Christian Education and Why the Protestant Churches Fell

That church triumphs which breaks the yoke of worldly education, and which develops and practices the principles of Christian education.

“Now, as never before, we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.” Christian Educator, July 8, 1897. “The science of true education is the truth. . . . The Third Angel’s Message is truth.” Testimonies, vol. 6, 131. It is taken for granted that all Seventh-day Adventists believe that Christian education and the Third Angel’s Message are the same truth. The two are as inseparable as are a tree’s roots and its trunk and branches.

The object of these studies is to give a better understanding of the reason for the decline and moral fall of the Protestant denominations at the time of the midnight cry in 1844, and to help us as Seventh-day Adventists to avoid their mistakes as we approach the Loud Cry, soon due to the world.

A brief survey of the history of the Protestant denominations shows that their spiritual downfall in 1844 was the result of their failure “to understand the true science of education.” Their failure to understand and to practice Christian education unfitted them to proclaim to the world the message of Christ’s Second Coming. The Seventh-day Adventist denomination was then called into existence to take up the work, which the popular churches had failed to train their missionaries to do. The Protestant denominations could not give the Third Angel’s Message, a reform movement, which is a warning against the beast and his image, because they were still clinging to those doctrines and those principles of education which themselves form the beast and his image.

It is important that young Seventh-day Adventists study seriously the causes of the spiritual decline of these churches in 1844, lest we repeat their history, and be cast aside by the Spirit of God, and thus lose our place in the kingdom. If Seventh-day Adventists succeed where they failed, we must have a system of education which repudiates those principles which in themselves develop the beast and his image.

“Now, all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” I Corinthians 10:11.

Protestantism, born in the sixteenth century, was about to lose its light in Europe. God then prepared a new land, the future United States, as a cradle for the protection and development of those principles, and from this country is to go forth the final world-wide message that heralds the Saviour’s return.

“It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims to brave the perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure hardships and dangers of the wilderness, and, with God’s blessing, to lay on the shores of America the foundation of a mighty nation. . . . “The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of wisdom and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught in the home, in the school, and in the church, and its fruits were manifest in thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance. . . . “It was demonstrated that the principles of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness.” The Great Controversy, 292, 296.

These Reformers, on reaching America, renounced the papal doctrines in church and state, but they retained the papal system of education. While the Reformers rejected the creed of Rome, they were not entirely free from her spirit of intolerance. “The English Reformers, while renouncing the doctrines of Romanism, had retained many of its forms.” Some “looked upon them as badges of the slavery from which they had been delivered, and to which they had no disposition to return. . . . Many earnestly desired to return to the purity and simplicity which characterized the primitive church. . . . ‘England was ceasing forever to be a habitable place.’ Some at last determined to seek refuge in Holland. Difficulties, losses, and imprisonment were encountered. . . . In their flight they had left their houses, their goods, and their means of livelihood. . . . But they cheerfully accepted the situation, and lost no time in idleness or repining. . . . ‘They knew they were pilgrims’. . . . In the midst of exile and hardship, their love and faith waxed strong. They trusted the Lord’s promises, and He did not rail them in time of need. His angels were by their side, to encourage and support them. And when God’s hand seemed pointing them across the sea, to a land where they might found for themselves a state, and leave to their children the precious heritage of religious liberty, they went forward, without shrinking, in the path of Providence. . . . The Puritans had joined themselves together by a solemn covenant, as the Lord’s free people, to walk together in all His ways made known or to be made known to them. Here was the true spirit of reform, the vital principle of Protestantism.” The Great Controversy, 289–291.

The educational system of the church, which had driven them from their native home, was one of the most serious errors from which the Puritans failed to break away. Their system of education, while papal in spirit, was, to a certain extent, Protestant in form. The historian writes of the schools of the Puritans in the New World, that their courses were “fitted to the time-sanctioned curriculum of the college. They taught much Latin and Greek, and extended course in mathematics, and were strong generally on the side of the humanities. . . . This was a modeling after Rugby, Eton, and other noted English schools.” Again we read, “The roots of this system were deep in the great ecclesiastical system.” “From his early training,” Dunster, one of the first presidents of Harvard, “patterned the Harvard course largely after that of the English universities.” They so faithfully patterned after the English model—Cambridge University—that they were called by that name, and the historian wrote of Harvard, “In several instances youths in the parent country were sent to the American Cambridge for a finishing education.” Boone, speaking of the courses of study of William and Mary prior to the Revolution, says, “All were of English pattern.” Of Yale, started later, it is said, “The regulations for the most part were those at Harvard, as were also the courses of study.” The younger patterned after the older. It is very natural that Yale should be established after the English papal system, because the founder, Elihu Yale, had spent twenty years in the English schools. “Twenty years he spent in the schools and in special study.” Boone’s Education in the United States, 24–40.

