Original Documents

Christian Education and Why the Protestant Churches Fell

E. A. Sutherland

Warum sie fielen
Protestant or Catholic
Brutus
Introduction
Loosing and finding one's grip
Luther and Melanchthon
After Luther and Melanchthon
Another spirit
Jesuit Schools
Success of Jesuit Schools
Heresy Hunting
The secret of rejection
What they faced, we do now
Notes & References
Comparison
Three Angels Mssgs
Old Reformation Map
Cmpr Righteousness by Faith

Introduction

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." [10] "The science of true education is the truth. . . . The Third Angel's Message is truth." [12] 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.

For those wondering what these "messages" are all about, we have separate papers linked where the reader can learn about them here. Those readers unacquainted with these concepts, actually they are not hard to understand after reading some of it. E.A. Sutherland, educator, 1865-1955

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.

These terms, "midnight cry" and "loud cry" are short for historical events in church history as they are found in the Bible. A very short explanation you find here.

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. [30] 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." 1. Corinthians 10:11.

Loosing one's grip

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." [40][Click here for a summary.]

These Reformers, on reaching America, renounced the papal doctrines on church and state, but they retained the papal system of education. A town in the Middle Ages in Germany 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." [60]

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 courses 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 [62], 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 Leopold von Ranke 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." [80]

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 boldly 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." [100]

Luther and Melanchthon

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." [120]

"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." [125] 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 of 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." [140]

After Luther and Melanchthon

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." [150] "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 Johannes Sturm/ Sturmius, who, by these blind Reformers, was supposed to be a good Protestant. .Johannes SturmiusSturm 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." [160]

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," [170] "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." [200]

Macaulay (1800-1859), speaking of this system of education, adds: "They promised what was impracticable; they despised Thomas B. Macaulay 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." [220]

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." [230]

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." [250]

"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. Prizes will be distributed to the best pupils with the greatest solemnity. [255] . . . 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 faculties." 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." [260] "The Jesuit system of education was remarkably successful, and for nearly a century, all the foremost men of Christendom came from Jesuit schools." [270]

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." [280]

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.[284] 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." [290]

"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." [300]

"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 X. 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 sends 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." [320]

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.[328]

The secret of rejection

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.[330] 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 in 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 they faced, we do now

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 [337]. May God help us to remain steadfast in the truth 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." [340] 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." [350] "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.


Notes & References

[010] Ellen White, Christian Educator, July 8, 1897.

[012] Testimonies, vol. 6, 131.

[030] While the reasons given are true, SdAs also know that we ourselves can and have fallen just the same. How? Because we have neglected the message brought to us in 1888 for we ought to know that Satan is hardest working inside the church which has the greater light of the truths of God's Word.

[040] The Great Controversy, 292, 296.

[060] The Great Controversy, 289–291.

[062] Henry Dunster became president of Harvard in August 1640. He passed away in 1659.

[080] Richard Boone's Education in the United States, 24–40.

[100] S.S. Laurie's Rise and Constitution of Universities, (1887), pp. 153, 162, 242.; S.S. Laurie a professor at Edinburgh.

[120] Schmidt, Karl (1812-1895), Life of Melanchthon, (Elberfeld, 1861), p. 81.

[125] Painter, Franklin VN, History of Education, 1883, p. 152. He also wrote, Luther and Education.

[140] Leopold Von Ranke's (1798-1876) History of the Popes, 135.

[150] Christian Educator, 63.

[160] Painter's History of Education. 163.

