Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 123:490 (Apr 1966)
Article: Education and Morality
Author: Roy L. Aldrich

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BSac 123:490 (Apr 66) p. 136

Education and Morality

Roy L. Aldrich

[Roy L. Aldrich, President, Detroit Bible College, Detroit, Michigan.]

Alarmed by the drift toward immorality and lawlessness in America, James F. O’Neil, former member of the Michigan State Board of Education, recently sent an open letter to the citizens of Michigan calling for a return to religion and morality in education. He noted that the Education Article in the Michigan State Constitution begins with this sentence: “Religion, Morality, and Knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”1

He called attention to Arnold Toynbee’s warning that nineteen of the past twenty-one civilizations have collapsed from within. He asked that “all citizens heed the lessons of history and insist upon the development of a constructive, consistent, and compelling system of values around which personal and social life can be organized, and our educational leaders at all levels provide the active leadership to organize the concerted action required to meet our society’s greatest need.”2 He then quoted John Ruskin’s statement on education: “The entire object of education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things; not merely learned, but to love knowledge; not merely pure, but to love purity; not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.”3

Mr. O’Neil concluded that every educator and citizen should ask this question: “How well are we educating our children and ourselves to be religious, moral and concerned citizens, as well as knowledgeable ones?”

Those in sympathy with Christian morality will applaud O’Neil’s concern, but recognize that he is fighting a battle that

BSac 123:490 (Apr 66) p. 137

is practically lost. Fortified by a false doctrine of academic freedom and committed to anti-Christian philosophies, American education in general has long since given up the teaching of any system of fixed values. The limited number of orthodox Christian schools and the sprinkling of Christian teachers in public schools provide the hopeful exception.

The University of Chicago has launched a drive for a $160 million dollar expansion and improvement fund. The University’s public relations magazine, Chicago Today, Autumn, 1965, contains articles written entirely by contributors connected with the University. These articles were doubtless selected as samples of the prevail...

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