existence upon which they stood, and that this was attained by a life
of faith, it is easily seen why there was marked out for the nation a
_system of education_ differing as completely from the systems of the
other nations of the world as the spiritual life differs from a purely
physical or a strictly mental existence. It made it impossible for
any mingling of systems to take place without the utter ruin of the
spiritual; for as soon as this came down to the level of either of the
others, it ceased to be spiritual, and lost its power to lead.
[Sidenote: Result of mixture in educational systems]
Should Israel attempt to adopt the education of surrounding nations, that
moment her education would become papal in character, for it would then
be a combination of the divine with the worldly. If a man-made theocracy,
a church and state government, is papal in principle, the divine and the
worldly combined in educational systems is no less a papal principle.
Israel formed such a combination more than once, but with the results
recorded in Ps. 106:34-38: “They mingled among the heathen, and learned
their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.
Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters into devils, and shed
innocent blood, even the blood of their _sons_ and of their _daughters_,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan.”
Truth and error never form a compound, although they may be mingled.
The union of the two never produces truth, and the end is death. Truth
amalgamated with error, as gold with mercury, lies dormant until
released. Israel could not positively forsake her God-given forms of
education without relinquishing her place as leader of nations. Destined
to be the head and not the tail, she immediately reversed her position
when she adopted a mixed system.
[Sidenote: Spiritual nature of their education]
The education which was outlined for the children of Israel was
soul-culture, pure and simple. Its object was to develop the soul which
is God in man; and Divinity so planned that every true Jew should be
a God-man. Education was to develop the spark of divinity bestowed at
birth, and it was the privilege of every Jew to have, as did that _One_
Jew, Christ, the Spirit without measure.
Let us see, then, what the plan was which would take the newborn babe,
and follow him through life, making him one unit in a nation of spiritual
beings. God recognized prenatal influence, and so gave directions and
laws concerning the life of the parents. This is illustrated in the story
of Hannah and the wife of Manoah, in Elizabeth, and in Mary the mother of
Jesus.
[Sidenote: Jewish schools]
In the early history of the nation, “Education,” says Painter, “was
restricted to the family, in which the father was the principal teacher.
There were no popular schools nor professional teachers. Yet the
instruction of the Jew ... embraced a vast number of particulars.”[19]
Hinsdale says: “Jewish education began with the mother. What the true
Jewish mother, considered as a teacher, was, we know from both the
Testaments and from many other sources. The very household duties that
she performed molded her children in accordance with the national
discipline. ‘The Sabbath meal, the kindling of the Sabbath lamp, and
the setting apart of a portion of the dough from the bread for the
household—these are but instances with which every _Taph_, as he clung
to his mother’s skirts, must have been familiar.’ The bit of parchment
fastened to the doorpost, on which the name of the Most High was written,
... would be among the first things to arrest his attention.
“It was in the school of the mother’s knee that the stories of patriarchs
and prophets, of statesmen and warriors, of poets and sages, of kings and
judges, wise men and patriots, and of the great Law-giver Himself,—the
whole forming the very best body of material for the purposes of
child-nurture found in any language,—were told and retold until they
became parts of the mind itself.” He then mentions the case of Timothy,
and adds: “As teachers of their children, the women of every country
may learn lessons from the matrons of Israel.”[20] This was evidently
the original plan, and had the families proved faithful to the trust,
the greater part, if not all, of the education would have been in the
_family school_. Always, however, as long as Israel was a nation, the
child (and the term covered the first twelve or fifteen years) was under
the instruction of the parents.
[Sidenote: Jewish church schools]
From the home school we follow the Jewish child to the synagogue or
church school. Moses was instructed by the Lord to make every priest
a teacher, so the nation had a whole tribe of teachers. As every town
had its synagogue, so “a town in which there is no school must perish.”
Quoting again from Hinsdale: “The children were gathered for instruction
in the synagogues and schoolhouses, where the teacher, generally the
Chazzan, or officer of the synagogue, ‘imparted to them the precious
knowledge of the law, with constant adaptation to their capacity,
with unwearied patience, intense earnestness, strictness tempered by
kindness, but, above all, with the highest object of their training ever
in view. _To keep children from all contact with vice; to train them to
gentleness, even when bitterest wrong had been received_; to show sin in
its repulsiveness, rather than to terrify by its consequences; _to train
to strict truthfulness_; to avoid all that might lead to disagreeable
or indelicate thoughts; and to do all this without showing partiality,
without either undue severity or laxity of discipline, with judicious
increase of study and work, with careful attention to thoroughness in
acquiring knowledge—all this and more constituted the ideal set before
the teacher, and made his office of such high esteem in Israel.’”[21]
These teachers took the youth at the most critical period of their
development. And how thoroughly they understood the needs of the
developing minds!
