e of morals and values of todays youth. Therefore, this matter should have been researched much more extensively,or at least just as well as some frivolous television ratings. The way she decides who is responsible for this problem is almost asunconvincing as the reasons believes this problem even exists. She quicklypoints to public education as the major factor for the poor values and moralsof the current generation, and states that it is also the only thing that cansave it. The only real backing mentioned to support this conclusion is thefact that, one-hundred and seventy years ago, in the 1830s, the teaching ofmorals and self-discipline were concentrated on to decrease the crime rate.Although I am not familiar with him nor does she state who he is, she quotesJames Q. Wilson as saying Crime went down. And it went down insofar as I,or any historian, can tell because this effort to substitute the ethic ofself-control for what appeared to be the emerging ethic of self-expressionsucceeded. Perhaps Mr. Wilson may be right, and the reason for the declinein crime was the teaching of self-control, but it still remains that this all tookplace nearly two centuries ago. What any historian can tell you is thatpeople, and societies change. Two centuries is a large portion of time, itactually nearly covers the entire existence of this nation. That is a significantamount of time in which this countrys society can shape, and reshape itselfseveral times in continuously molding itself into a completely new, and uniquesociety. What might have been successful two centuries ago, cannotassuredly work today.In this essay, Townsend does, in fact, give more than enoughevidence to back one of her points; the fact that public schools do not think itis their place nor do they want to teach values and morals in theircurriculums. She uses a questionnaire she sent to schools across Maryland, aconsensus of high school administrators and teachers in a curricu...