Seventh-day Adventists should not let this fact escape their attention: The three leading schools of the colonies were established by men who had fled from the papal doctrines of the Old World; but these educators, because of their training in these papal schools and their ignorance of the relation between education and religion, unwittingly patterned their institutions after the educational system of the church from which they had withdrawn.

It is surprising that these English Reformers, after sacrificing as they did for a worthy cause, should yet allow a system of education, so unfitted to all their purposes, to be in reality the nurse of their children, from whose bosom these children drew their nourishment. They did not realize that the character and Christian experience of these children depended upon the nature of the food received. Had they grasped the relation of the education of the child to the experience of the same individual in the church, they would not have borrowed this papal system of education, but would have cast it out bodily as too dangerous for tolerance within the limits of Protestantism.

Some facts from educational history will make clear the statement that the system of education in Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, and Rugby was papal, and the New England Reformers, patterning their schools after these models, were planting the papal system of education in America. Laurie says, “Oxford and Cambridge modeled themselves largely after Paris. . . . A large number of masters and their pupils left Paris. . . . Thus the English portion of (Paris) University went to Oxford and Cambridge.” The relation of the University of Paris, the mother of Cambridge and Oxford, to the papacy is thus expressed, “It was because it was the center of theological learning that it received so many privileges from the pope, and was kept in close relation to the Papal See.” Laurie’s Rise and Constitution of Universities, 153, 162, 242.

Luther and Melanchthon, the great sixteenth century Reformers, understood clearly that it was impossible to have a permanent religious reform without Christian education. So they not only gave attention to the doctrines of the papacy, but also developed a strong system of Christian schools. Melanchthon said, “To neglect the young in our schools is just like taking the spring out of the year. They indeed take away the spring from the year who permit the schools to decline, because religion cannot be maintained without them.” “Melanchthon steadily directed his efforts to the advancement of education and the building up of good Christian schools. . . . In the spring of 1525, with Luther’s help, he reorganized the schools of Eisleben and Magdeburg.” He declared, “The cause of true education is the cause of God.” Life of Melanchthon, 81.

“In 1528 Melanchthon drew up the ‘Saxony School Plan,’ which served as the basis of organization for many schools throughout Germany.” This plan dealt with the question of a “multiplicity of studies that were not only unfruitful but even hurtful. . . . The teacher should not burden the children with too many books.” Painter’s History of Education, 152. These Reformers realized that the strength of the papal church lay in its educational system, and they struck a crushing blow at this system and, wounding it, brought the papal church to her knees. The Reformers established a system of Christian schools that made Protestants of the children. This wonderful revolution in education and religion was accomplished in one generation, in the brief space of one man’s life.

To give an idea of the power in that great Christian educational movement, the historian, speaking o several European countries, says: “The nobility of that country studied in Wittenberg—all other colleges of the land were filled with Protestants. . . . Not more than the thirtieth part of the population remained Catholic. . . . They withheld their children, too, from the Catholic schools. The inhabitants of Mainz did not hesitate to send their children to Protestant schools. The Protestant nations extended their vivifying energies to the most remote and most forgotten corners of Europe. What an immense domain had they conquered within the space of forty years. . . . Twenty years had elapsed in Vienna since a single student of the University had taken priests’ orders. . . . About this period the teachers in Germany were all, almost without exception, Protestants. The whole body of the rising generation sat at their feet and imbibed a hatred of the pope with the first rudiments of learning.” Von Ranke’s History of the Popes, 135.