[Sidenote: Schools of the prophets]
In the days of Samuel we read, for the first time, of the schools of the
prophets, where young men were gathered together for the study of the
law, of music, poetry, and history, and of the various trades. The name
_School of the Prophets_ would indicate the spirituality of their work,
and reference to the time of Elijah and Elisha and the experience of Saul
would prove the truth of the inference.
[Sidenote: Studies in Jewish schools]
Concerning the subjects taught we are not left in ignorance, if we study
the history of the people. Thus, quoting again from Painter: “The Hebrew
parent was not only to impart oral instruction to his children, but to
teach them also _reading and writing_. As he was to inscribe the words
of the Lord upon his doorposts and gates, he must himself have learned
to write; and, as he wrote them for his children, they must have been
taught to read. Hence, it appears that the ability to read and write was
general among the ancient Jews; and, in this particular, they surpassed
every other nation of antiquity.”[22] Hinsdale says: “From the teaching
of the alphabet, or writing in the primary school, to the farthest limit
of instruction in the academies of the rabbis, all was marked by extreme
care, wisdom, accuracy, and moral and religious purpose as the ultimate
object.”[23]
[Sidenote: The Bible as a text-book]
“Up to ten years of age the Bible was the sole text-book; from ten to
fifteen the _Mischna_, or traditional law, was used; and after that
the pupil was admitted to the discussions of the rabbinical schools.
So extensive a course of study, however, was taken only by those who
showed decided aptitude for learning. Bible study began with the book of
Leviticus; then came other parts of the Pentateuch; next the prophets,
and finally the Hagiography.”[24]
[Sidenote: Physiology]
In working for this chosen people, God cured physical infirmities with
the same case that he healed a sin-sick soul; and with the laws for
spiritual growth were given directions for the preservation of health.
Every priest was likewise a physician, and the laws concerning the use
of simple, healthful foods, proper breathing, ventilation, the use of
disinfectants, the bath, etc., were familiar to all who read the statutes
of Jehovah.
[Sidenote: Additional studies]
Painter says, concerning other subjects taught: “Among the potent
educational agencies of the Jews, that of the annual national festivals
merits consideration.... Commemorating important national events, they
kept the people acquainted with their past _history_.... These frequent
reunions not only contributed to national and religious unity, but they
exerted a strong educating influence upon the people.”[25]
“The Levites, more than other Hebrews, were to study the book of the
_law_; to preserve and disseminate it in exact copies; to perform
the duties of _judges_ and _genealogists_, and consequently to be
theologians, jurists, and historians.... As the priests and Levites were
to test the accuracy of weights and measures, ... it was necessary that
they should understand something of _mathematics_; and as they were
to determine and announce the movable feasts, new moons, years, and
intercalary years, they had occasion for the study of _astronomy_,” says
Jahn.
Since the schools of the prophets flourished in the days of Saul and
David, it would not be surprising if David gained some of his musical
skill there as well as on the hillside tending sheep, for _poetry and
music_ formed part of the course of instruction in these schools. One
author pays high tribute to these subjects by saying: “Greek poetry is
beautiful; Hebrew poetry is sublime.”
[Sidenote: Effects of Jewish education]
When children were fortified by such an education from infancy to
manhood, it is little wonder that the influence which the nation “has
exerted upon the world is incalculable. It has supplied the basis of
all true theology; it has given a system of faultless morality; and, in
Christianity, it has provided the most perfect form of religion. The
civilization of _Europe_ and _America_ can be directly traced to the
Jews.”[26]
What might have been the result had the nation lived up to its privileges
in educational lines is not difficult to determine. Earth’s history would
have been shortened by at least two thousand years; for the nation would
never have gone into bondage, and Christ would never have been betrayed.
As these principles of Christian education are again taking hold of
people, with what interest must the progress of the work be watched by
the inhabitants of other worlds, who have seen past failures through lack
of faith! That Hebrew education tended mainly to a development of the
inner man instead of giving merely a conglomeration of facts, is well
expressed by Wines. He says: “The Hebrew law required an early, constant,
vigorous, and efficient training of the disposition, judgment, manners,
and habits, both of thought and feeling. The sentiments held to be proper
to man in society were imbibed with the milk of infancy. The manners
considered becoming in adults were sedulously imparted in childhood.”
[Sidenote: The threefold nature educated]
The education, however, was not only moral and intellectual, but physical
as well; for every Jewish boy was taught some trade which rendered him
self-supporting. Nor did wealth or position remove the need of this.
Paul, who sat at the feet of Gamaliel while studying the law, was able to
gain a livelihood as a tentmaker when preaching the gospel.
