622
T H E K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
October 1924
Secularized Public Schools— the Nations Menace the present status of pub ic education there is pre- ented the conflict of the w6 radically opposing pol
Rev. S. M. Ellis, D. D ., Memphis, Tennessee , “The ‘secular’ story of education, whilst rejecting the direct use Of the Bible for enforcing moral truth, yet undertakes to inculcate Bible morals by rules and regu lations, by the use of current moral maxims, and by moralizing upon the start ling evils and crimès of the day. * ** ** This Godless theory of education has already had a fair trial for demonstrating. its merit oyer the former policy in the use of the Bible in the school room, and the morals of this generation of youth have reached a stage in the downgrade that has no parallel in the history of public educai tion. *** * The policy of ‘secular’ educa tion -tried and found wanting— deserves to be rejected forever.”
as well as the intellectual, must be developed and can be developed only by the processes of education. The one source of all moral truth is in God; and that is found only through His revelation. Anonymous moral teaching, like the coin with its super scription effaced, is without value and without power. In the last analysis Divine authority through Revelation affixes its stamp for both the inculcation and the enforcement of all sound moral mandates. Apart from that Divine imprimatur moral
icies that directly involve the moral training of youth, the extent of such training, and the ways and means to be pursued to accomplish the desired end. The issue, on the one hand, would set forth an educational train ing that emphasizes the intellectual to the neglect of the moral nature, thereby establishing a course of in struction devoid of a system of moral teaching.
truth is without Stability, and without obligation. Confronted by conditions of a high moral development of America’s citizenship, with laws, customs, ethical ideals and institutions rooted and grounded in the bed rock truths of Divine promulgation, it is now proposed that the Divine Teacher and His Text Book be ignored in the school room; that the child be educated as an Intellectual animal; on the ground that its moral nature concerns only the church, be: cause morals are fundamental to religion. Such special pleading overlooks the fact that moral char acter, the product of sound moral teaching, is also funda mental to a high standard of citizenship, and is indispens able to Republics. A nation, in thus ignoring the Divine order in education, would pave the way for its moral de clension, and would invite its own catastrophe. Yet it is proposed that this Bible-made nation transmit her ideals, her spirit and her cherished government to our posterity, without transmitting the chief instrumentality that accom plished her own development, and that gave her character, In this vain undertaking, the experiment would demon strate that it can not be done, because the ignoring of the Bible in the school room is the ignoring of God. “ Secular” Education Takes No Account of the Moral Character of the State The fact that the State is a moral body, not organically but institutionally, is made evident by its power to do right or wrong. God has always held nations to a moral account ability, attested by His favor upon righteous government, and His judgments upon nations given over to disregard of His law. Since a government defines crime, enacts laws to punish crime, decides moral questions, provides for the moral welfare of the people, especially of the young, a suitable preparatory training of the rising generation there by becomes a necessity. The moral standards of any people are found in their laws and customs, their memorials and institutions. Their perpetuation is chiefly though the inculcation of such ideals in the school room. The State’s future citizenship is first in the training process of the sehool, in training for civic duties that require the highest degree of moral character; and it will always be found true, according to the accepted Humboldt maxim, that “ whatever you would have appear in the future of a nation you must put into its schools.” The, chief right of the State to maintain public education is that it may render to the youth of the whole country the necessary educational training for good citizenship. It is also confessedly true that moral character is the chief ele ment in good citizenship. But notwithstanding the fact that the only known method of the moral training of the
, On the other hand, the contention is for the moral train ing of youth after the original way of child trainings as God himself established it,— that moral character is of first importance, .and requires for its normal development moral truth from God, its source. This issue is. irrepress ible. The alternative of a complete moral instruction as given in the Divine system, or a ,strictly “ secular” policy, is inevitable,, and will ultimately prevail. There is no com promise, no half-way ground. The Secular Theory of Education The “ secular” theory proposes to teach morality as an expediency, and as a consensus of public opinion, with no authority of God in it; just a “ crazy quilt” presentation of human conventions in the expression of maxims, devoid of the Supreme authority, and having only the quality of advice or persuasion. From the “ secular” viewpoint, sin is not to be condemned in the school room because of the Divine Law, “ thou shalt not,” but because of the injury that sin works upon the doer in its corrupting power, and the heathen philosopher, Plato, got that far in his moral ramblings, a blind teacher leading the blind. History furnishes no account of a successful educational policy among any people which ignores God’s moral teach ings in the school curricula, but it does record the downfall of some of the great nations of modern times, clearly trace able to a false system of moral education. In the over throw of the dynasties of the three last monarchial empires their destruction in each instance is traceable to imperfect and distorted moral teaching. Russia had exalted in her schools their “ Little Father” above the great Father; and that once mighty empire now flounders in a holocaust of ruin, inextricable without moral training of her youth. Bismarck deliberately set about making another character >of subjects by an ignoring of “ the law of the Lord” in Ger many’s schools, substituting therefor a pronounced militar istic teaching. After fifty years of that perverted school :regime supported by Nietsche’s horrible teaching, the hitherto peace-loving German was changed into the ancient ;Hun. i “Secular” Education Ignores The Divinely Implanted Moral Nature of Man. Man’s sense of right and wrong identifies him with a moral nature, a nature possessed in perfection by the God •of Revelation. He is endowed with a moral conscience that is capable of responding to the urge of duty. The moral faculties are related to God’s moral law somewhat as the >eye is to light, or the ear to sound. The moral faculties,
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