The Signs of the Times, vol. 26

March 14, 1900

“Wanted—An Education that Will Truly Educate” The Signs of the Times 26, 11, pp. 1, 2.

BY ALONZO TREVIER JONES

IT can not be denied that there is, even among leading educators, quite a general dissatisfaction with the education and the educational system in vogue in the United States. Any one having access to the channels of public expression can not escape the conviction that this is so. To thoughtful observers this is so plain that it is difficult to suppose that any one at all acquainted with the situation, would deny it. It seems to have become almost a conviction that modern education does not truly educate. Now there is a cause for this and that cause is neglect of opportunity and ignoring of principle. SITI March 14, 1900, page 1.1

1. As to the State. No State ever had better opportunity to apply principle, nor better principle to apply in education, than had this nation. In every other nation, State education has inevitably blended with religion; and, as in any case State religion is powerless for good because of its essential lack of the vital spirit of Christianity, the education given was necessarily impotent. In the United States, however, one fundamental principle was the complete separation of religion and the State; and the educational system, professedly, was to be conducted according to this principle. And, as the one great object of education by the State is to secure good citizens, this nation had in the Declaration of Independence and the national Constitution its greatest opportunity and best foundation for the building of an education which would, in very best measure, accomplish the desired end of securing good citizens. SITI March 14, 1900, page 1.2

The Declaration of Independence, the charter of American institutions, and the foundation of the United States Government, sets forth the principle that “all men are created equal,” and that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Therein is the basis of the best State education that ever could be. It is the perfect principle of civil government; and if every youth taught by the State had been so taught this principle that he would recognize it and actually practise accordingly, the citizenship of this nation to-day would be another thing altogether from what it is. If that had been done, then each one would have understood that when he acts in anything in such a way as to interfere with the free exercise by any other person of the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in such measure he denies the principle upon which the government itself rests, and thereby undermines his own civil safety, and in effect forfeits his own right to the free exercise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Thus, since rights are equal, what one has the right to do, every other has the equal right to do. If one can claim the right to act in such a way as to interfere with another’s exercise of the right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” then all have an equal right to do the same thing; and if all should do so, then all government would be gone, and only anarchy reign. Therefore, as government is established to secure the equal inalienable rights of men, no one can act in such a way that in anything he shall infringe the rights of another to any degree, without at once striking at the foundation of government itself. SITI March 14, 1900, page 1.3

But, instead of these things being inculcated in all the schools of the State, they were almost wholly neglected, and were wholly neglected in the very years when it was most essential that they should have been inculcated; so that, practically, the neglect was complete. And instead of teaching what thus should have been taught, to accomplish the only purpose of State schools, resort was had for that purpose to other things, that is, chiefly to a so-called “morality without religion.” And as the so-called “morality without religion” had its first exponents and examples among the ancient pagans, this called in the use of the literature, philosophy, etc., of those persons, with the result that, as one educational writer has stated it:— SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.1

It is one of the curiosities of our civilization that we are content to go for our liberal education to literatures which, morality, are at an opposite pole from ourselves.... Our hardest social problem being temperance, we study in Greek the glorification of intoxication, while in mature life we are occupied in tracing law to the remotest corner of the universe, we go to school for literary impulse to the poetry that dramatizes the burden of hopeless fate. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.2

The result could not possibly be anything else than that a nation so educated should go the same course as did those nations whose literature was the pabulum in the school provender. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.3

This dangerous tendency was at last discerned, but instead of getting down to national fundamental principles as to State education, a remedy was proposed,—that the Christian religion—“general Christianity”—“unsectarian religion”—should be a recognized part of the teaching. And as this inevitably involved a recognition of the Christian religion, it was actually proposed that the Christian religion should be recognized by the State, and its Book be made the standard in State education. But this was simply lowering the nation to the level of all the nations which were before it, and to the repeating of their impotent methods in education. It inevitably involved the abandonment by this nation of its own fundamental principles, and the adoption of the essential principles of the union of Church and State, which it was the glory of this nation to abandon. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.4

Thus the State in education ignored its sure foundation in its own fundamental principle, missed its grand opportunity to inculcate a true State education, and, “in wandering mazes lost,” in the education which it did give, is brought at last to where it is acknowledged that modern education does not educate. And the cry comes up:— SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.5

There must be in this country a better system of education, a system that is in closer touch with life, and that fits rather than unfits for life. There must be something in our common schools that will make for self-respect, and for that respect for others that is a part of true self-respect; something that will develop faithfulness and intelligence, and pride in work; something that will link head and hands by indissoluble bands. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.6

This is a vain cry, too, so far as the State is concerned. For now that, as to principles, the Declaration of Independence is repudiated, and the Constitution is abandoned, there is no possibility of the State ever regaining its lost opportunity. That opportunity is gone forever, and with it has gone all possibility of the State ever giving an education that will truly educate, even in that which pertains to State education. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.7