[Sidenote: True teaching exemplified]
There was, however, in it all this one thought: all instruction was
intended to develop the spiritual nature. It was considered the highest
honor to become a priest (every Jew might have been both priest and
teacher), and in this office man stood next to God. This was wholly a
spiritual position, and prefigured the work of the Messiah. True, Israel
as a nation never reached the standard set for her, never mounted, as
it were, that ladder reaching from earth to heaven; and it was left for
the One Man, the Master of Israel, to bind together the two realms of
the physical and the spiritual. But from time to time men arose in the
Jewish nation who grasped in a far broader sense than the majority,
the meaning of true education as delivered to the Jews, and who, by
submitting to the educating influence of the Spirit of God, were enabled
to become leaders of the people and representatives of God on earth. Such
were Moses, Daniel, Job, and Ezekiel, and, to a certain extent, all the
prophets of Israel. In each of these the soul rose above the physical
man, until it met its parent force in the heart of God. This made it
possible for Moses to talk face to face with the Father, and for Ezekiel
to follow the angel of revelation to the border land of God’s home.
These men were but enjoying what _every man in Israel_ might have
experienced had the nation remained upon the plane to which they were
called, receiving their education by faith. One is tempted to ask why
they fell. The answer is the same as to that other question, Why do not
we arise? They ceased to look upward; faith failed, and reason took its
place, and instead of leading they sought to be like the nations about
them.
[Sidenote: Worldly systems of education]
There lay Egypt, with its mighty men, and the carnal heart longed for
some of the Egyptian display. To understand it, we must again consider
the difference in life and education. Life on the spiritual plane means
whole self-forgetfulness; but when carnal desires are heeded, a fall is
inevitable. Egyptian education was largely on the physical basis. It is
true that mental heights were reached, but only by the few, and those
few, bound by earth’s fetters, were unable to break entirely away. The
masses, not only in education but in religion, were physical, and _basely
physical_. The sacred bull was a personification of deity. Why?—Because
God, to an Egyptian, was an embodiment of lust. All their gods, all their
rites and ceremonies, every temple wall and religious service, breathed
the dreadful odor of licentiousness. Historians state that the priestly
class knew better. And so they did; but their grasp was not that of
truth, else they could never have been the priests and teachers of such a
religion or of such a system of education.
These words, put in the mouth of an ancient Egyptian priest, speak
truly the spirit of Egyptian education. He says: “I that have seen nigh
four-score years of misery; ... I that have mastered all the arts,
sciences, and religion of ancient Egypt—a land that was wrinkled with age
centuries before the era of Moses; I that know both all that the priests
of Kem ever taught the people, and also the higher and more recondite
forms of ignorance in which the priests themselves believed—I verily know
nothing! I can scarcely believe in anything _save universal darkness_,
for which no day-spring cometh, and universal wretchedness for which
there is no cure. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
this death?”
And yet the Jews would leave that education which offered eternal life,
for this which the best-educated Egyptian might acknowledge to be
darkness and only darkness. It was from this that God delivered Israel;
but many to-day, claiming to be Israel in Spirit, seek still the wisdom
and philosophy of Egypt for themselves and their children. Israel could
not come in touch with this form of life without contamination. Nay,
more, she fell from her exalted state, and never reached it again.
“Jerusalem was destroyed because the education of her children was
neglected.”
The ceremonial law given after leaving Sinai, at the beginning of that
memorable march of forty years, was necessary because the nation had
lost all appreciation of the spiritual in the abstract, and could gain
no idea whatever of God as a _Spirit_ except through some appeal to the
physical senses. This condition was due to the fact that four generations
had been subject to Egyptian education.
[Sidenote: Israel at the Exodus]
The plan of types and ceremonies alone appealed to the mind. And even
in this inductive method of teaching, the nation seemed slow to learn;
for the forty years between the Red Sea and Jordan served to develop
scarcely enough faith to carry the people into the promised land. God’s
law, written on the tablets of the heart by the pen of faith, appealed to
but few. Men ate manna from heaven, but knew not that it was the token
of a crucified Saviour: they drank of water flowing constantly from the
smitten rock, never dreaming that it prefigured the shed blood of the
dying Son of God. Once settled in Canaan, the whole system of education
was so planned as to teach the child to accept Christ by faith. Some
grasped this spiritual truth; but a few had eyes which saw the things
hidden from the multitude, because faith was an avenue to the very soul.
Having the privilege of living by faith, and accepting the divine
teaching in this its highest form, they preferred the old way, and
walked by sight. “Except ye see, ye will not believe;” “O ye of little
faith.” When we look at what the Israelites might have been, and then
at what they were, there is a feeling of intense pain, for the fall is
inexpressibly great. By little and little, Jehovah strove to reach the
higher nature again, and bring Israel to its heaven-selected place. There
was steady progress until the days of Solomon, whose wisdom outshone that
of the great men of earth, and Israel as a nation was again on the verge
of becoming the leading people of the world politically, intellectually,
and morally.
