Should Christian parents trust their children's education to public schools?

{There is, I should say, a very serious error involved in a Christian parent's committing the training of his children to unconverted persons, or even to those whose hearts are not one with him as to separation from the world. It is natural that a child should look up to, and follow the example of, one who has the training and management of him. Now, what can a teacher make of a child, save what he is himself? Whither can he lead him but to where he is himself? What principles can he instil save those which govern his own mind, and form the basis of his own character? Well, if I see a man governed by worldly principles — if I see plainly, from his whole course and character, that he is an unconverted persons shall I commit to him the training or instruction of my children, or the formation of their characters? It would be the height of folly and inconsistency so to do. As well might a man who desired to make an oval-shaped bullet cast the melted lead into a circular mould. The same principle applies to the reading of books. A book is decidedly a silent teacher and former of the mind and character; and if I am called to look well to the character and principles of the living teacher, I am equally so to look to those of a silent teacher. I am quite convinced that, in reference both to books and teachers, we need to have our consciences stirred and instructed.}

(a) The first we mention is the character of the schools to which oftentimes the children of Christians are sent. For the sake of a few educational advantages, or even on the ground of convenience, believers will sometimes place their children under the care of unbelievers, or under the care of those who, professedly Christians, teach positive error. In other cases, children are allowed to read at school classical works full of impurity and immorality. It is claimed that the Bible must not be used too largely, lest the consciences of unbelievers should be wounded; but have Christians no conscience as to Horace and Ovid, as to Homer and Sophocles, as to Shakespeare and Byron, as to many of the French and German books that find most favour with the teachers of those languages? It is high time that Christian parents took higher ground in this respect, remembering their responsibility to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

(b) The danger is also very common of delegating to others the responsibility of training children for the Lord. However devoted and consistent the persons may be who are instructing their children, nothing can relieve parents from their individual responsibility. That there are difficulties in the way of its discharge in many situations in life cannot be denied. But if the exhortations, more than once alluded to, in Deuteronomy, be recalled, it will be seen that there are very few indeed who could not undertake it. "Thou shalt teach them (God's words) diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Every opportunity must be seized, because it is the one responsibility that God has laid upon the Christian parent. No one else has the same place or the same claim upon his children as the parent; and if they are ever so well instructed by others, the parent has failed if he has not himself brought them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

(c) The danger is great too in many Christian homes of the allowance of worldly amusements and associations. The Lord's control must be enforced throughout the whole circle of the children's lives. Separated from the world by their connection with their parents, not a single link must be permitted to be re-established. Even their dress should proclaim that they are under the government of the Lord through their parents. And the parents' example, their houses, all the surroundings of their children, must confirm, support, and illustrate the instruction given as to these things; and then, in the full assurance of faith, God can be reckoned upon to remember His own word, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6.)

As to the second point, viz., variety of intercourse and company, Christian parents would do well to be on their guard as to any over strictness in keeping their children aloof from all intercourse and contact with unconverted children of their age. I mean as to their education. I know some who kept their children under a kind of a strict monkish and nunnish seclusion at home, either by having them educated by private Christian tutors and governesses, or, where the parents could not afford this, the father and mother themselves performing the duties of tutor and governess. Even invitations to dinner or tea at their Christian friends houses were refused, lest their children should mix with the unconverted children of those families. Whilst fully agreeing with such parents as to the all-importance of training their children on the divine principle of separation from the world, we must not overlook, on the other hand, that nothing is more foreign to the spirit of Christianity, i.e., of the New Testament, than such a kind of monastical seclusion. It is unnatural, and it has, according to the well-known natural law of extremes, produced in such families the very thing sought to be prevented. If Christian parents are what they ought to be at home, their children will not be tempted to seek that happiness in the world, which they "find in the sanctuary of the domestic circle," as another has said, "which God has formed as a safeguard for those who are growing up in weakness." The few hours spent by the children of Christian parents in their necessary contact with such unconverted children, will only serve to make them appreciate all the more the privileges of their Christian homestead; and besides, furnish them with precious opportunities to render to their young mates, in their legitimate intercourse with them, their little, and yet often so effectful, testimony to their blessed Saviour, which under such a strict domestic seclusion they would never be able to do.

I need hardly say, that this is a very different thing to Christian parents sending their children to worldly boarding schools. They might just as well throw their children into a furnace or into the water, and then ask God to keep them from being burnt or drowned. What such Christian parents can think of their responsibility before God, to bring up their children "in the discipline and admonition of the Lord," I am at a loss to understand.

A Christian parent puts his child to school and what is the character of the influence exerted over the little one there? How often is it Philistine — that which is often in open enmity against God, or so formal in character that no genuine faith is inculcated! This is seen in still greater measure when the youth passes on to college, where infidelity is taught and if his intellectual implements have a keen edge upon them, he is taught rather to turn them against the truth of God than to explore its wondrous depths.

