the Lord by wicked leaders seeking to control the masses. When the early colonists arrived in America, the Bible was still a relatively new book to them, having been sealed up for centuries. As they personally examined the Scriptures and saw how dramatically the Word of God differed from what they had been told, they became convinced that people never would have tolerated the atrocities if they had known God’s Word. Had they known, they would not have been so easily deceived. Never again! Therefore, they enacted America’s first public education law, known the “Old Deluder Satan Law” (passed in Massachusetts in 1642 and then in Connecticut in 1647): in every township where they had more than fifty households, it was ordered that a local school be started to teach all children to read, especially the Bible–so as to prevent “that old deluder, Satan” from “keeping men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,” as he had done in Europe for the previous several centuries.

Deception is only able to take hold where a knowledge of the truth has been lost.

Old Deluder Satan Act, or Massachusettes Act of 1647

It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with love and false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors.

It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns.

And it is further ordered, that when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammer school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university, provided that if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year that every such town shall pay 5 pounds to the next school till they shall perform this order.

What is so ironic is that our very foundation of education, the entire notion of why we have a public school system in the first place, was to address this very same predicament we now find ourselves in. Tired of the darkness, they wanted the light to shine, so that the darkness could no longer prevail unchecked, free from being challenged by those who knew the truth.

This public school law was passed to prevent “that old deluder, Satan” from “keeping men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,” as he had done in Europe for the previous several centuries.

Note: In 1642 Massachusetts had required parents to ensure their children’s ability to read, and five years later, in this act, the state mandated community schooling.