After the death of Luther and Melanchthon, the theologians, into whose hands the work of the Reformation fell, instead of multiplying Christian schools, became absorbed in the mere technicalities of theology, and passed by the greatest work of the age. They sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. When the successors of Luther and Melanchthon failed to continue that constructive work, which centered largely in the education of the youth, who were to be the future missionaries and pillars of the church, internal dissention arose. Their time was spent very largely in criticizing the views of some of their co-laborers who differed with them on some unimportant points of theology. Thus they became destructive instead of constructive. They paid too much attention to doctrines, and spent the most of their energy in preserving orthodoxy. They crystallized their doctrines into a creed; they ceased to develop, and lost the spirit of Christian education, which was the oil for the lamps. Protestantism degenerated into dead orthodoxy, and they broke up into opposing factions. The Protestant church, thus weakened, could not resist the great power of rejuvenated papal education.

The success of the Reformers had been due to their control of the young people through their educational system. The papal schools were almost forsaken during the activity of Luther and Melanchthon. But when these Reformers died and their successors became more interested in abstract theology than in Christian education, and spent their time, energy, and the money of the church in preaching and writing on abstract theology, the papal school system, recovering itself, rose to a life and death struggle with the Protestant church. The papacy realized that the existence of the papal church itself depended upon a victory over Protestant schools. We are surprised at the skill and tact the papal educators used in their attack, and the rapidity with which they gained the victory. This experience should be an object lesson forever to Seventh-day Adventists.

A Christian School Animated by the Papal Spirit. —The eyes of the successors of Luther and Melanchthon were blinded. They did not understand “the true science of education.” They did not see its importance, and grasp the dependence of character upon education. “The true object of education is to restore the image of God in the soul.” Christian Educator, 63. Satan took advantage of this blindness to cause some of their own educators, like wolves in sheep’s clothing, to prey on the lambs. Chief among these was John Sturm, who, by these blind Reformers, was supposed to be a good Protestant. Sturm introduced practically the entire papal system of education into the Protestant schools of Strasbourg. And because he pretended to be a Protestant, the successors of Luther looked with favor upon his whole educational scheme. He was regarded by the so-called Reformers as the greatest educator of his time, and his school became so popular among Protestants that it was taken as their model for the Protestant schools of Germany, and its influence extended to England, and thence to America.” “No one who is acquainted with the education given at our principal classical schools—Eton, Winchester, and Westminster—forty years ago, can fail to see that their curriculum was formed in a great degree on Sturm’s model.” The historian says that it was Sturm’s ambition “to produce Greece and Rome in the midst of modern Christian civilization.” Painter’s History of Education. 163.

The educational wolf, dressed in Christian fleece, made great inroads on the lambs of the flock, and made possible a papal victory. Most dangerous of all enemies in a church is a school of its own, Christian in profession, with “teachers and managers who are only half converted;” who are accustomed to popular methods; who “concede some things and make half reforms, . . . preferring to work according to their own ideas,” (Testimonies, vol. 6, 141) who, step by step, advance toward worldly education, leading innocent lambs with them. In the day of judgment it will be easier for that man who has been cold and an avowed enemy to a reform movement than for that one who professes to be a shepherd, but who has been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who deceives the lambs until they are unable to save themselves. It is the devil’s master stroke for the overthrow of God’s work in the world, and there is no influence harder to counteract. No other form of evil is so strongly denounced. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth.” Revelation 3:15, 16.

Sturm’s school stood as a half-way mark between the Christian schools of Luther and Melanchthon and the papal schools round about him. It offered a mixture of medieval, classical literature with a thin slice of Scripture, sandwiched in for effect, and flavored with the doctrines of the church. Its course of study was impractical; its methods of instruction mechanical; memory work was exalted; its government was arbitrary and empirical. “A dead knowledge of words took the place of a living knowledge of things. . . . The pupils were obligated to learn, but they were not educated to see and hear, to think and prove, and were not led to a true independence and personal perfection. The teachers found their function in teaching the prescribed text, not in harmoniously developing the young human being according to the laws of nature.” Painter’s History of Education, 156.

Macaulay, speaking of this system of education, adds: “They promised what was impracticable; they despised what was practicable. They filled the world with long words and long beards, and they left it as ignorant and as wicked as they found it.” Macaulay’s Bacon, 379.

Jesuit Schools—This study should make it clear that the Protestant teachers weakened and unfitted the Protestant denominations for the attack made by the papacy through the counter system of education introduced by Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits. Before this, the Catholic Church realized its helplessness to withstand the great movement of Protestantism, inaugurated by thousands of missionaries trained in the Christian schools of Luther and Melanchthon. Noting the return of the Protestant church to the dead orthodoxy under the inefficient leadership of Luther’s successors, the papacy recognized the vulnerable point in Protestantism.