[170] Testimonies, vol. 6, 141. According to the Book of Nehemiah there are 6 types of opposition God's people face. When Nehemiah began to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and its Temple (Neh. 2:17-18), he faced 6 dangerous oppositions:

  1. Sanballat and Tobiah were concerned (Neh. 2:18).
    a) they didn't want Nehemiah to do, what God wanted him to do, v. 18.
    b) you cannot be a Christian and not have opposition, v. 19.
  2. Next God's people rebuilding Jerusalem were being ridiculed, v. 19.
  3. Sanballat mocked the Jews, he and his cohorts became angry and hostile, 4:1.
  4. Nehemiah experienced opposition from those he thought he could trust. There was talk of warfare, 4:7,8.
  5. At the time the fifth type of opposition revealed itself, the enemy realized that there was no hole left in the wall around Jerusalem, 6:1. Now Sanballat wanted to talk, have a conference, meet together and talk things over, 6:2.
  6. Shemaiah comes to him with a religious suggestion. This is the most dangerous opposition Nehemiah faced. Shemaiah says lets meet in the temple, in the house of prayer and talk and learn from me how you can protect yourself from getting killed, 6:10. Sanballat had sent him as a secret informer and Nehemiah did not fall into the trap, 6:12. He was a pretend friend who had made himself out to be an understanding fellow believer.

And the wall of Jerusalem was finished in 52 days, 6:15.

[200] Painter's History of Education, 156.

[220] Macaulay, Thomas B. (1800-1859), Bacon, (1840), p. 379.

[230] Painter's History of Education, 166.

[250] Rosenkranz, Johann Karl (1805-1879), Philosophy of Education, 270.

[255] One may argue that to this category also belong graduation ceremonies if they merely extol human achievements. The candidates and their teachers appear largely in black vestures when the scriptures exhort us to strife to wear white. At any rate, those gowns and caps are part of the Roman system. This writer would not loose a tear seeing it go.

[260] Painter's History of Education, 172, 173.; Luther is quoted as saying, "I am much afraid that the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of the youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the word of God must become corrupt." [Merle D'Aubigne, The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, London: Blackie & Son, 1885, bk. 6, ch. 3.; GC 140,141.]
From another author we read, "The angels from heaven did not come to the school of the prophets and sing their anthems over the temple or synagogues, but they went to the men who were humble enough to receive the message. They sang the glad tidings of a Saviour over Bethlehem's plains, while the great men, the rulers, and honorable men were left in darkness, because they were perfectly satisfied with their position and felt no need of a piety greater than that which they possessed." {TDG 319.4}
The Bible warns us not to be like "... watchmen" who "are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber." Isa. 56:10.

[270] Rosenkranz, 272.

[280] Macaulay's Von Ranke, vol. 4, 134–139. See also Hughe's, Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits. The work of the Jesuits is quite vividly described by an anonymous author by the assumed name of `Brutus' in a serious of articles titled, `Against the Liberties of the United States' in the `New York Observer', Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835, Libr. of Congress.; compiled. (Meanwhile posted here.) Brutus wrote, when Austria was a very influential nation in Europe. To let the reader experience the flavor of this work we quote a few lines. "Gentlemen. - Learning that you are about to publish in a small volume, the articles, signed Brutus (which recently appeared in the NY Observer, shewing that a conspiracy is formed against the United States by the Papal powers of Europe,) the undersigned, who read those articles with interest, have great satisfaction in expressing their approbation of your undertaking. These articles are written by a gentleman of intelligence and candor, who has resided in the south of Europe, and enjoyed the best opportunities for acquaintance with the topics on which he writes. . . . The silence of the secular press on a subject which has roused the attention of so large a body of the Protestant community may indeed be accounted for in parts, perhaps altogether, from the all engrossing election contests which have agitated the country from one extremity of the land to the other; for the writer would certainly be very reluctant to adopt the belief, which has repeatedly been urged upon him by many, that the secular journals Dare not attack Popery; he will not believe that dare not ever stood in the way of the duty of any patriotic independent conductor of the American press. [A friend to whom this part was read smiled, and said you are sufficiently guarded in your language, but how man patriotic, independent conductors of the American press are there? Can you name one?] . . .
That a vigorous and unexampled effort is making by the despotic powers of Europe to cause Popery to overspread this country, is a fact too palpable to be contradicted. Did not official documents lately published, put this fact beyond dispute, yet the writer had personal evidence sufficient to convince him of the fact and of the political object of the enterprise, while residing in Italy in the years 1830-31, from conversations with nobles and gentlemen of the different countries, visiting and resident in the Roman and Austrian states, and with priests and other ecclesiastics of the Roman faith. Sometimes it was hinted to him as a check to too sanguine anticipations of the triumph of the experiment of our democratic republican government; sometimes it was told him by the former class in a tone of exultation that a cause was in operation which would surely overthrow our institutions and gradually bring us under a form of governments less obnoxious to the pride, and less dangerous to the existence, of the antiquated despotic systems of Europe. In addition to these hints to the writer, concerning the efforts making by the governments of Europe to carry Popery through all our borders, other American travellers will testify to similar hints made to them. By one I am permitted to say that the celebrated naturalist, the late Baron Cuvier (1769-1832), known also as a zealous Protestant, inquired of him with marks of concern, if it were indeed true that Popery had made such progress in the United States, as to cause the exultation (which it seems was no secret) among the legitimates of Europe. And again, that a distinguished member of one of the Protestant German embassies, in Rome also made similar inquiries of him, having heard much boasting of the progress of Popery in the United States, adding this pertinent remark, "they will be hammer or nails, Sir, they will persecute, or be persecuted." ..."

