Standard histories of NCTE attribute the organization's beginnings in 1911 to rebellious teachers who opposed college entrance requirements imposed upon them by elite colleges and universities. This narrative offers an appealing account of NCTE's history. In this article, however, the author pursues a different line of historical inquiry by revisiting programmatic statements of English published in the first volume of what was then called "The English Journal" ("EJ"). By programmatic statements, he means the first "EJ" articles that offered overarching frameworks for the teaching of English in secondary schools. The author identifies important similarities between the state of English teaching in 1912 and 2012 and highlights historical links between English teaching and science, Christianity, race, and nation that have not figured prominently in the field's dominant historical narrative.