I was listening to an episode of the Red Ryder radio show this morning. Not my favorite radio show, but it was what was on AM 1710. I came in about halfway through the episode (originally broadcast in April 1942), and Red Ryder was trying to catch someone who had both both killed a federal Indian agent and was trying to mislead the Indians "on the warpath." (Offending the "Great White Father" on several levels, it seems.) It's a nice myth put forward by 1940s and 1950s westerns that the federal government (as incarnate in the individual fighting for law and justice, whether it is Matt Dillon, Cpt. Lee Quince, the Lone Ranger or Red Ryder) is always "protecting" Indians from "bad" white men who wish to steal and kill them. Those bad white men NEVER act on orders, the federal government NEVER kills Indians unless it absolutely has to (to save or avenge innocents, usually), and then soldiers do the killing as part of "legitimate and lawful" military operations and NEVER for profit or pleasure.

At any rate, Red Ryder's kid sidekick, the very annoying Little Beaver, figures the situation out (after getting away from the reservation school, taking his horse and stealing dynamite). Red Ryder is impressed, and attributes Little Beaver's new-found smarts to going to school. Little Beaver then says if going to school makes is easier for him to "ketchum bad guys" then he'll go to school.

Red Ryder then explains:

A few hours of school every day and clean living will make a fighting American out of every boy.

Okay, it was a wartime broadcast of a bit a long-forgotten bit of pop culture junk. Still, I think it speaks volumes to at least one understanding of why society insists that children go to school -- to become "fighting Americans." All must serve the Great White Father.