[284] On May 3, 1570, Pius V issued his bull excommunicating Queen Elizabeth. Nearly three years before, the Jesuits had begun to infiltrate England.French king Charles IX slays Huguenots from the roof of his palace Professing themselves to be Protestant clergymen, they worked to widen the differences and create animosities between the various Protestant groups, eventually breaking the union and peace that had so largely prevailed in England during the first ten years of Elizabeth's reign. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which occurred soon after, in 1572, sent a thrill of terror through the nation. The doom of the Huguenots taught Elizabeth and the English Protestants that Roman Catholic pledges and promises of peace were no security whatever against sudden and wholesale destruction. (See French Revolution)
To counter the influence of the Reformation movement in England, the Catholic Church founded a university at Douay in the northeast of France. To this school a small group of English youth came to be educated as seminary priests and later were employed in undermining the Reformation in their native land. The Pope so completely approved of the entire plan that he created a similar institution in Rome—the English College.

[290] Footprints of the Jesuits, 419.

[300] Macaulay's Von Ranke.

[320] Macaulay's Von Ranke.

[328] From a later time I read this, Biblical World Page "At present (1916) the curriculum is selected from the International Graded Lessons, the Constructive Studies of the University of Chicago, and the graded series of Charles Scribner's Sons. Up to the end of the high-school years the courses are prescribed. ... All work is under observation with reference to educational results, measured by the nurture of the spiritual life, the leaders claiming that their policy is to bring the school gradually to the "Dewey basis" as far as is possible in the teaching of religion." (Editors News: Religious Education in [Biblical World, Vol. XLVII, Jan. 1916, No. 1, p. 117-118.] - The `Dewey' system derives its name from John Dewey (1859-1952). His method was a break with the old way of teaching. We read: He was born 1859, Burlington, Vermont, USA. Died 1952, he was an American philosopher and regarded as the foremost educator of his day. His major books include "Democracy and Education" (1916), "Logic" (1938), "Experience and Education" (1938). He had a profound impact on progressive education, Rejected authoritarian teaching methods (of the Papacy), His educational theories were permeated by his primary ethical value of democracy, Regarded education in a democracy as a tool to enable the citizen to integrate his or her culture and vocation usefully. To accomplish these aims, Dewey said radical reform was needed of both pedagogical methods and curricula. - Summary of Dewey's Philosophy of Instrumentalism:

  • Dewey's philosophy was called instrumentalism (related to pragmatism).
  • Instrumentalism believes that truth is an instrument used by human beings to solve their problems.
    John Dewey
  • Since problems change, then so must truth.
  • Since problems change, truth changes, and therefore there can be no eternal reality.
  • He lectured all over the world and prepared educational surveys for Turkey, Mexico, and the Soviet Union.
  • While at first his system almost sounds like a break with the Catholic system, his evolution based philosophy reveals even more dangerous tenants than what went on before. Do problems change? Are our problems really so different then those of earlier generations? Are the root principles involved not the same? Is truth something that changes from age to age? John Dewey certainly did not know the God who never changes, Malachi 3:6. Like so many of his age, he could not see that horses breed horses and dogs breed dogs. Neither could he see that teachers and scientists cannot evolve out of free flowing chemicals or out of amoebas.

