Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns: An Educational Problem for Protestants

by E. A. Sutherland

Further changes

The same departure from the study of God’s Word and the record of his dealings with men and nations—God in history and politics—is noticeable in the curriculum of each modern college and university. To quote again from Boone, “The history of customs and institutions, the growth of opinions and sentiments as crystallized in social forms, the study of governments and religions, of art and industry, are clamoring for a place in the curriculum. Comparative philology, with the enlarged interest of modern languages, belongs to the present period.” Such a curriculum can not but have weight in molding the minds of men, and the history we are making to-day is but the resultant of the thoughts inculcated in our modern colleges.

Evolution taught

The chair in science has been greatly enlarged: the ideas of evolution as advocated by Darwin, Huxley, and Dana have crept into the lecture courses, and having been received, bid fair to stay. Says Boone: “It has been said that biological study [in the universities] began with Huxley in England, and later in this country.” “Of the several courses in Harvard, thirty per cent are in science, and in most other contemporary institutions a similar large ratio obtains. This has had its influence upon the accepted curriculum.” This science would be termed by the Apostle Paul “science falsely so called.”

Multiplication of courses

“Great changes have occurred in the twenty years [since 1868] in the multiplication of courses and the accompanying specializations of study.” Perhaps figures will be more impressive on this point than mere words. Boone states that “of the forty-seven higher institutions whose reports are given by Dr. Adams, including Harvard, Columbia, and Brown, and ten leading State universities, forty-six report an aggregate of one hundred and eighty-nine courses in history and closely related studies.” Cornell now offers so many courses that should a student attempt to take them all, it would require more than the natural life of a man to complete them.

A cramming system with children

It is not with any spirit of condemnation that these things are stated, but it can be seen by all that there is a meaning which inevitably attaches to these changes. The multiplicity of subjects taught has led to a wonderful book study, and a student’s whole life is spent in an attempt to put into his own head the thoughts which others have written for him. The spirit of the universities was caught by the academies, and by the high schools, and is reflected even in the lower grades. It is the beginning of the cramming process now so forcibly denounced by a few true educators. Readers of our magazines are familiar with the ideas expressed by Mrs. Lew Wallace in “The Murder of the Modern Innocents,” by the editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, and others. I deem it sufficient to quote from Mr. Edward Bok, who startled American homes by stating that “in five cities of our country alone there were, during the last school term, over sixteen thousand children between the ages of eight and fourteen taken out of the public schools because their nervous systems were wrecked, and their minds were incapable of going on any farther in the infernal cramming system which exists to-day in our schools.... It was planned by nature that between the years of seven and fifteen the child should have rest,—not rest which will stop all mental and physical growth, of course, ... but the child’s pace should be checked so as to allow him to recover from the strain which his system has just undergone.

“But what really happens to the child at the age of seven? Is he given this period of rest?—Verily, no! He enters the schoolroom, and becomes a victim of long hours of confinement—the first mental application, mind you, that the child has ever known. The nervous wear and tear begins; the child is fairly launched upon his enjoyment (God save the mark!) of the great educational system of America.... Special systems of ‘marks,’ which amount to prizes, are started, serving only to stimulate the preternaturally bright child, who needs relaxation most of all, and to discourage the child who happens to be below the average of intelligence. It is cramming, cramming, cramming! A certain amount of ‘ground must be gone over,’ as it is usually called. Whether the child is physically able to work the ground, does not enter into the question. And we do not stop even there! The poor children are compelled to carry home a pile of books to study, usually after supper, and just before going to bed, and that is about the most barbarous part of the whole system.”[166]

This is enough to show that the system is recognized as practicing methods not in accordance with the laws of nature, which are the laws of God. Such methods are the result of the system at the head of which stand the colleges and universities which outline the work for all below them.