Basic HTML Version
The Child’s First School
In His wisdom the Lord has decreed that the family shall be
the greatest of all educational agencies. It is in the home that the
education of the child is to begin. Here is his first school. Here,
with his parents as instructors, he is to learn the lessons that are to
guide him throughout life—lessons of respect, obedience, reverence,
self-control. The educational influences of the home are a decided
power for good or for evil. They are in many respects silent and
gradual, but if exerted on the right side, they become a far-reaching
power for truth and righteousness. If the child is not instructed aright
here, Satan will educate him through agencies of his choosing. How
important, then, is the school in the home!
In the home school—the first grade—the very best talent should
be utilized. Upon all parents there rests the obligation of giving
physical, mental, and spiritual instruction. It should be the object
of every parent to secure to his child a well-balanced, symmetrical
character. This is a work of no small magnitude and importance—
a work requiring earnest thought and prayer no less than patient,
persevering effort. A right foundation must be laid, a framework,
strong and firm, erected, and then day by day the work of building,
[108]
polishing, perfecting, must go forward.
Children may be trained for the service of sin or for the service
of righteousness. Solomon says, “Train up a child in the way he
should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs
22:6
. This language is positive. The training that Solomon enjoins is
to direct, educate, develop. But in order for parents to do this work,
they must themselves understand the “way” the child should go. It
is impossible for parents to give their children proper training unless
they first give themselves to God, learning of the Great Teacher
lessons of obedience to His will.
Physical training, the development of the body, is far more easily
given than spiritual training. The nursery, the playground, the work-
shop; the sowing of the seed, and the gathering of the harvest—all
90