The Emanuel School Adventure
By C. R. Peterson
Paul
school system, stated one hundred years ago that if the common people were educated, nine-tenths of crime would disappear. Instead of that high hope’s being fulfilled, crime has in crease ■ 500% since that statement was made, and there is no promise or hope that the juvenile delinquency rate and crime wave will subside. It has certainly been proven that the mere teaching of ethics is not suffi cient. There is a difference between knowing the Sermon on the Mount and the Saviour of the Mount. Only as a child’s heart is changed by the indwelling Christ will he have an adequate motivating force within to produce the desired moral effect without. Secondly, the public schools have failed to live up to their promise of strict neutrality in regard to reli gious matters. The church leaders in the last century were promised that if they would commit their children to the public school, and co-operate in the establishment of the public school system, the children would not in any way be influenced away from any particular sectarian be liefs, and that the school would refuse to take sides in any contro versial religious matters. However,' the trend in the public school education has been toward irreligion and even atheism. It is common knowledge that the schools teach evolution. The state textbooks in California have included this theory, and it is given sympathetic study. This is a brazen attack on the religious belief of a great group of Christian people today, who hold to the evangelical faith, and believe in the creation story as it is told in Genesis. By the schools’ presenta tion of evolution they are discredit ing the work of the church leaders who are insisting that the creation of man was a separate act of God, apart from the rest of creation, that man did not descend from the monkey, or any other animal, but was fashioned by the hand of the Almighty God, and was created in the image of God. Recently I was participating in a public debate with the principal of a junior high school. I made the state ment that the public schools were handicapped because they could not teach religion; because of that, they were of necessity having to give way to those who believed in absolutely nothing, and that the inevitable trend of public education would be
toward atheism. The principal re plied by stating, “Don’t you believe it. I have taught the history of re ligion in my classes, and many phases of the Christian religion are presented in our classrooms.” After pinning him down to a closer state ment of facts, he admitted that his presentation of the history of re ligion had in mind to “ free” the child from historic Christianity. The faith of Luther was repulsive to him; the beliefs of the fundamental Christian theologians were definitely outmod ed. He felt that it was his calling as an educator to lead the child into an experience where he would be a free moral agent, without the com pulsion of an arbitrary personal God. The public school educators, in other words, have definitely not been neu tral in the matter of religion, and the vast majority of them that pre sent religion in the classroom present a skeptical, Bible-denylng point of view, while others present one form or another of atheism. Thirdly, the public school system is failing in these present days to truly educate our children in the basic educational subjects. Various forms of progressive education have diluted the curriculum of our schools. Everyone knows that many high school graduates cannot read in telligently or write legibly. Electives are presented to children in the low er grades with the aim of the edu cators being to “expose” the child to education, and if one part of the curriculum does not “ take,” then something else is presented such as music, drama, or mechanics. A recent case came to my attention where the child was not willing to keep up with the academic studies in a Christian school, and so trans ferred to a public school where he did not have to spend his. time mas tering the basic subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic, and could give himself to shop work. It is ex pected that the child will continue through junior high and high school, graduating without ever being able to read or write properly and hav ing no mental discipline, because the public schools are letting him slip through without the proper disci pline. The failure of the public school in the three phases that I have men tioned stems from the educational philosophy underlying the public school system. Almost the entire pub- Page Nine
Mr. Peterson O N FEBRUARY 3 a lion-sectar ian evange l i c a l Christian Day School movement was by the Board of Directors of Eman uel Schools, Inc. The directors con sisted of a group of ministers and business men who were determined to provide a Christian education for their own children, as well as for the children of other Christian par ents. The Board purposed to provide educational training for young peo ple where the teaching would be free from atheism, evolution, fas cism, and communism, and where there would be scholarship in a true Christian atmosphere. The immediate goal of the Emanuel School Board is to establish fifty grammar schools, and fifty Emanuel Junior and Senior High Schools within the next three years. Sincerely some have asked the question, “Why the need of more schools?" A frank answer to this question will of itself demonstrate the urgency and need of this non sectarian Christian School system. No one will hesitate to admit that the public school has served a use ful purpose, and that many fine advances have been made as a re sult of the education of all children. There will always he the need of a strong public school system. In an swering the question, we would not minimize the need of the public edu cation of the masses of children. However, the public school system has failed to live up to some of the high hopes entertained by the church, as it relinquished its educational min istry in thf middle of the nineteenth century. The public school system has failed to produce an adequate moral basis for its instruction. Horace Mann, the principal promoter of the public JUNE, 1947
inaugurated in Northern California
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