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The Knowledge that Endures
I am given words of caution for the teachers in our schools. The
work of our schools should bear a different stamp from that borne
by some of the most popular of our institutions of learning. Many of
the textbooks used in these schools are unnecessary for the work of
preparing students for the school above. As a result the youth are
not receiving the most perfect Christian education. Those points of
study are neglected that are most needed to fit them for missionary
work in home and foreign fields, and to prepare them to stand in
the last great examination. The education needed is that which will
qualify students for practical service, by teaching them to bring
every faculty under the control of the Spirit of God. The study book
of the highest value is that which contains the instruction of Christ,
the Teacher of teachers.
The Lord requires our teachers to put away from our schools
those books teaching sentiments which are not in accordance with
His word, and to give place to those books that are of the highest
value. He will be honored when they show to the world that a
wisdom more than human is theirs, because the Master Teacher is
standing as their instructor.
There is need of separating from our educational work an erro-
neous, polluted literature, so that ideas which are the seeds of sin
will not be received and cherished as the truth. Let not any suppose
that a study of books which will lead to the reception of false ideas,
is valuable education. Those ideas which, gaining entrance to the
mind, separate the youth from the Source of all wisdom, all effi-
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ciency, all power, leave them the sport of Satan’s temptations. A
pure education for the youth in our schools, unmixed with heathen
philosophy, is a positive necessity.
We need to guard continually against those books which contain
sophistry in regard to geology and other branches of science. Before
the theories of men of science are presented to immature students,
they need to be carefully sifted from every trace of infidel sugges-
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