PREPARING TO GIVE THE LOUD CRY: THE MAIN OBJECT OF EDUCATION Part III A. The Papal System of Education: A Sure Way to Destroy the Mind INDIVIDUALITY, ORIGINALITY AND INDEPENDENCE of thought and action on the part of the students are in the end destroyed by the Papal system and other systems derived from it. This system is intended by its promoters to destroy these vital elements of character in order to make the individual a willing, blind, obedient servant to the mandates of men. The Papacy cannot prosper except as it does destroy these most God-like faculties in man. Individuality, originality and independence of thought and action are developed by Christian education. This system is intended to develop minds capable of being guided by the Holy Spirit, even though that way may be at times diametrically opposed to the rulings of men. The objects of our schools should be to prepare students to carry the message of Christ’s second coming to all the world and to prepare them speedily. B. List of Important Educational Principles Found in the 2 Systems of Education: Papal System vs. Biblical System ‘’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.’’ And we shall never be prepared to give the Loud Cry which includes the Judgment of the Living and the soon coming of Christ. 1. Protestants hold their children in the church when they receive Christian education. They lose their children when they attend schools having a Papal system. Melanchthon, the Reformer who labored with Martin Luther, said, ‘’Religion cannot be maintained without the Christian schools.’’ 2. The Papal system of education is never a fit model for Protestant schools. Luther and Melanchthon recognized this. Accordingly they reformed the school system, changing the curriculum, text books and methods of teaching. 3. Some schools, Christian in form, follow the Papal system (including SDA schools today), sandwiching in a little bible, and flavouring the course with Protestant theology. 4. This combination of educational system – Christian and Papal mixed – always opens the way for hairsplitting theological controversies, and the students are neglected for heresy hunting. It always terminates in a victory for Papacy over Protestantism. 5. The Papal System of education makes a Moloch [Pagan god to which parents sacrificed their firstborn by having them passed through fire] of abstract subjects and worships at his shrine. Its strength lies in repeating meaningless forms, and ‘’a dead study of words takes the place of a living knowledge of things.’’ Mental cramming and formal memorizing are exalted methods of its teachers. Emulation, prizes and rewards are needed stimulants for ‘’a mechanical and compulsory drill in unintelligible formulas,’’ and their long stereotype courses end in degrees, the sign and mark of the system. It is the subjugation of human minds to the authority of someone above, the stiffing of free thought by unnatural close supervision in place of self-government. It leads away from nature, nature’s work and nature’s God, and centralizes in cities and man-made [mammoth] institutions. This is Papal education, and its rewards is the degree conferred at the end of the traditional course. 6. Every school is the pulse beat of some organization; - of the State, if it is a state school; of the Papacy, if it is a Christian school; and of the Christian church if it is a Christian school. Any educational system which mechanically teaches a stereotype course leading to degrees, will, in time, results in the development of a creed by its controlling organization – a creed written, or perhaps consisting only of opinions of those in power, but a creed nevertheless, according to which everyone not recognizing its power to initiate is considered irregular or independent. More Principles on the True and False Education System will be presented in Part IV. Excerpts from Studies in Christian Education, E. A. Sutherland, 1915.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 10:57:37 +0000
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