The Order of Jesuits found its special mission in combating the Reformation. As the most effective means of arresting the progress of Protestantism, it aimed at controlling education. “It developed an immense educational activity” in Protestant countries, “and earned for its schools a great reputation. . . . More than any other agency it stayed the progress of the Reformation, and it even succeeded in winning back territory already conquered by Protestantism. . . . It worked chiefly through its schools, of which it established and controlled large numbers. Every member of the order became a competent and practical teacher.” Painter’s History of Education, 166.

The following methods of teaching are characteristic of Jesuit schools: “The memory was cultivated as a means of keeping down free activity of thought and clearness of judgment.” In the place of self-government “their method of discipline was a system of mutual distrust, espionage, and informing. Implicit obedience relieved the pupils from all responsibility as to the moral justification of their deeds.” Rosencranz’s Philosophy of Education, 270.

“The Jesuits made much of emulation. He who knows how to excite emulation has found the most powerful auxiliary in his teaching. Nothing will be more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student, and nothing more dishonorable than to be outstripped. Prized will be distributed to the best pupils with the greatest solemnity. . . . It sought showy results with which to dazzle the world; a well-rounded development was nothing. . . . The Jesuits did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils, but merely the receptive and reproductive facilities.” When a student “could make a brilliant display from the sources of a well-stored memory, he had reached the highest points to which the Jesuits sought to lead him.” Originality and independence of mind, love of truth for its own sake, the power of reflecting and forming correct judgments were not merely neglected, they were suppressed in the Jesuit system.” Painter’s History of Education, 172, 173. “The Jesuit system of education was remarkably successful, and for nearly a century, all the foremost men of Christendom came from Jesuit schools.” Rosencranz, 272.

Success of Jesuit Schools. —Concerning the success of the Jesuit educational system in overcoming the careless and indifferent Protestants, we read: “They carried their point.” They shadowed the Protestant schools and like a parasite, sucked from them their life. “Their labors were above all, devoted to the universities. Protestants called back their children from distant schools and put them under the care of the Jesuits. The Jesuits occupied the professors’ chairs. . . . They conquered the Germans on their own soil, in their very home, and wrested from them a part of their native land.” Macaulay’s Von Ranke, vol. 4, 134–139.

This conquest rapidly went on through nearly all European countries. They conquered England by taking the English youth to Rome and educating them in Jesuit schools, and sending them back as missionaries and teachers to their native land. And thus they were established in the schools of England. The Jesuits overran the New World also, becoming thoroughly established, and have been employing their characteristic methods here every since. Here, as elsewhere, their only purpose is “to obtain the sole direction of education, so that by getting the young into their hands they can fashion them after their own pattern.” Footprints of the Jesuits, 419.

“Within fifty years from the day Luther burned the Bull of Leo before the gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism gained its highest ascendancy, an ascendancy which it soon lost, and which it has never regained.” Macaulay’s Von Ranke.

“How was it that Protestantism did so much, yet did no more? How was it that the church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost? This is certainly a most curious and important question.” We have already had the answer, but it is well stated thus by Macaulay, who understood the part played by the Jesuit schools founded by Loyola: “Such was the celebrated Ignatius Loyola, who, in the great reaction, bore the same part which Luther bore in the great Protestant movement. It was at the feet of that Jesuit that the youth of higher and middle classes were brought up from childhood to manhood, from the first rudiments to the courses of rhetoric and philosophy. . . . The great order went forth conquering and to conquer. . . . Their first object was to drive no person out of the pale of the church.”

Heresy Hunting Defeats the Protestant Cause.—Macaulay thus gives the causes for this defeat of Protestantism and the success of the papacy: “The war between Luther and Leo was a war between firm faith and unbelief; between zeal and apathy; between energy and indolence; between seriousness and frivolity; between a pure morality and vice. Very different was the war which degenerate Protestantism had to wage against regenerate Catholicism,” made possible by the Jesuit educational system. “The Reformers had contracted some of the corruptions which had been justly censured in the Church of Rome. They had become lukewarm and worldly. Their great, old leaders had been borne to the grave and had left no successors. . . . Everywhere on the Protestant side we see languor; everywhere on the Catholic side we see ardor and devotion. Almost the whole zeal of the Protestants was directed against each other. Within the Catholic Church there were no serious disputes on points of doctrine. . . . On the other hand, the force which ought to have fought the battle of the Reformation was exhausted in civil conflict.”