2. As to the Church. The Church proposes to be Christian. By her very profession, therefore, the only education which the church can ever employ, or even recognize, must be Christian education, that is, that all who profess to be Christians must see to it that their children have a distinctly Christian education; and, in order to this, the Bible must necessarily be the text-book in every line of education and in every phase of study. Thus, then, the children of the church, being so taught, would, by being Christians, certainly be the most quiet, peaceable, even model citizens; being strictly moral, in the nature of things they would be supremely civil. Then, with the State on her part faithfully inculcating the perfect principles of civility in all who were not of the church and of Christianity, there would have been secured in these that which is the object of the State education, good citizens. Thus there would have been secured all-around quietness, peaceableness, and that true civility which is becoming to the grandest of civil governments. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.8

But, instead of the church taking this course, the only true or becoming one for the church to take, she on her part, also missed her opportunity, and ignored the vital principle which belonged to her; she sent her children to the State schools in their earliest years; and when from these her children came into her own academies and seminaries, she likewise had them taught in the literatures of pagan Greece and Rome. And in her care there was presented, even more emphatically, the curiosity that she was content, for the liberal education of her children, to go “to literatures which, morally, are at an opposite pole from” all her principles and profession. Temperance being one of the fundamental virtues of Christianity, the church, in the education of her children, was content to have them “study in Greek the glorification of intoxication,” and, proposing to recognize a personal, omniscient, omnipresent, loving, merciful God, was content that her children should receive literary impulse from “the poetry that dramatizes the burden of hopeless fate.” SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.9

And now the church likewise is reaping her sure reward in the fact that in her own schools, theological seminaries, or what not, the education there inculcated does not truly educate, but educates only in the doubting, the questioning, and the rejection of the book of Christian truth, “in the wandering mazes lost “of the “higher criticism” and evolution; this until even from a master in theology the plaint has actually gone forth that there is no school on the American continent where a young man can go and learn the Bible as a whole, under the direction of deeply pious and thoroughly-learned teachers. There are schools where a young man fitting for the ministry can go and spend three years, and have himself stuffed with speculative philosophy under the name of theology, and with infidelity under the name of “higher criticism.” This is a positive and a burning shame. The writer cherishes the hope, that some pious man or woman of means will found a school in this country where men can be trained who will not only know the Bible from first to last, but teach it from first to last. That would be something new under the sun. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.10

This, too, is a vain cry, so far as the popular recognized church is concerned; for she has not only lost true respect for the book of Christian truth, but has lost the key of knowledge. And now she can not give an education which will truly educate. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.11

Therefore, the situation as it is to-day, in the schools of both Church and State, calls for an education that will truly education. And, as “morality without religion,” is only paganism, and has been demonstrated over and over to be a dismal and ruinous failure, the only education which will supply the need is an education which inculcates morality only by means of religion. And, as there is no true religion but Christianity, it must be an education which inculcates morality only by Christianity,—the morality of Christianity. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.12

And as it has likewise been demonstrated over and over that a professed Christianity, inculcating education that is drawn from classical and so-called philosophical sources instead of the Bible only, is also a dismal and ruinous failure, it follows that the education now called for, the only education that will meet the demand, is a Christian education, drawn wholly from the Source of Christianity, which is Jesus Christ, and from the Book of Christianity, which is the Bible. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.13

And here there is hope, high hope. For the third angel’s message, which is represented in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES and its sister journals, and which is committed to the people who publish these journals—this third angel’s message is, in this time, to establish Christianity on an eternal basis. This organization, in its families, its churches, its colleges, will give a distinctly Christian education, and so will give an education that will truly educate. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.14

The schools in which this education will be given, whether they be family schools, church schools, academies, or colleges, will be schools “where a young man can go and learn the Bible as a whole under the direction of deeply pious and thoroughly learned teachers,” while a youth “can be trained who will not only know the Bible from first to last, but teach it from first to last.” In these schools God will be sought and found for that which He is, the Fountain of Knowledge. In these schools Jesus Christ Himself, by His Holy Spirit, will be the great Teacher. In these schools, the Word of God, the Bible, will be the text-book, in every phase of education and every book of study. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.15

And with the Bible, as the text-book in Christian education, declaring that if any man will not work he shall not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10), and with Jesus Christ, the embodiment of Christianity, as the Great Teacher, and the one Example, showing in that example that he spent nearly six times as much time working at a trade as he did in preaching in his official ministry, thus ennobling manual labor by bringing God into daily work, and making the service of God just as certainly as he made preaching the service of God; this true Christian education will develop genuine faithfulness as true intelligence, and laudable pride in work. This will “link heads and hands” and heart in “indissoluble bonds,” by an education that will make Christian, all-around, manly work and womanly women in this world, who will delight, as did the Author of Christianity in going about doing good. SITI March 14, 1900, page 162.16