Bethel University - Spire Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

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4 THE ACORN that civilization. The religion of Mohame-dan, Jew, Buddhist, and Christian must characterize the education of each. If our civilization can make any just claims or superiority over any other, it must be based on the fact that the underlying religious principles are higher than those of any other. Assuredly then this element should have a place in education. An educational system without this is like a boat without ballast. The atmosphere of religion produces a spirit of reverence which is necessary for a nation’s strength. It manifests itself in a reverence for law, authority, and above all for God. Because of some narrow sectarians all religious training has been banished from the public sbools. Since the state cannot give a religious atmosphere to education, then it devolves upon the church to make good this deficiency. Many parents are justified in the desire that their children be trained under the influence of the ethical and religious views they cherish. But it must not he forgotten that the time comes when the young person throws off all external guidance and chooses whether or not lie shall hold to the belief of his parents. Because of this some would at the outset set the youth adrift on the pathless sea and let him find his own way so as not 10 interfere with the sacredness of individual choice. But the daily uprising of song from the college chapels of Oxford and Cambridge has not meant any decrease of intellectual liberty. A religious atmosphere does not mean an inhibition of freedom to think. In our colleges the average freshman and sophomore is a vigorous, living contradiction of the pleasing hypothesis that he has reached the point where he is able to draw his own charts and steer his own bark. Educators are beginning to realize that he needs wholesome advice in the choice of his studies. It is then possible that lie may still he guided with profit in the choice of his recreations, ideals of conduct, and even in his dominant thoughts of the Infinite One. He needs not control, but guidance; not explicit instructions or spoken or written word, but that of environing personality. Many admirable young persons have been sent to the large schools with serious results. Many who are not fit for the free and irresponsible life would do well in some Christian institution. Pres. Jordan of Belaud Stanford has suggested that the first two years be dropped from the university course so as to keep students of that stage of development under conditions more suited to their immaturity. If this be the case with respect to the first two years of the college, then certainly the students in the more tender years of the high schooi or academy period need healthy moral surroundings. Without any doubt our public schools are doing great work, yet there is an incompleteness since nothing is done to develop the spiritual nature, and so lor this we must turn to the Christian institutions. The environment is such as to help the spiritual life. It makes for righteousness because the majority of the students are Christians. The Bible classes, the mission study classes, and high plane of social life help to make conditions such that the clean life is more easily lived than the unclean. The reaching and living of the Christian teachers is a great factor. The daily contact with such liigh-mlnded instructors does more than to see and hear in the pulpit, once a week, the man who wears a Prince Albert coat. It is true that the state institutions have many Christian men on their faculties, but no provision is made for the moral and religious training. The teachers in the larger schools do not have the opportunity in this line such as afforded by the smaller Christian schools. The public schools leave their stamp, and it is usually one of indifference to religion. Such a place is not good for those who are not firmly enough fixed so as to be able to resist temptations. But it is not only because of the religious

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No. 8 Tiie Acorn VOL. II. MAY 1910, % literar Kl'AMJ- '09 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION • Wm. Smith, A. B. In the makeup of man we find three elements, body, mind, and spirit. For a man to realize his greatest possibilities he must develop all his powers in right proportions. Our school system recognizes the first two elements and so develops physical giants, intellectual prodigies, but spiritual pigmies. The place and influence of religion in the life of the individual is excluded and so the perfect balance is lost. Religion is universal. There are no records of any tribe, however rude, that has been found destitute of religion under some form or other. The child is instinctively religions as is first shown by his reverence for and dependence upon his parents, who are really gods to him. God implants the religious impulse in the child and gives to parents and teachers a share in bringing him to his divine destiny. In the period of adolescence there is a reaching out for something of greater satisfaction than what the eyes see or the hands feel. At this period there is a susceptibility to ideal longings which culminate in religion. The religious impulse, at all periods, is just as normal as any of the other instincts. The end of education. according to Prof. Peabody of Harvard, is not information. but inspiration; not facts, rules, tables’ but insight, initiative, grasp, growth, character. power. How can this he attained when the spiritual life is utterly neglected? There is an alarming tendency of youth toward vice, but then it is not surprising when the schools banish the real and only source of power to mold character so as to withstand temptations. Education should help the voting person to realize all of his possibilities. Some may say that it is sufficient to teach history, languages, science, to bring the desired end. Produce a race of Miltons. Shakespeares. and Edisons and all will be well. Rut. it must be remembered that a pure type of citizenship will not conic from learning alone. Some even would say that religious culture is a thin veneer clinging to the outside of our civilization rather than a pillar. But any fair-minded person will agree that religion is more than a fungus growing on the exterior. The religion of any civilization must form an essential part of the education which is to fit men and women into

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THE ACORN atmosphere of these schools that we uphold them, for they have other advantages also. President-emeritus Eliot of Harvard says, “Academies, as a class, are distinctly superior to high schools, as a class.” In such schools the classes are smaller and thus each student comes more into immediate contact with the teachers. This means that immaturity is under constant impact of maturity. Under such conditions the instructor becomes well acquainted wi.h each individual and is thus in a position to direct each student in the best way. Our great educators realize the importance of such conditions and are trying to provide some substitute for it. Not only are the students brought into closer touch with the teachers but with each other. In the small school where every person knows every other person, there is less tendency to the formation of cliques, or closed circles, that tend to narrow the sphere of the students rather than widen it. In the small school the students come into closer touch with all the school activities and not only with one or a very few as is the rule in the larger school. A business man in one of our large university centres recently expressed alarm at the prevalance of ‘cribbing” among tne students. He said that this would tend tc develop men who would be dishonest when they entered the business world. This is one instance of one of the many evils which have a more fruithful field in the state schools than in the Christian institutions. When we face the matter squarely we find that the small Christian institution has been a mighty power for good, and although by no means perfect, yet it will continue to exert its influence and is worthy of our attention. It is to the Christian school that we must look for an adequate ministry, for workers in the mission fields, and for Christian teachers. Not only that, but we need men of high ideals in all walks of life. We need laymen who have been trained in the atmosphere of Christianity. Wo need business and professional men who are guided by true Christian principles. The crowning work of education is to give an incentive to worthy conduct to set up high ideals and purposes, and to give clear visions of life’s possibilities. Education that does not issue in high moral purpose and worthy achievement is a failure. “Though I speak in the tongues of the Greeks and Romans, and though I have all Knowledge of the sciences and have not a noble purpose for life. 1 am nothing.” The graduate with high scholastic honors, without true ideals and inspiring motives, is defective in training. The noblest thing in the world is true manhood and womanhood with strong moral purpose, and that Is what Christian education brings about because it deals with the person as a whole and leaves no one of his essential elements undeveloped.