The papacy learned a bitter lesson in dealing with heretics. Since the Reformation, she conserves her strength by setting them to work. Macaulay says: “Rome thoroughly understands what no other church has ever understood—how to deal with enthusiasts. . . . The Catholic Church neither submits to enthusiasm nor prescribes it, but uses it. . . . She accordingly enlists him (the enthusiast) in her services. . . . For a man thus minded there is within the pale of the establishment (Orthodox Protestant churches) no place. He has been at no college; . . . and he is told that if he remains in the communion of the church, he must do so as a hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic (a heretic). His choice is soon made; he harangues on Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation is formed, and in a few weeks the (Protestant) church has lost forever a hundred families.”

The papacy was wiser than the Protestants in dealing with those who become somewhat irregular in their views. She spent little time in church trials. She directed their efforts, instead of attempting to force them from the church. “The ignorant enthusiast whom the English church makes. . . . a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a companion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of course dark stuff, ties a rope around his waist, and send him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the regular clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character and are grateful for his instructions. . . . All this influence is employed to strengthen the church. . . . In this way the church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of the establishment (organization) and all the strength of dissent. . . . Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain to become the head of a formidable succession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be the first general of a new society devoted to the interest and honor of the church.” Macaulay’s Von Ranke.

The Church of Rome, since its rejuvenation, is literally alive with determined, enthusiastic, zealous soldiers who know nothing but to live, to be spent, and to die for the church. She is determined to conquer and bring back humiliated, broken down, and completely subjugated, the Protestant denominations. She has everywhere, through her Jesuit teachers, editors, and public officials, men at work to fashion public sentiment, to capture the important and controlling positions of government, and most of all, to obtain control, through her teachers, of the minds of Protestant children and youth. She values that eternal principle, and makes use of it, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Let me teach a child until he is twelve years old, say the Catholics, and he will always remain a Catholic. We can now better comprehend why those English Reformers did not understand the character and the danger of the school system in vogue at Cambridge, Oxford, Eton, and Westminster, and unwittingly planted this system of education upon the shores of their new home and in every one of their Christian schools. They ignorantly fostered it and scattered it, and their successors, like the successors of Luther and Melanchthon, became so infected with the spirit of Rome that by 1844 the Protestant churches were morally like their mother.

In this we have been tracing the roots which bore the tree of education in the United States. While Harvard, the first school in New England, at first “was little more than a training school for ministers,” and “the Bible was systematically studied,” yet it is plain to any student of Harvard’s course of study that, aside from Bible teaching, its curriculum was modeled after Eton, Rugby, and other noted English schools which were all based on Sturm’s system. Yale, William and Mary, and other institutions of the United States are modeled after this same system. Behold Protestant America training her children in schools which were modeled after Sturm’s papal schools.

The secret of the rejection of the Protestant denominations in 1844 is contained in the educational history just given. We see that, while they clung to the forms of Protestantism, their educational system continually instilled into the student the life of the papacy. This produced a form of Protestantism imbued with the papal spirit. This spells Babylon. Should not our students seriously question the character of the educational system that they are under, lest they find themselves in the company of those five foolish virgins who are rejected in the time of the Loud Cry, just as the great Christian churches were rejected at the time of the Midnight Cry, because they failed to understand the “true science of education?” “They did not come into the line of true education,” and they rejected the message.

Certain divine ideas of reform in civil government were received from God by some men in this country during the days of the wounding of the papacy. These men dared teach and practice these truths. They fostered true principles of civil government to such an extent that the Third Angel’s Message could be delivered under its shelter. But the papal system of education, as operated by Protestant churches, was a constant menace to this civil reform, because the churches would not break away from the medieval, classical course with the granting of degrees and honors—without which it is difficult for aristocracy and imperialism in either church or state to thrive. But in spite of the failure of the churches to break away from this system, the civil reformers repudiated all crowns, titles, and honors that would have perpetuated European aristocracy and imperialism. The churches, because they still clung to the papal educational system, became responsible, not only for the spirit of the papacy within themselves, but also for the return of imperialism now so plainly manifesting itself in our government, and especially noticeable in such tendencies toward centralization as the trusts, monopolies, and unions.

