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Fundamentals of Christian Education
minds of the young with heathenish conceptions of liberty, morality,
and justice? Is it safe to trust our youth to the guidance of those blind
leaders who study the sacred oracles with far less interest than they
manifest in the classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome?
“Education,” remarks a writer, “is becoming a system of seduction.”
There is deplorable lack of proper restraint and judicious discipline.
The most bitter feelings, the most ungovernable passions, are excited
by the course of unwise and ungodly teachers. The minds of the young
are easily excited, and drink in insubordination like water.
The existing ignorance of God’s word, among the people profess-
edly Christian, is alarming. The youth in our public schools have been
robbed of the blessings of holy things. Superficial talk, mere sentimen-
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talism, passes for instruction in morals and religion; but it lacks the
vital characteristics of real godliness. The justice and mercy of God,
the beauty of holiness, and the sure reward of rightdoing, the heinous
character of sin, and the certainty of punishment, are not impressed
upon the minds of the young.
Skepticism and infidelity, under some pleasing disguise, or as
a covert insinuation, too often find their way into schoolbooks. In
some instances, the most pernicious principles have been inculcated
by teachers. Evil associates are teaching the youth lessons of crime,
dissipation, and licentiousness that are horrible to contemplate. Many
of our public schools are hotbeds of vice.
How can our youth be shielded from these contaminating influ-
ences? There must be schools established upon the principles, and
controlled by the precepts, of God’s word. Another spirit must be
in our schools, to animate and sanctify every branch of education.
Divine co-operation must be fervently sought. And we shall not seek
in vain. The promises of God’s word are ours. We may expect the
presence of the heavenly teacher. We may see the Spirit of the Lord
diffused as in the schools of the prophets, and every object partake
of a divine consecration. Science will then be, as she was to Daniel,
the handmaid of religion; and every effort, from first to last, will tend
to the salvation of man, soul, body, and spirit, and the glory of God
through Christ.—
The Signs of the Times, August 13, 1885
.