Matthew 11:29
"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.
"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.
This 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, an extended course 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.webp)
ecclesiastical system." "From his early training," Dunster, 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 Harvard, "In several instances youths in the parent country were sent to the American Cambridge for a finishing education."
Of Yale, started later, it is said, "The regulations for the most part were those at Harvard, as 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." (Boone, pp. 24-40).
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." (Laurie, pp. 153, 162, 242).
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 dissension arose. Their time was spent very largely in criticizing the views of some of their colaborers who differed with them on some unimportant points of theology. Thus they became destructive instead of constructive. They paid 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 their 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.
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.
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Of Yale, started later, it is said, "The regulations for the most part were those at Harvard, as 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." (Boone, pp. 24-40).
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." (Laurie, pp. 153, 162, 242).
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 dissension arose. Their time was spent very largely in criticizing the views of some of their colaborers who differed with them on some unimportant points of theology. Thus they became destructive instead of constructive. They paid 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 their 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.
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.
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," (T. Vol. 6, p. 171), who, step by step, advance toward worldly education leading the innocent lambs with them."
E.A. Sutherland
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," (T. Vol. 6, p. 171), who, step by step, advance toward worldly education leading the innocent lambs with them."
E.A. Sutherland