The year 1844 was one of the most critical periods in the history of the church since the days of the apostles. Toward that year the hand of prophecy had been pointing for ages. All heaven was interested in what was about to happen. Angels worked with intense interest for those who claimed to be followers of the Christ to prepare them to accept the message then due to the world. But the history quoted above shows that the Protestant denominations clung to the system of education borrowed from the papacy, which wholly unfitted them either to receive or give the message. Consequently, it was impossible for them to train men to proclaim it.

The world was approaching the great Day of Atonement n the heavenly sanctuary, the year 1844. Prior to this date, history records a most remarkable Christian educational movement and religious awakening. The popular churches were rapidly approaching their crucial test. And God knew it was impossible for them to acceptably carry the closing message unless they should “come into the line of true education”—unless they had a clear understanding of “the true science of education.” These words were applicable to them: “Now as never before we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.”

What the Protestant churches faced in the year 1844, we Seventh-day Adventists are facing today. We shall see how the Protestant denominations opposed the principles of Christian education and thus failed to train their young people to give the Midnight Cry. Seventh-day Adventist young people, thousands of whom are in the schools of the world, cannot afford to repeat this failure. The moral fall of the popular churches causing that mighty cry, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, ” would never have been, had they been true to the principles of Christian education. If individual Seventh-day Adventists approach the Loud Cry with the same experience that the Protestants approached the Midnight Cry, they likewise will be foolish virgins to whom the door is closed. The virgins in Christ’s parable all had lamps, the doctrines; but they lacked a love of truth which lights up these doctrines, “The science of true education is the truth, which is to be so deeply impressed on the soul that it cannot be obliterated by the error that everywhere abounds. The Third Angel’s Message is truth, and light, and power.” Testimonies, vol. 6, 131. Is not Christian education, then, the light to the doctrines? Papal education fails to light up those lamps, for it is darkness.

Surely it is a serious time for our young Seventh-day Adventists—a time when every teacher in the land, when every student and prospective mission worker in the church, should look the situation squarely in the face and should determine his attitude toward the principles of Christian education. For “before we can carry the message of present truth in all its fullness to other countries, we must first break every yoke.” The Madison School, 30. “Now as never before we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.” We are dealing with a life-and-death question.

True Education

“Welcome to the first rehearsal of Macbeth. This is an exciting day and a terrifying one. Over the next five weeks we’re going to grapple with one of the greatest plays ever written….Why do a play which is so fraught with problems?….Why is Macbeth considered to be an unlucky play?….The answer to both these questions is that Macbeth is the most brilliant and comprehensible play about evil ever written. Evil is portrayed in its private, public, supernatural and cosmic form. It is a vision of Hell, and during the next five weeks we will be using our imagination to bring that vision to life. We shall cast spells, evoke spirits, pray to demons, murder, intrigue, betray, lie, cheat and pillage. If we are brave enough, we will face the evil in ourselves in order to make the evil in our production true….We will be bringing into play the dark side of ourselves.” Longman Group limited 1986, William Shakespeare, Macbeth

These are the opening statements from the textbook used my senior year in academy. Over a three-month period we watched this play four times, acted it out once, and studied it more in-depth than any other work. This was at a Seventh-day Adventist academy! Does this bother you? If not, it should!

The strength of a family, movement, or culture depends heavily on how it is continued. This explains why people have expended large quantities of time and energy on passing down history and training their children. Today this process is called education.

To the world, education is understood to be an intellectual preparation for life. Webster defines education as: “the act of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.” [All emphasis supplied.]

Adventists, on the other hand, have been shown that education is the act of growing—spiritually, mentally, and physically. “True education means more than the pursual of a certain course of study. It means more than a preparation for the life that now is. It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the joy of service in the world to come.

“To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body, mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be realized—this was to be the work of redemption. This is the object of redemption. This is the object of education, the great object of life.” Education, 13, 15-16

Education deals in the obtaining of wisdom. As such, man’s education began in Eden. There, Adam felt the thrill of unity and harmony with his Creator. Though for a little time inferior, there lay within him the possibility of attaining to greater heights than that held by angels. He was to be the companion of God, the perfect reflection of His light and glory. “The holy pair were not only children under the fatherly care of God, but students receiving instruction from the all-wise Creator. They were visited by angels, and were granted communion with their Maker, with no obscuring veil between….The mysteries of the visible universe—‘the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge’ afforded them an exhaustless source of instruction and delight.” Education, 207. The divine method of education is here revealed,—God’s way of dealing with minds which are loyal to Him. This was education, perfect and complete.

