The Civilian's Tremendous Responsibility 'By JAMES B. McLEROY Chaplain, United States Army Air Corps W E LIVE in a day of great re sponsibilities. This is a day in which slight actions pro duce drastic results. In the airplane a
Ruskin once said: “Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know; it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.” Experience has taught us that our system of education may find a hobo stealing a ride on a freight train, may run him through some of our schools, and he will then enter the office of the road and so manipulate the books that in the end he has stolen the railroad system. We have in America the largest public school system in the world. We have the most expensive college build ings, the most extensive curriculum to be found anywhere in the world. We are blind to our true course and going no whither. It seems that our system points to no specific outcome. You ask me: ‘‘What then is educa tion, what its purpose and aim?” I answer in the words'of S. F. Sco- vil:. “To know the laws of God in nature and revelation and then to fashion. the affections and .Will into harmony with those laws, this is education.” A man may acquire a mass of un related facts, know very' much about
teach us that it is now time to take stock of,the times in which we live and to make corrections. I would say the chief responsibility of our Civilian leaders is to do something about our God-dishonoring educational institu tions, about America’s pleasure mad ness, and about demanding that Bible truth be preached from the nation’s pulpits. Insuring True Education First of all, civilian leaders face an obligation to take action about Amer ica’s educational institutions t h a t deny or mock God in whose hand, the ’nation’s destiny rests. t One does not need to be very bril liant to realize what reception a state ment like that will receive in certain circles. The fact still remains, how ever, that a purely technical and ma terialistic training has failed. Either the spiritual man will be the man of tomorrow, or the coming order will be a terrible nightmare that will end civilization. This is the verdict of the vast majority of the great thinkers of the past, and it is most encouraging to see the ranks of this army of think ers growing rapidly today.
man can press a slight instrument and several tons of, destruction de scend upon either friends or foe. In certain places, one man has but to speak the word and thousands pay with their lives in answer to his com mand. The American people have- placed a great responsibility upon the nation’s armed forces. They have said to us, in effect: “Destroy from the earth those forces that would abolish our way of life.” While one can realize easily the task before the armed forces and the responsibility which rests upon our military leaders, there is, it seems, a greater responsibility resting upon the civilian leaders now. I realize that with a world situation changing very rap idly, it is difficult to form solid opin ions. Nevertheless history should The message appearing on these pages was preached at a morning service in 'the Chnrch of the Open Door. Los Angeles, during the time that Chaplain McLeroy w A stationed near Los Angeles. —EDITOR.
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