Christian school

“ The young, therefore, are exposed to the greatest perils whenever, in the schools, education is not closely united with religious teaching. Wherefore, since primary schools are established chiefly to give the people a religious education, and to lead them to piety and Christian morality, they have justly attracted to themselves, in a greater degree than other educational institutions, all the care, solicitude, and vigilance of the Church. ”

“ Some say religious instruction should be given in the home. This is usually done, in the intelligent christian home; but there are many homes, where it is impossible, and others indisposed. The fact that the church has seen, as if with a new vision, the method of Jesus, the Great Teacher of all men, reveals itself more clearly in the Sunday school, than in any other department of its work. There it attempts the task of religious education by instruction from the Bible, and endeavors to inspire the child, youth and man with the purest and greatest motives for action. ”

“ A great majority of the teachers of our common schools are professing Christians. Very many of them are among our most active Sabbath-school teachers. Now a truly godly man or woman, at the head of a school, though never speaking a word directly on the subject of religion, yet by the power of a silent, consistent example, exerts a continual Christian influence. In the second place, as a matter of fact, direct religious teaching is not entirely excluded from our public schools. I think, it by no means holds that prominent position in the course of study which it should hold. ”

“ In christian communities they are invariably found exerting a christian influence.
The Bible and the christian teacher are essential for the accomplishment of the greatest good. These are seldom separated, and when they are found together in the public [Pg 396] school, it becomes a fountain of elevating christian influences. This privilege is enjoyed by many of our communities, where the supply of christian teachers is equal to the demand. ”

“ In the Christian schools, while the carefully-selected American teachers insure good schools and good teaching of the ordinary branches, there is a place for moral education, for simple religious exercises and for Bible study. ”

“ In all this long process the teachers are with them at every step—in the shop, the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer meeting, and the church, and often the principal of the school is the pastor of the church. Thus the church, which grows up within or along side of the school, gets the priceless boon of the personal example and influence of these Christian teachers, in refining the manners and in making character; and as the pupils are converted they enter the church to become its stable members and intelligent officers. ”

“ Many people feel that the purpose of the church school is to transmit the content of the Christian faith. Christian education, however, must be personal. It must take place in a personal encounter, and only secondarily is it transmissive. It is true, however, that Christian education is responsible for the continued recital of God’s saving acts, and for the transmission of the subject matter of the historical faith and life of the Christian community. The content of our faith was born of God’s action and man’s response—a divine-human encounter. ”

“ In every one of our schools the Bible is read, hymns sung, and prayer offered. The first thing is to teach them to read the Bible in the simple village school; then follows the Anglo-vernacular school for wider training; then the orphanages, to raise teachers and preachers; then the boarding and high schools; then comes the Christian college, male and female, for special training. Adding the theological seminary, we have thus amply provided for the wide Christian culture of our membership and ministry. ”

“ The fruit to be gathered in was from among the older students of the school, who were not already professing Christians. This was what would be expected by those who know their faithful, Christian teachers. All teachers know the thrilling interest that clusters around the conversion of young persons under their tuition. So, as I have heard our teachers talk of this scholarly young man, and that promising young woman, coming over to the Lord’s side, I knew very well what a burden of prayer and effort was lifted from their hearts and hands. ”

“ Nor will you doubt that your Schools should be Christian Schools, through which the Church's little ones shall be trained in the knowledge of her Holy Faith, and through which the Church's pastors may begin to do their duty to the lambs of Christ's flock. ”

“ With the exception of orphans sent to Baptist Missions, they were as a rule baptized at once, and were thus brought within the pale of the Christian Church to be trained for the love and service of Christ. The first place was given to Christian instruction and training. All were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. Those who proved themselves capable of receiving a higher education were continued at school, in the hope of their becoming qualified for offices such as those of teacher and preacher, for which mental and moral fitness was indispensable. ”

“ Second, none but Christians in good standing and with a spiritual conception of life should be allowed to teach in Christian schools. Church schools are worse than useless if they bring students under the influence of those who do not believe in the religion upon which the Church and church schools are built. Atheism and Agnosticism are more dangerous when hidden under the cloak of religion than when they are exposed to view. ”

“ Such a school as that in Andersonville, Ga., is the initiative of a church mission. School education is of little advantage unless it is linked with moral training; and there is no moral training comparable with that of a pure and true Christian church. Our mission school teachers call for and need the re-enforcement of gospel preaching on the Lord's day, and the faithful work of a pastor during the week. A great deal of hard work in the school would be frittered away and lost without the distinctive church work which must supplement, and confirm it. ”

“ It recognizes the fact that finite things can not be rightly understood without knowing their relation to the Infinite. Our Lord Jesus, who came into the world to make known the will of the Father, "holds in his girdle the key to all the secrets of the universe, and no education can be thorough without the knowledge of Him."
Christian schools are established for the culture of souls. Their aim is to develop men and women as persons to the full extent of their powers for the sake of their contribution to the personal welfare and progress of society. ”

“ XII. Education The cause of education in the kingdom of Christ is co-ordinate with the causes of missions and general benevolence and should receive along with these the liberal support of the churches. An adequate system of Christian schools is necessary to a complete spiritual program for Christ's people. ”