Written on the face of creation is the wisdom of the Eternal. “And unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” Job 28:28. In other words, when a man lives in harmony with God, acting in accordance with the laws of the universe; when his thoughts are those of the Father, then he has truly entered the road that leads directly to wisdom.

Why, then, if wisdom may be had for the asking, do not all find it? Only one reason can be given: men in their search accept falsehood in the place of truth. This blunts their sensibilities until the false seems true and the true false.

When the serpent addressed Eve, her curiosity was aroused; and instead of fleeing, she argued with him. She attempted to determine in her own mind between right and wrong, but God had already told her what was right. This moment of indecision, of doubting, was the devil’s opportunity. He knew that if man’s mind could be gained, his great work would be accomplished. To do this he used a process of reasoning based on doubt—a method the opposite of that used by the Father in His instruction.

At Satan’s suggestion, Eve transferred her faith from the word of God to the tree of knowledge; and she was now easily led to test the truthfulness of all his statements by her senses. The theory had been advanced, and the experimental process now began. Eve looked upon the forbidden fruit, but no physical change was perceptible as the result of the misuse of this sense. This led her to be more certain that the argument used had been correct. All of this to the changing mind of Eve was still more conclusive evidence that the words of Christ and of the angels did not mean exactly what she had at first thought them to mean. The senses of touch, smell, and taste were in turn used, and each supported the conclusion drawn by the devil.

The woman was deceived, and through the deception, her mind was changed. This same change of mind may be brought about either by deception or as the result of false reasoning.

Today there are still two types of education in the world. There is that which comes form God and that which is the wisdom of the world, which God pronounces to be foolishness. The latter exalts the senses above faith and reason above revelation, but it results in spiritual death. That the fall of man was the result of choosing the false system cannot be debated. Redemption, therefore, comes through the adoption of the true system of education which links man with God, the true source of wisdom. The final and ultimate triumph of truth will, therefore, place those who are advocates of Christian education in the kingdom of God. Over these two great educational systems the great controversy between good and evil is now being waged.

When Christianity, in the power of Pentecost, entered the world, the Word of God was its educational book. There was, however, another system of learning which was claimed by the world to be true education and which had to be met by Christianity. On this question of education, as in all other things, Christianity and the world were diametrically opposed to each other.

There were, at this time, three great centers of education—Corinth, Ephesus, and Athens. Of the three, Athens was pre-eminent and was known as the mother of the then world’s education. The whole basis and theory of Greek education was established on the premise that doubt is the way to knowledge.

For a time, paganism, steadily retreated before a victorious Christianity; but as time passed, Christianity’s conquest faltered and slowed. Slowly at first, and then with accelerating speed, there was within the Christian church an exalting of the worldly wisdom. This so called wisdom was but Greek ignorance and resulted in the “falling away” from the gospel truth. For the next half-score of centuries, schools, from the grammar schools to the universities, all looked to Aristotle for the basis of knowledge. The Dark Ages had begun.

With the dawning of light, ushered in by the Reformation, true education received a fresh start. Luther and Melancthon developed a strong Bible based system of learning. “It was not the public worship alone the Reformation was ordained to change. The school was early placed beside the Church; and these two great institutions, so powerful to regenerate the nations, were equally reanimated by it. It was by a close alliance with learning that the Reformation entered into the world; in the hour of its triumph, it did not forget its ally.” D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation, book 10, chap. 9, 375

So successful was this education that, “Not more than a thirtieth part of the population remained Catholic…They withheld their children, too, from the Catholic schools.” Sutherland, Studies in Christian Education, 11. In reaction to this great movement, the Jesuits arose with the goal of regaining that which had been lost to the Reformation.

In the place of training the youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other men’s thoughts, (see Education, 17, 18), the Jesuits emphasized the cultivation of the memory as a means of keeping down free activity of thought and clearness of judgment. (See Studies in Christian Education, 16.)

In the place of self-governing, which leads to independent and original works, “their method of discipline was a system of mutual distrust, espionage and informing.” Ibid. The papal system makes no effort to train students in self-governing, as such a system is fatal to the papal church organization.