    [330] In what ways is `Babylon' expressed in Protestantism? One way may be this quote, "Probably many of us find among our friends people who do not make the sharp differentiation between God and man, between religion and life, between the material and the spiritual, which was formerly held to be vital to religion. ... They do not think of religious experience different from the experiences of hourly life, but as the essence of it all. ... So for the time being, in church and ecclesiastical services we distinguish between life and religion, between body and spirit, between person and personality, and consider these latter things in themselves.", which seems to indicate the papal spirit of separating religion and living in this world of sin as if a Christian can have it both ways and be safe. (Seelye, Laurens H., If Religion is life, `What is the Sabbath'? in Biblical World, Vol. XLVII, Feb. 1916, No. 2, p. 86-93.

    [337] See `Testimonies', Vol. 6, p. 141ff.

    [340] Testimonies, vol. 6, 131.

    [350] The Madison School, 30.

    God's System Babylon's System
  • 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;
  • 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.
  • 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 Bible was 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.
  • Sturm's school 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 and teaching was impractical;
  • they despised what was practicable;
  • its methods of instruction were 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;
  • 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;
  • teachers taught the prescribed text, not harmoniously developing the young human being according to the laws of nature;
  • they filled the world with long words;
  • they left the system as wicked as they found it;
  • 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;
  • Jesuits made much of emulation;
  • nothing became more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student;
  • nothing became more dishonorable than to be outstripped;
  • selfworth, winning of prizes became a top goal;
  • distributing prizes to the best pupils with the greatest solemnity was put on display;
  • it sought showy results with which to dazzle the world;
  • a well-rounded development was nothing;
  • Jesuits did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils, but merely the receptive and reproductive faculties;
  • students were taught to make brilliant displays of stored memory;
  • students were led to believe that was the most worth while, the highest goal;
  • 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;
  • This system is still in place today.

  • Additional Samples of Guidelines of Christian Education

    Its principles of diligence, honesty, thrift, temperance, and purity are the secret of true success. These principles, as set forth in the book of Proverbs, constitute a treasury of practical wisdom. Where can the merchant, the artisan, the director of men in any department of business, find better maxims for himself or for his employees than are found in these words of the wise man. {EGW, `Education', 135.1}

    As an educator no part of the Bible is of greater value than are its biographies. These biographies differ from all others in that they are absolutely true to life. It is impossible for any finite mind to interpret rightly, in all things, the workings of another. None but He who reads the heart, who discerns the secret springs of motive and action, can with absolute truth delineate character, or give a faithful picture of a human life. In God's word alone is found such delineation." {Ed 146.1}

    Jacob and Esau - He had gained not merely deliverance from his outraged brother, but deliverance from himself. The power of evil in his own nature was broken; his character was transformed." {Ed 147.3}

    Levi - But repentance wrought reformation; and by their faithfulness to God amidst the apostasy of the other tribes, the curse was transformed into a token of highest honor. {Ed 148.3} Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance." Deuteronomy 12:19; 10:9. {Ed 148.5}

    Caleb and Joshua - entered the Land of Promise. As courageous of heart as when with the hosts of the Lord he set out from Egypt, Caleb asked for and received as his portion the stronghold of the giants. In God's strength he drove out the Canaanites. The vineyards and olive groves where his feet had trodden became his possession. Though the cowards and rebels perished in the wilderness, the men of faith ate of the grapes of Eschol. - No truth does the Bible set forth in clearer light than the peril of even one departure from the right--peril both to the wrongdoer and to all whom his influence shall reach. Example has wonderful power; and when cast on the side of the evil tendencies of our nature, it becomes well-nigh irresistible." {Ed 150.1}

