A few more thoughts concerning Plato, and we shall see what evolution is, and where it is now found. Aristotle, the illustrious pupil of Plato, “created the science of logic,” “the science of exact reasoning,” as Webster puts it. Says Emerson: “The balanced soul came.” “His daring imagination gives him the more solid grasp of facts.... According to the old sentence, ‘If Jove should descend to the earth, he would speak in the style of Plato.’” This last, the Christian can readily believe; but the Son of man used an entirely different speech, although Plato antedates his birth over four hundred years, and was, at the time of the advent of Christ, the ruler of the intellectual world.
Platonism in modern schools
“In reading logarithms, one is not more secure than following Plato in his flights.” Plato himself is given credit for saying: “There is a science of sciences—I call it Dialectic—which is the intellect discriminating the false and the true.” There is indeed a science of sciences—the science of salvation. There is verily a way of judging between the false and the true, for the Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth. But the human brain can never do this. It was this same logic, Plato’s “science of sciences,” which was given such prominence in the papal schools and all medieval education. Here stand the two systems side by side, the one guided by human reason, the other by the Spirit of the living God. Remember that the world bows to Plato; and, raising its hands in an attitude of worship, lays at his feet its tribute, its dearest idol,—its educational system. Chambers’s Encyclopedia, art. “Plato,” shows conclusively that this Greek philosopher holds still his exalted position in literary circles and among educators. It says: “Since the French Revolution particularly, the study of Plato has been pursued with renewed vigor in Germany, France, and England; and many of our distinguished authors, without expressly professing Platonism,—as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, Ruskin, etc.,—have formed a strong and growing party of adherents, who could find no common banner under which they could at once so conveniently and so honorably muster as that of Plato.”
Christians are to be gathered under the ensign of Christ;[42] but many educators of to-day find “no common banner under which they could so conveniently and so honorably muster as that of Plato.” Christianity or paganism, which shall it be in the education of Protestant children of to-day? How did it happen that the ideas of Plato were so generally accepted throughout Europe? The article in Chambers’s Encyclopedia, from which the foregoing quotation is made, tells in the following words how the early Christian church became contaminated by the teachings of Plato: “The works of Plato were extensively studied by the Church Fathers, one of whom joyfully recognizes, in the great teacher of the academy, the schoolmaster who, in the fullness of time, was destined to educate the heathen for Christ, as Moses did the Jews.” If the early church adopted the educational system of Plato, one does not wonder that by the Middle Ages Europe was ready for Greek philosophy.
Platonism in Europe and America
In the year 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople, and “many Greek scholars took refuge in Italy. The times were propitious for them.” Let it be remembered that this was one of the mileposts in the history of the Dark Ages. The Latin tongue had been the universal language during the days of papal supremacy. There was an uprising against the tyranny of the papacy over thought, and the modern tongues began to appear. In order to stem the tide without losing ground, the papacy turned the attention of men’s minds to Greek classics rather than to the Bible of Wyclif or Erasmus, and a little later to the writings of Luther. Indeed, for the papacy the “times were propitious.”
“Noble and wealthy patronage was not lacking, and under its fostering care they (the Greeks) became for a time the teachers of Europe. They succeeded in kindling a remarkable enthusiasm for antiquity. Manuscripts were collected, translations were made, academies were established, and libraries were founded. Several of the popes became generous patrons of ancient learning.... Eager scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of Italian masters, in order afterward to bear beyond the Alps the precious seed of the new culture.”[43] Painter further gives the effects of this spread of Greek classics: “In Italy it tended strongly to paganize its adherents. Ardor for antiquity became at last intoxication. Infidelity prevailed in the highest ranks of the church; Christianity was despised as a superstition; immorality abounded in the most shameful forms. The heathenism of Athens was revived in Christian Rome.” And scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of these heathen teachers, drinking in their philosophy, and then hastening across the Alps to propagate these ideas in the schools for the education of the young. This was the influence against which the Reformation had to fight. It is from Oxford, Cambridge, and the universities of Germany and France that American colleges and universities have imbibed these same pagan ideas.
Nature of the classics
The classics form the backbone of paganism, as the Bible forms the basis of Christian education. The classics are enduring, because they are the highest product of the human mind. The recent move in educational circles, and on the part of some of our leading colleges against the study of the “humanities” (the Greek and Latin classics), and in favor of the study of “moderns” (that is, science, modern languages, and history), can never reach a point of stability until the Bible is put in its proper position as an educational factor, for to push out the classics without putting in their place that which is equally as strong, if not stronger, is useless. A reaction is inevitable, and the classics will be returned to their old-time place of honor. Christian education in its simplicity is the only alternative.
This does not mean the substitution of a class in Bible or sacred history for the former classics. As the classic literature has been the basis of all instruction in our schools since the Middle Ages, a reformation necessitates a decided breaking down of the old system, and the adoption of a new system built upon an entirely different foundation,—a system in which the Word of God shall be the basis of all education, and the text-book in every line of study.