“ If we may judge from a hasty inspection of classes, from the scope and skillful expression of thought in the graduating exercises, and from the testimony of teachers, a thorough and sufficiently extended education in all mental departments is given. Best of all, as the crown no less than the beginning of wisdom, the students, entering the school without special religious impressions, seldom leave it without becoming devoted Christians. ”

“ Said one young preacher: “The school is the primary department of the church. It trains the children and youth to think, and hence to accept of a thoughtful religion like ours, instead of the mere shouting and emotional style to which the ignorant and untrained cling. The true religion is one which teaches us to love God and our neighbor supremely, and this can be done best by the intelligence which comes only through the school training.” ”

“ The colored people, though the majority of them are unlettered men, seek for Christian teachers—even in our common public schools—as a general thing.
The mission work carried on by the theological students is still full of interest, and promises a bright future for the many thousands who are being brought to a knowledge of the truth. The students of the college go out into all parts of the State and teach day and Sunday-schools, and by so doing exert a Christian influence over their pupils. ”

“ There were, are, and will be members of the Catholic Church, who, ignorant of science, of book-learning, did not become infidels, but exhibited a practical faith throughout life, and died in the odor of sanctity. Divine faith does not require as a companion, in the individual Catholic, a knowledge of profane literature, but humility, compunction, self-denial, and a contempt of the world. Schools are therefore not absolutely necessary for our children. ”

“ The work of this college was to be the preparation of young men for the Christian ministry, that they might go into all the world and preach the Gospel. One truth he bade them bear in mind: that this training was to be given without sectarian theology; that his brethren themselves represented a revolution among believers, having cast aside the dogmas of modern teachers, and taken, as the one infallible guide of their faith and practice, the Bible simply; so making it their sole work to bring all modern believers together into one church, and that one church the church of the apostles. ”

“ Hence Jesus Christ, on the Day of Judgment, will not ask parents and pastors of souls whether their schools could compete with infidel schools, but whether they did all in their power to secure the eternal welfare of their children by a good Catholic education. ”

“ Most theologians grow up from infancy under a system of doctrines inculcated both from the pulpit and in the family. This enlists all the strong and inveterate influences of early education in its favor. Next, the collegiate pulpit instructions and associations all favor the same system. Next, the theological school brings the young under the direct training of the most acute minds, whose express business it is to teach all methods of supporting and defending that system. ”

“ That in the Roman Catholic Church the literary and religious instruction of youth are universally combined, and that no system of education which separates them can be acceptable to the members of her communion; that the religious instruction of youth in Catholic schools is always conveyed by means of catachetical instruction, daily prayer, and the reading of religious books, wherein the Gospel morality is explained and inculcated ”

“ For it is in these schools, above all, that the children of the people ought to be carefully taught from their tender years the mysteries and precepts of our holy religion, and to be trained with diligence to piety, good morals, religion and civilization. In such schools religious teaching ought to have so leading a place in all that concerns education and instruction, that whatever else the children may [Pg 312] learn should appear subsidiary to it. ”

“ If we wish to be good teachers, we must study, and try to understand the things we expect to teach. If a young man wishes to be a minister, he must go through college; and then spend three years in the Divinity School, so that he may understand the great truths of the Bible, which he is to teach the people who hear him. But Jesus never went to college, or to a divinity school. And yet he had greater knowledge about all the things of which he spoke than any other teacher ever had. ”

“ Yet it should be evident that how things are taught, even things which have no direct relation with religious teaching, makes all the difference to the effect of an education. The teaching as a whole must be Catholic or non-Catholic. You cannot make a school which shall not be the one or the other, any more than you can make a home which shall not be the one or the other. ”

“ If, for apparently good reasons, it be not expedient under present conditions to introduce systematic religious education into the public schools, it is possible for us to make provision in some other way for religion to have its rightful place in the general training of our children. This would require a religious school organization, with a curriculum that interprets religion as ethical in its aim. ”

“ It is a fundamental principle of Christianity, admitted even by Protestants, that man cannot reach his destiny without a knowledge of the religion which Jesus Christ taught, and which He sealed with His precious Blood. Now this fundamental principle is virtually ignored in our present school system, which proposes to educate without religion. ”

“ It is the teacher's task not only to impart to his scholars valuable information about the Bible, about God, about Christ, and about salvation; but, far more than imparting an intellectual knowledge, to bring the living word into relation with living souls, to inspire a fellowship of his pupils with God, to have Christ founded within them, to make salvation through Christ their joyous possession. Nor is his work as a working disciple accomplished when all his scholars have become Christians in possession and profession, and members of Christ's Church. ”

“ Sunday schools, in which all the teachers are believers, and in which the Holy Scriptures are alone the foundation of instruction, are such only as the Institution assists with the supply of Bibles, Testaments, etc.; for we consider it unscriptural that any persons who do not profess to know the Lord themselves should be allowed to give religious instruction.
c. The Institution does not assist any adult school with the supply of Bibles, Testaments, spelling-books, etc., except the teachers are believers. ”