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    THE NEED OF THE MASSES

    “We should ask ourselves what better remedy than wise popular education, what other remedy, can be imagined for the new evils which threaten society because of the new facilities for making huge combinations of producers, or middlemen; of farmers, or miners, or manufacturers; of rich or poor; of laborers or capitalists?PBE 240.3

    “Masses of men are much more excitable than average individuals, and will do in gregarious passion things which the individuals who compose the masses would not do. A crowd is dangerously liable to sudden rage or—what is worse—sudden terror, and either emotion may overpower the sense of responsibility and annihilate for the moment both prudence and mercy. There never was a time when common sentiments and desires could be so quickly massed, never a time when the force of multitudes could be so effectively concentrated at a selected point for a common purpose.PBE 240.4

    “Against this formidable danger there is only one trustworthy defense. The masses of the people must be taught to use their reason, to seek the truth, and to love justice and mercy. There is no safety for democratic society in, truth held, or justice loved, by the few; the MILLIONS must mean to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. The millions must be taught to discuss, not fight; to trust publicity, not secrecy; and to take timely public precautions against every kind of selfish oppression.... The common schools should impart the elements of physical, mental, and moral training, and in morals the elements are by far the most valuable part.PBE 241.1

    “Concerning an educated individual, we may fairly ask, Can he see straight? can he recognize the fact? Next, can he draw a just inference from established facts? Thirdly, has he self-control? or do his passions run away with him? or untoward events daunt him? These are fair tests of his mental and moral capacity. One other test we may fairly apply to an educated individual—does he continue to grow in power and in wisdom throughout his life? His body ceases to grow at twenty-five or thirty years of age—does his soul continue to grow?”PBE 241.2

    A writer in one of England’s leading magazines, of February, 1903, the Nineteenth Century, in an article entitled “The Disadvantages of Education,“ covers practically the same ground as did President Eliot in his addresses: and to the same end—the short-comings and failures of education in England, consequently the urgent demand for reform, yet with the recognition of the truth that “not only in Great Britain, but everywhere, it seems clear that it would be unreasonable to expect that the schools should reform themselves. Therefore reforms must come from outside, unless education is to remain what it is—an elaborate sham, with science in its mouth, but in reality a course of cramming, destructive to common sense.”PBE 241.3

    The extracts presented in this chapter most forcibly emphasize not only the world’s sore need of a better system of education, but also the world’s knowledge of this need, and its longing for that which will satisfy the need. These extracts also emphasize the truth that nothing short of a system of education built upon the principles advocated in this book—true Christian education—can ever possibly satisfy this great need of a better system of education. The defects and demands of popular education, as presented in these extracts, show that only an education that is positively Christian in the very spirit and power and morals of genuine Christianity, can ever answer the call. President Eliot, in very words, calls for such an education as will cause “the millions” of “democratic society” to “mean to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.” In very words his goal is “the perfecting of an intelligent individual citizenship in a Christian democracy.”PBE 242.1

    Now it is impossible for that goal ever to be attained without a teaching, an education, that is religious and Christian. And it is impossible for the State, or any system of State schools, ever to attain that goal; because the State can not possibly teach religion. This is so in the nature of things; but in the United States it is doubly so, because by the fundamental principles and Constitution of the nation there is declared a total separation of the State from religion, and particularly the Christian religion. The State can no more properly or safely use the religious method in its education than the Church can use the secular method in her education. The two realms are distinct, and they can not be blended without destruction to both the Church and the State.PBE 243.1

    To the Church alone belongs the teaching of religion, the inculcation of morals, the promotion of Christianity. This is to say, therefore, that the only possibility of the better system of education ever being truly supplied, for the want of which the country is perishing, is in the Christian Church’s supplying it. But lo! in the presence of this vital truth we are confronted by the deplorable fact concerning that which stands as the accepted Christian Church, that according to the words of both President Eliot and the United States Commissioner of Education, her “control over education” is a “distinctly diminishing” quantity. This conclusion of these two high authorities among the laity is confirmed by a master of theology in the Chicago University, writing, in 1899, in the following forcible words, that every Christian heart and every observing person knows are altogether too true:—PBE 243.2

    “There is nothing more disappointing to evangelical religion than its great schools. The fearful stress which has fallen on the ... denominations during the last ten years has proceeded largely from the great schools fostered by these denominations ... The very foundations of religious teaching are being undermined by teachers in our great schools, just as they have been in a large sense in the German universities. What is known as ‘higher criticism’ is simply working havoc with the rising minority in the three-named denominations.”PBE 244.1

    “There is no school on the American continent where a young man can go and learn the Bible as a whole under the direction of deeply pious and thoroughly learned teachers. There are schools where a young man fitting for the ministry can go and spend three years, and have himself stuffed with speculative philosophy under the name of theology, and with infidelity under the name of ‘higher criticism.’ This is a positive and a burning shame. The writer cherishes the hope that some pious man or woman of means will found a school in this country where men can be trained who will not only know the Bible from first to last, but preach it from first to last. That would be something new under the sun.”PBE 244.2

    This being the attitude and condition of that which stands as the accepted Christian Church, with respect to the education which the world is longing for; and the Christian Church being the only source of hope that this need in education can ever be truly answered; it follows inevitably that there must be a reformation, a revival of vital Christianity, in these days as truly as there was before when that failed, as that has failed, which stood as the accepted Christian Church.PBE 244.3

    President Eliot looks to education as the promising agency “to redeem and vivify the churches.” That is correct; but it must be an education that comes down from the heaven, not up from the world, to the Church. And that education will come. The world’s longing need, its hunger and thirst, which can be supplied only through the Church from heaven, and without which it must perish, God will never leave unfilled. God still lives. His loving care for man and nations is the same to-day as ever of old.PBE 245.1

    Education is indeed the only agency that can redeem and vivify the Church. That education can come only from heaven and from Him who is the Head of the Church. He will send that education, and it will come. And when it comes, it will come only in and through the Word of Him who is in heaven and who is the Head of the Church. That education will be conveyed and inculcated only in “terms of creation.” The Church by which this education will be given to the world will be a Church that deals and communicates only in “terms of creation.” The Instructor of that Church will be the Creator Himself through the creative Word by the creative Spirit. The principles and the standard of morals of that Church will be the moral law of the Creator, as written with His own finger on the tables of stone, as demonstrated in His life on earth in the flesh, and as written by His Spirit in fleshly tables of the heart of the believer in Jesus. In all education conducted by this Church the text-book will be the Book of the Word of the Creator and Redeemer, and the study-book will be all creation and all redemption.PBE 245.2

    Thus that Church will be distinctly a universally educational Church. She will establish a system of education after this order; and will truly educate all who will receive the education. Though she will fully and truly supply that education for which the world is longing and expressing its sore need, yet neither this Church nor the education which she gives will popular with the world. Rather she will be considered a straight-laced extremist. Nevertheless in this she will be right, absolutely and eternally right. She will be the true Church of to-day and for to-day. And the education which she will give will be the true education for to-day and forever.PBE 246.1

    Let all people who are longing for a better system of education, who are looking for a system that will fully supply all needs in education,—let all these open their eyes and look prayingly to see that heavenly educational Church; and God will cause them to see her. Now is her time. She must, and she will, arise and shine; and the glory of the Lord will be seen upon her. And this is the Church which Christ will present to Himself at His coming, “a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but ... holy and without blemish.”PBE 246.2

    THE END.PBE 246.3

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