    Elijah - By one failure of his faith, Elijah cut short his lifework. Heavy was the burden that he had borne in behalf of Israel; faithful had been his warnings against the national idolatry; and deep was his solicitude as during three years and a half of famine he watched and waited for some token of repentance. Alone he stood for God upon Mount Carmel. Through the power of faith, idolatry was cast down, and the blessed rain testified to the showers of blessing waiting to be poured upon Israel. Then in his weariness and weakness he fled before the threats of Jezebel and alone in the desert prayed that he might die. His faith had failed. The work he had begun he was not to complete. God bade him anoint another to be prophet in his stead." {Ed 151.1}

    But God had marked the heart service of His servant. Elijah was not to perish in discouragement and solitude in the wilderness. Not for him the descent to the tomb, but the ascent with God's angels to the presence of His glory." {Ed 151.2}

    Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Job, Jonathan. John the Baptist,Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; . . . and Samuel, and of the prophets amd women in the Bible."

    The mind that depends upon the judgment of others is certain, sooner or later, to be misled.

    The power to discriminate between right and wrong we can possess only through individual dependence upon God.

    In all true teaching the personal element is essential. Christ in His teaching dealt with men individually. It was by personal contact and association that He trained the Twelve. It was in private, often to but one listener, that He gave His most precious instruction. To the honored rabbi at the night conference on the Mount of Olives, to the despised woman at the well of Sychar, He opened His richest treasures; for in these hearers He discerned the impressible heart, the open mind, the receptive spirit. Even the crowd that so often thronged His steps was not to Christ an indiscriminate mass of human beings. He spoke directly to every mind and appealed to every heart. He watched the faces of His hearers, marked the lighting up of the countenance, the quick, responsive glance, which told that truth had reached the soul; and there vibrated in His heart the answering chord of sympathetic joy."

    Christ discerned the possibilities in every human being. He was not turned aside by an unpromising exterior or by unfavorable surroundings. He called Matthew from the tolbooth, and Peter and his brethren from the fishing boat, to learn of Him." {Ed 232.1}

    The same personal interest, the same attention to individual development, are needed in educational work today. Many apparently unpromising youth are richly endowed with talents that are put to no use.

    An important element in educational work is enthusiasm. On this point there is a useful suggestion in a remark once made by a celebrated actor. The archbishop of Canterbury had put to him the question why actors in a play affect their audiences so powerfully by speaking of things imaginary, while ministers of the gospel often affect theirs so little by speaking of things real. "With due submission to your grace," replied the actor, "permit me to say that the reason is plain: It lies in the power of enthusiasm. We on the stage speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary." {Ed 233.2}

    The teacher in his work is dealing with things real, and he should speak of them with all the force and enthusiasm which a knowledge of their reality and importance can inspire. {Ed 233.3}

    The chief requisite of language is that it be pure and kind and true--"the outward expression of an inward grace." God says: "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philippians 4:8. And if such are the thoughts, such will be the expression. {Ed 235.1}

    In the study of figures the work should be made practical. Let every youth and every child be taught, not merely to solve imaginary problems, but to keep an accurate account of his own income and outgoes. Let him learn the right use of money by using it. Whether supplied by their parents or by their own earnings, let boys and girls learn to select and purchase their own clothing, their books, and other necessities; and by keeping an account of their expenses they will learn, as they could learn in no other way, the value and the use of money. This training will help them to distinguish true economy from niggardliness on the one hand and prodigality on the other. Rightly directed it will encourage habits of benevolence. It will aid the youth in learning to give, not from the mere impulse of the moment, as their feelings are stirred, but regularly and systematically. {Ed 238.6}

    "Jesus and His grace must be enshrined in the inner sanctuary of the soul. Then He will be revealed in words, in prayer, in exhortation, in the presentation of sacred truth, for this is the great secret of spiritual success." {1SM, 405.2}

    Bible Topics Main Menu Submenu
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .