tm l / ' n Ft A i?Y OF THE Not Less Education, But More of the Right Sort. x ?; By W. A. Candler, D.D., LL.D. -Af Request of Board of Education , M, E, Church , South , Nashville, Tenn.: Printed by Barbee & Smith, Agents. 1897. “ In order to make education truly good and socially useful, it must be fundamentally religious. It is necessary that it should be given and received in the midst of a religious at- mosphere, and that religious impressions and religious ob- servances should penetrate into all its parts ."—Guizot. Not Less Education, but More of the Right Sort. Some years ago the Emperor William of Germany de- clared that there was too much education among the Emperor William Germans. and Prof. Peck Somewhat to the same purpose is on Too Much a recent utterance of Prof. Harry Education. Thurston Peck, of Columbia Univer- sity. Writing upon the defects of “Modern Education,” he deprecates the idea, “ almost universal among our peo- ple, that education in itself and for all human beings is a good and thoroughly desirable possession.” Contend- ing that this idea is fraught with “ social and political peril,” he says: “Education means ambition, and ambi- tion means discontent. ... We see on every hand great masses of men stirred by a vague dissatisfaction with their lot, their brains addled and confused by doc- trine that is only half the truth and vaguely understood, yet thoroughly adapted to make them ripe for the work of the agitator and the enemy of public order. . . . Such education as these possess can never qualify for any serious role; it only makes for grievous disappoint- ment and a final heart-break. Nor is there any moral safeguard in a limited degree of education. Quite the contrary. It only makes the naturally criminal person far more dangerous, converting the potential sneak-thief into the actual forger and embezzler, and the barroom brawler into the anarchist bomb-thrower. Statistics lately sent to Congress in a veto message show the fact that in our prisons the proportion of the fairly educated V 4 Not Less Education , but More of the Eight Sort . to the uneducated is far larger than among an equal number of ordinary citizens.” The Kaiser and the Professor agree that education, to be safe and useful, must be confined to the few, and igno- rance must rest on the masses. As the Romanists be- lieve concerning the Bible that it is not to be trusted in the hands of the vulgar herd, so these hierarchs of cul- ture would reserve education to an aristocracy, lest the common people be blasted and blighted by too much light. If their conclusions were sound, it would still be of no value. It comes too late. The common people of Chris- tendom have too much education to be content with less. They will demand and receive more. No decrees of Kaisers nor wails of illuminati will avail to keep knowl- edge from them. Romanistic views with regard to both education and religion are spent forces. Education may be a Pandora’s box from which, curiosity having opened, all blessings have irrecoverably escaped, hope alone being left to men; but the deed is done, and, truth to speak, the masses of men do not regret the open- ing of the box, whatever may be the results. Men do not care to live in a paradise if it is to be a “ Paradise of Fools.” And yet there is truth in the conclusion of the Em- Kaisers and Illuminati Can Not Confine Knowledge. peror William and Prof. Peek. A man or a nation may have too much education by having the wrong sort of education. Sir Archibald Alison, the author of the “ History of Europe During the French Revolution,” noting the increase of deprav- ity with the spread of knowledge in France, said : “ It But There Can Be Excess of a Certain Sort of Education. Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort . 5 is not simply knowledge, it is knowledge detached from religion, that produces this fatal result. . . . The reason of its corrupting tendency in morals is evident — when so detached it multiplies the desires and passions of the heart without an increase to its regulating prin- ciples; it augments the attacking forces without strength- ening the resisting powers, and thence the disorder and license it spreads through society. The invariable char- acteristic of a declining and corrupt state of society is a progressive increase in the force of passion and a pro- gressive decline in the influence of duty.” Doubtless throughout the United States — throughout Christendom — during the century now nearing its close, there has been too much education of the sort which “ multiplies the desires and passions of the heart with- Multiplied out an increase to its regulating principles,” Desires which augments the forces which attack vir- Need a tue without strengthening the powers which Regulating res i 8 t evil, and thereby much disorder and Principle. p cense have been engendered. Hence the belief of many wise and good people that our civili- zation is marked by the characteristic feature of a “ de- clining and corrupt state of society” — “a progressive increase of the force of passion and progressive decline in the influence of duty.” When were men more pas- sionately tenacious of their rights and more indifferent to their duties? When was the idea of liberty more warmly asserted and the idea of self-sacrifice more tep- idly accepted? But the remedy is not less knowledge, but nobler knowledge; not less education, but a higher kind. A poultice of ignorance will not draw out the dangerous inflammations which afflict and imperil the social system, 1 * 6 Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort even if the patient were disposed to submit to its ap- ^ plication. The cure will be found, if found Remedy * n Kristian culture. Christendom must choose between the education which casts down every high thing which “ exalteth itself against the knowledge of God” and brings “into cap- tivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,” and the education which imparts simply the knowledge which “puffeth up” and which results in that anarchic wisdom which knows not God and loves not man. And this choice can not be long delayed. Sometimes one fears the American people have al- ready made choice, preferring secular to Christian learn- ing. The common schools, being institutions of the state, are necessarily neutral in religion. So also are the thir- ty-four state universities. * The state can not answer any of the following questions which are fundamental to our religion: Has God made a revelation; and if so, is it found in the Bible? Who was Christ? Was the work of Martin Luther and his companions the work of reformers restoring the true faith, or the misdoings of renegades destroying that faith? Besides the state schools, there are many secular in- stitutions founded by individuals. The greatest gifts to colleges and universities yet made in America have been by men who have preferred to propagate secular rather than Christian culture. Witness the gifts made and institutions founded by such men as Stephen Girard and Leland Stanford. Are men of the world willing to put more money into Nor Can Private Foundations Other Than Christian. Questions the State Can Not Answer. Not Less Education , but More of the Eight Sort . 