Christian parents! Are you going to sacrifice your precious children to the Molech of "science, falsely so called," and in its wake of infidelity and atheism, in order to secure a comfortable first-class berth, suitable to your and their rank and position in human society? I can say nothing more to you, but that you must sadly have forgotten your high heavenly calling in Christ Jesus, "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," and that you must either have learnt very little, or forgotten very much of that true divine science, to be acquired at God's high school in those two Epistles, which furnish us with the subject of these pages. There have been sad instances of the truth of these remarks.

a. As to scientific books and teachings, beware of the poisonous leaven of rationalism and infidelity, with which scientific books and teachings are now-a-days so generally impregnated. By such books the poison of infidelity is slowly but surely instilled into the susceptible young mind and heart, which thus becomes blasted, and withered, and hardened to everything even naturally noble and moral, not to speak of their eternal interests. Thank God there are still in this country many sound books and writers in this domain; and if Christian parents would confer with Christian schoolmen as to the choice of the study-books of their children, instead of leaving it to them to choose their books, they would in many cases avoid the solemn consequences of the neglect of that part of parental responsibility.

And here I cannot refrain from alluding to a part of that responsibility, which frequently is being lost sight of by Christian parents, until they have to reap the bitter fruits of their neglect. I mean the sending of their sons to universities to complete their education, and for the attainment of the scientific knowledge, required to fit them for profession or business, where they would be able to earn their livelihood in a time, where the prince and god of this world draws his entangling net closer and closer, so that it appears to some parents almost impossible to procure for their sons places where they can lead an honest life, and yet suited to their and their parent's position in society. Hence most of those young gentlemen devote themselves to the study of medicine, as the only avocation which secures to them such a position without violating their consciences. Thus they are sent away from the quiet haven of a Christian homestead to the high school of Athens — the university, the very atmosphere of which is impregnated with the pestilential vapours of rationalism and infidelity: and where, as another has said, the great men of science, falsely so called, men with great fame, but little or no shame, are dishonest enough to betray the confidence of honest parents, who have confided to them their children for their education, by using their professor chairs for instilling into their young minds the deadly poison of infidelity and contempt of those sacred divine truths, in which they had been brought up at their mother's knees

The question is, Shall I adopt these extracts for the word of God? shall I attend to the directions of the Board of Education, and violate the command of God? The Board says, "we cheerfully leave the children to their religious instructors" - that is, they leave the great mass of the children to no instruction at all. Just think of those who profess to believe in the doctrine of justification by faith, cheerfully leaving children to the religious instruction of individuals, who deny what they hold to be a fundamental truth - to those who deny the divinity of Jesus - or who reject that salvation which He accomplished when He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin. Remember the principle on which this Board was established. Was it that Scriptural Societies making the Bible a sine qua non was a vital defect in their systems, because such a rule was contrary to the principles of the Roman Catholic church? But was this principle contrary to God's command, contrary to His rule? No! Are we then to go at the bidding of man, contrary to God's command? I hope not.

In contending against scripture, Popery covertly, and infidelity openly, deprive us of both these. And so do these commissioners. The authority and instruction of man is substituted for God's, and the lessons are framed upon the principle, that nothing should be introduced or admitted from any peculiar view of Christianity. But this is not all, sir. They positively teach none. Here is that which is given of scripture to the children in the school - that which it affords suitable to them. Here are the lessons which they can learn out of it. But they are taught by the arrangement of their schools that these cannot teach them the doctrines and precepts, the knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion. They must go to instructors - to men - for that. Such is the direct conclusion from the arrangement, that which is meant upon the face of it, and indeed so stated in this preface, the use of the Bible being left in it to the instructors. This is a positive profession of the worst form in which Popery arrays itself on this subject. If, sir, the publication of this preface shews how completely infidelity prevails, that the contrary feeling does not even arouse the professors of it to any guardedness in its expression, we may at least feel thankful that those whose eyes have not been closed by its delusions should receive a warning from its openness as to the position they are placed in. But I cannot help asking what will the clergy do as to the archbishop, who cheerfully leaves the use of the sacred volume to the popish instructors of the children? Is there any integrity left?

The first thing which I may remark here, sir, is the full confirmation of what I have previously said as to the exclusion of all scripture principles from that which has been substituted for the scriptures in the instruction of the children. For it is to another source here described they are left for the acquirement "of those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion." That then which is given in the school, as instead of the scriptures, is not merely free from peculiar views of Christianity, but does not contain those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion. For these they are referred somewhere else. Does it contain what constitutes the superstructure first? I suppose not. What then? Nothing; and it is from that which thus confessedly contains nothing that the use of the sacred history is to be learned. And it is such a compilation which is an introduction to the sacred volume, and which is to lead to a more general and more profitable perusal of the word of God.

320 But we find men who would divest the word of God of all authority - who would take out of it everything which regards doctrine or practice - who would deprive children of that word, which is able to make them wise unto salvation, "through faith, which is in Christ Jesus." They would first do all this, and then transfer them for instruction to a priesthood who are opposed to the use of the scriptures in any form. But why leave religious instruction in the word of God to the priests? The Board has no influence over the priests to command them to communicate religious information, even if they were qualified. It is said, the Lord dements those He would destroy. In these lessons, which we are told are drawn from the sacred volume, we discover every principle of infidelity and enmity arrayed against the children who are under such instruction; and yet these things are called "Scripture Lessons"; but they are "Lessons" which have garbled scripture - which deprive the children, by such a miserable substitute, of the use of scripture.