THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION
By Wallace Emerson, Ph.D.*
A | > HERE is a growing movement among evangelicals toward the establishment of Christian day schools on both elementary and second ary levels. Such a movement must be due to a deep-seated feeling of need as we can see from the additional finan cial burden. In this day of high prices, high taxes and high building costs, ad ditional burdens are not willingly ac cepted except for the most urgent rea sons. For each new school organized is an additional burden since our taxes for public schools must be met and indeed should be. Evangelical Christians traditionally have been vigorous and loyal supporters of the public school system. Under no circumstance can they be accused of any antagonism to it in theory or practice. Heretofore, certain religious groups, notably Catholics, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, and others have been committed in part at least to the paro chial school idea, but not evangelicals. How then is this changing attitude motivated? There are several reasons which can be enumerated. First let us say that, traditionally, private and parochial schools existed side by side with the public schools; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that a few public schools existed side by side with private and parochial schools, since the latter greatly out numbered the former during colonial times and the early years of our na tional life. When the public school movement be gan, since there was no established church and America, rightly we think, became committed to a policy of the separation of church and state, there was a tacit compromise relating to the public schools. Since we could not agree upon what denominational or religious viewpoints should be taught in the pub lic school, it was agreed that no view- *Chairman of the Department of Christian Education and Education, The Bible Institute of Los AngeVes.
points of any kind should be taught; that there should be a complete separa tion of the schools from sectarian in fluence; but equally implicit in this understanding was also the firm con viction that irreligion should not be taught directly or by implication. A secularization of the schools seemed to be necessary, but a bias against religion was neither advocated nor thought ol and indeed was repugnant to the whole national way of thinking. This spirit of neutrality has not al ways obtained in our public schools, and the tendency of American life to become more and more secularized, to ignore religious values more and more, has left educators with the feeling that they themselves are possessed of a sort of divine right, by reason of their profes sorial status, to decide what education in general should or should not teach. This has left Christians with the feeling that the public schools, because they are a function of the state, have had the same tendency toward assembly-line methods and that there is an increasing statism evident in educational even as in governmental matters. Through domi nation of the John Dewey philosophy, which is the philosophy of secularism, we are committed to a type of cur riculum which in no way can emphasize spiritual truths even though it does sometimes try to emphasize moral living. This kind of program results in a way of thinking which is neither conducive to godliness, moral living, nor even to civic stability. In fairness to the public school sys tem, the following must be said. First, the public schools have done a most commendable job from a secular stand point in their Americanization program. The children of foreign-born have been received without antagonism, usually with sympathy and understanding, have been educated in the American way of thinking in so far as that is possible in one generation, and except for the tendency of certain groups to settle in racial blocks and in large cities, the
public school could have undoubtedly been even more successful along this line. Secondly, the American school has been a training ground for native-born in patriotism and the democratic way of life. Third, it has attempted to do what no other nation in history had either attempted or cared to attempt, namely, to offer an educational program from kindergarten to graduate school at state expense for all who had the capability and desire to receive it. As William Rainey Harper once stated, it had come to pass that the price of an education was a desire to have it. Fourth, while it is true that the American public school has in no wise reached perfection in teaching the com mon branches, to say nothing of pro ducing a nation of scholars, it must be said in extenuation, that it has had to fight certain demoralizing national ten dencies (strangely enough, our prosper ity has been one of them); and has probably shown no more failure in this respect than other institutions. Certainly we would have to say that it has been as successful as the American home and even as successful as the average Amer ican church, upon which it has also had to depend to some degree for its own success. Fifth, there has been a steady in crease in educational qualifications de manded of teachers and administrators, although perhaps we may qualify ap proval in this by saying there has also been a decrease in public feeling that we hire a teacher for what she is as much as for what she teaches. Over against this excellent record there are some things that are not quite so good. There is, first of all, the infil tration by radicals, fellow travelers, so-called liberals, into educational lead ership. Along with some good things, it will be remembered that John Dewey, so far as his educational philosophy was concerned, was entirely acceptable to
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