In the place of the Bible as the basis of education, the papal education introduced secular literature for its foundation and guide. (See Ibid., 143)

Is the duty of Christians to repress the spirit of envy, or emulation (see Testimonies, vol. 5, 242), but the Jesuits made much of rivalry and competition. They believed that the ability to excite emulation was a most powerful aid in teaching. Under their system, nothing was more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student, and nothing more dishonorable than to be outstripped. (See Studies in Christian Education, 16.)

“’The Jesuits did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils but merely the receptive and reproductive faculties.’ When a student ‘could make a brilliant display from the resources of a well-stored memory, he had reached the highest points to which the Jesuits sought to lead him.’ Originality and independence of mind, love of truth for its own sake, the power of reflecting and forming judgments were not merely neglected, they were suppressed in the Jesuit system.” (See Ibid.)

True education, in contrast, will show students how to follow the established principles of God. The character of Christ is the one perfect pattern which we are to copy. “Godliness—Godlikeness—is the goal to be reached.” Education, 18

The strength of the papal system lied in repeating meaningless forms, and in a dead study of words in the place of a living knowledge of things. Mental cramming and formal memorizing are the exalted methods of teaching. (See Studies in Christian Education, 142.)

Manual training is not an essential part of papal education. In its place they have substituted athletics, sports, games, and gymnasiums. True education, however, will give students useful exercise that will uplift the mind, educate, and be of practical value. (See Ibid., 145.)

We are to be reformed and self-supporting, following the Spirit of Prophecy’s admonition to live in the country and be able to support ourselves. By contrast, the papal system is one of control. The more dependent you are upon others, the more perfectly it suits their plans.

“The Jesuit system of education was remarkably successful, and for a century nearly all the foremost men of the Christendom came from Jesuit schools.” Ibid., 16, 17. Within one hundred years after the death of Luther, Aristotle was again given the chief place in the seats of leaning and the Greek educational system was securely in place within the Protestant school system. This was accomplished with the assistance of such men as John Strum. Strum, a Protestant who was schooled in the papal universities, introduced a new system of education that effected a compromise. Maintaining the form of the Catholic schools, he threw in a wedge of Bible to keep it spiritual. So effective was the educational system that within a short span of time, the papacy was able to reclaim much of the ground lost to the Reformation. It was Strum’s system of education that was generally practiced in Ellen White’s time and which she spoke out against.

Sadly, instead of following the blueprint for true education, our Adventist form of education adopted the educational system of the 1850s that followed the pattern established by Yale, Harvard, and William and Mary. These three schools were known as the daughters of England, and Harvard was even referred to as the American Cambridge. The English universities, Cambridge, Oxford, Rugy, and Eaton, were, in turn, patterned after Paris University, which was the daughter of the papacy. As the center of theological learning, it received many privileges from the pope and retained a close relation to the papal see. (See Ibid., 9, 10)

The educational struggle has gone for ages between truth and error. The Christian and papal methods of instruction are inseparably connected with the history of nations; and we may, therefore, expect that in the final conflict, education will play a significant role. How can we proclaim the second angel’s message if we are wholeheartedly endorsing its system of education. This is as hypocritical as attempting to declare the third angel’s message while keeping Sunday.

“Before we can carry the message of present truth in all its fullness to other countries, we must first break every yoke. We must come into the line of true education, walking in the wisdom of God, and not in the wisdom of the world. God calls for messengers who will be true reformers. We must educate, educate, to prepare a people who will understand the message, and then give the message to the world.” The Madison School, 30

We have an effect on history by the way we educate. True education is the life blood of our movement; without it we shall surely fail. “Now, as never before, we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.” Spaulding and Magan Collection, 56

God, has given us a window of time that is unique in modern history. Never in recent times have the laws governing home schools been as liberal as they are now, but none know how long this window of opportunity will remain open. To historic Adventist families this holds a tremendous significance. Jochebed was given twelve years to prepare Moses for his great work. Jehoida taught Joash for only seven years. At the age of twelve, Christ passed His mother’s teachings and began His heavenly Father’s business. Esther was yet a teen when she was called away from her uncle’s care. “The impressions made on the heart in early life are seen in after years. They may be buried, but they will seldom be obliterated.” Bible Echo, February 13, 1899. By the time a child reaches adolescence, any prospects of significant change in the life course are greatly diminished. Are we willing to take our responsibility seriously and no longer accept second best for our children’s education? If not, the enemy is more than willing to do our job. Until we sense the urgency of this issue, we are destined to fail.

The End