7 their unbeliefs than Christian men are willing to put into their beliefs? There is one cheering sign. If the Christian colleges of the United States are not the richest, they are the most numerous and influential. Christian colleges hold about seventy -five per cent of all the college instructors and college students in the country. No Church in America undertakes to get along with- out its own colleges, except a Cuckoo sect which accom- plishes the same end by occupying as far as it is able institutions originally founded by other Churches. The people called Methodists have from the first Methodism founded schools, and to-day in the num- and Schools ^er ^eir educational institutions they lead all other denominations in the Uni- ted States. The birth year of Methodism was 1789, and in that year John Wesley laid the corner-stone of the Kingswood school. From that institution came Adam Clarke — in himself fruit enough to justify its planting. In 1784 American Methodism was organized at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore, and at that Confer- ence steps were taken to establish Cokesbury College. The General Conference of 1796 introduced into the Book of Discipline “a plan of education recommended to all our seminaries of learning.” It is Souc^it in n evident the schools of the Church had so 1796. multiplied during the twelve years which had elapsed from the projection of Cokes- bury — the years of poverty and hardship which fol- lowed the War of Revolution — as to require some uni- form system or “plan.” The same General Conference deprecated “the separation of the two greatest orna- ments of intelligent beings: deep learning and genuine 8 Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort. The Church in This Field from Its Foundation. piety.” Every General Conference from 1796 to 1894 has avowed the educational function of the Church and insisted on its vigorous exercise. Mr. Wesley and his followers, in undertaking the work of education, brought no innovation into the Church of God, nor did they propose a temporary expedient to meet the passing needs of an ignorant class from which they had gathered followers. From the very ear- liest times the Church has engaged in the work of education. In the schools of the primitive Church the most illustrious of the Fathers saw service. The Sixth General Council at Constantinople directed tho presbyters to establish schools in all towns and villages. Has the Church followed a folly through the centu- ries? Has a work been undertaken which might as well Schools of have been left to other hands? Was Mr. Wesleyan Wesley, whose “genius for organization,” Methodists. ^ has been said, “was equal to that of Richelieu,” laying upon his poor followers an unnecessary burden when he established the Kings- wood school? Have all the General Conferences for a century repeated his blunder by enjoining upon the Methodists educational tasks required by no necessity of the Church, no duty to the world, and no principle of the gospel? Are the eight hundred and seventy-five day-schools of the Wesleyan Methodists in England, with all their colleges and theological institutions, mon- uments to sectarian bigotry and pride? Are the sixty- five Methodist colleges in the United States, not to speak of our two hundred Methodist schools for secondary in- struction, the product of priestcraft and the instruments of partizanship? Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort . 9 Suppose We Close or Had Never Had Our Schools. Insufficient Maintenance Is Practical Abandonment. What would be the effect on our civili- zation if all these schools were closed? What would be our condition to day if they had never been opened? Let men who decry them consider these questions. Let Christian men who neglect them reflect upon these things. Not to maintain these schools suitably is much the same as closing them. If the schools of the Church re- main weak and poor while secular in- stitutions are being strengthened and enriched, Christian education will be first belittled, and then abandoned. It is no good sign of the times that the Leland Stanford University, with its scoffing head, is richer than all the Christian colleges west of the Missis- sippi Eiver combined. Thus entrenched, no wonder its President rails at denominational colleges through the columns of the Popular Science Monthly , while all the hosts of the secularists rejoice and the Philistines shout their applause. If this work of Christian education can be done as well by any other agent as by the Church, if the state Th rh h or P r i ya ^ e persons can do it as well, let Must Face the come out of it. She has plen- the Issue. ty to do that nobody else can do. Let her sell her educational plants and put the money in Foreign Missions, for example. But, if, on the contrary, no one can do the work of ^Christian education as well as the Church, if no one can impart the spiritual quality to education by which alone it can be saved from becoming a malign and dangerous force, let the Church be up and about this urgent busi- 10 Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort.. ness. It is a matter which can not wait. The secular- forces are not waiting, and unchristian education means ruin to both Church and State. Yery little is too much of it. Christian men must thoroughly equip genuinely Chris- tian institutions. This will require much money in a country in which unchristian schools (not to say anti- christian) count their possessions by millions and their incomes by hundreds of thousands. All the schools of the Church must be in fact, as in name, genuinely Christian. This matter is too great and too grave to be trifled with. There is no room here for shams. The Church must not permit any institution not genuinely Christian to live upon its treasury and fatten upon its patronage. For a scho'ol Grave a Matter. to wear the S arb of the Church that it may secure the gifts of the conse- crated is a species of Simony far worse than all sins of secularism. For the Church to allow such a sin in its name is to approve the crime of getting money under false pretenses, and wink at an offense as profane as the gluttony and covetousness of Hophni and Phinehas. Every one of our schools must be able to stand up and in the name of the Lord give a Christian’s account of itself when men demand of it “ What do you more than others ?” The times call for Christian culture, not eccle- siastical establishments. Long as the Church has neglected her duty by delay ^ . . about this great and urgent interest, Men Have in there is time yet to retrieve much that Their Purses. ^ as ^ een an< ^ save a ^ that * 8 now imperiled. The great common-school system can be saved from secularism by pouring through Not Less Education , but More of the Right Sort . 11 •all its veins and arteries the religious influences of our Christian colleges if we will only make these colleges strong enough. Christian men have it in their power (in their purses) to make our colleges thus strong. The young life of the republic to-day lies in the lap What the ^kurch. Will she dare sa y an y Lord Says secular agent whatsoever: “Take this child and nurse it for me ? ” It is this the Lord says to her. It is a high trust. It can not be delegated to another without disobedience to her King. r 3 01 2 053556731