Chapter 28—The Child’s First School
God’s Original Plan for Education—The system of education
established in Eden centered in the family. Adam was “the son of
God” (
Luke 3:38
), and it was from their Father that the children of the
Highest received instruction. Theirs, in the truest sense, was a family
school.
In the divine plan of education as adapted to man’s condition after
the fall, Christ stands as the representative of the Father, the connecting
link between God and man; He is the great teacher of mankind. And
He ordained that men and women should be His representatives. The
family was the school, and the parents were the teachers.
The education centering in the family was that which prevailed
in the days of the patriarchs. For the schools thus established, God
provided the conditions most favorable for the development of charac-
ter. The people who were under His direction still pursued the plan of
life that He had appointed in the beginning. Those who departed from
God built for themselves cities, and, congregating in them, gloried in
the splendor, the luxury, and the vice that make the cities of today the
world’s pride and its curse. But the men who held fast God’s principles
of life dwelt among the fields and hills. They were tillers of the soil
and keepers of flocks and herds; and in this free, independent life, with
its opportunities for labor and study and meditation, they learned of
God and taught their children of His works and ways. This was the
method of education that God desired to establish in Israel
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In ordinary life the family was both a school and a church, the
parents being the instructors in secular and in religious lines
The Family Circle a School—In His wisdom the Lord has de-
creed 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,
1
Education, 33, 34
.
2
Ibid., 41
.
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