[Sidenote: Solomon’s wisdom]
Solomon was raised to a position of eminence among the great men of earth
because he learned from God the secret of true education. His wisdom was
not a gift to him exclusively, but was offered to all who would comply
with the educational requirements. Of Solomon we read that God gave him
a hearing ear. His spiritual senses were awakened by faith, and he found
himself so in harmony with the God of nature that all the works of the
Creator were read by him as an open book. His wisdom seemed great in
contrast with that of other Jews merely because others failed to live up
to their privileges. God desired the whole nation to stand before other
people as Solomon stood before the kings of the earth.
The surprising feature to most students is the fact that the system of
education given by God will, when followed, open to man such material
benefits. It is not, as it is often accused of being, ideal and
theoretical, but lacking the practical. On the contrary, it is of the
most practical nature, and opens to its followers all legitimate lines
of prosperity, placing its devotees above all contestants. This is seen
in the experience of the king just mentioned. As a statesman and lawyer,
Solomon was noted; as a scientist, he excelled the scholars of the world;
for wealth and splendor, the half has not been told; during his reign
Jewish architecture, as exemplified in the temple, assumed such grandeur
that it became the model for even the æsthetic Greek. In tilling the soil
and raising fruit it was always intended that Israel should excel other
nations.[27] Youth were trained to fill positions of trust, and were
taught the practical duties of everyday life. Such training was given to
girls as well as to boys, fitting them to fill properly their allotted
sphere as housewives and mothers in Israel.[28]
From the fall which followed this exaltation, Israel never recovered.
The educational system losing its true character, the nation was at last
carried into captivity. When the Hebrew race lost the spirituality of
their education, they lost everything; for political power, national
reputation, all, hung upon one thread. “Jerusalem was destroyed because
the education of her children was neglected.” This destruction did not
come suddenly. There was a decline, then a forward lunge, and another
relapse, each time the fall being greater and the reaction weaker.
[Sidenote: An educational reform]
Several times a halt was made, and the national life was prolonged by a
return to the prescribed methods of education. Jehoshaphat, for instance,
appointed Levites as teachers to the different cities of Israel, and, as
a result, “The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands
that were round about Judah, so that they made no war.”[29] Had the
reform been carried on which was then begun, the whole national history
would have been changed.
Another noticeable fact is that release from bondage was always heralded
by two reforms. For instance, before deliverance from Babylon, Daniel was
raised up to give the people instruction in health reform and educational
reform. These two always accompany each other. The one affects the body,
preparing it to become the temple of the Holy Ghost; the other turns the
mind toward truth, that the Spirit of God may think through it. A body
purified by right living, and a mind trained according to the laws of
Christian education, brings an experience such as Daniel had.[30] That he
lived on a plane above the majority of men is evident; for “I, Daniel,
alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision.”
What to Daniel was the voice of God those whose ears were not in tune
with the Infinite heard as thunder or as an earthquake. It had been the
privilege of all to see and hear as Daniel saw and heard, but they chose
a coarser life, a slower vibratory existence, where the mental strain was
less, and the heart strings were looser. It was easier to keep in tune
with Egypt or Babylon than with the God of heaven. And when the Son of
Man was born, he found it hard to select even a small company whose lives
were in harmony with His own.
Israel’s education was a spiritual education. Her King was to set up a
spiritual kingdom in the hearts of a people spiritualized by the presence
of truth. It was the same system which had been delivered by Christ to
Adam; the same by which Abraham was taught; and what was not accomplished
in the ages past will be accomplished by Christian education in the days
preparatory to His second coming.
VII
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF THE PAGAN WORLD
God called Israel to become a nation of teachers, and gave them statutes
and judgments which, when made the basis of the educational systems,
tended to make of the nation a peculiar people, a nation of priests,
a spiritual race, thereby constituting them the leading people of the
world. From what did he call them?—“The Lord hath taken you, and brought
you forth out of the _iron furnace, OUT OF EGYPT_.”[31] And again, “Out
of Egypt have I called my Son.”[32] Egypt stands as a personification of
the heathen world, and its very name means darkness. The dark mantle of
paganism has ever obstructed the bright shining of the light of truth.
As Israel’s power, physical, intellectual, and political, was derived
from, and depended upon, her system of education, so it would be but
natural to suppose that the opposing power of paganism would possess
educational ideas, and be controlled by a system of instruction
in harmony with its practices. Or, to state it more logically, we
necessarily conclude that the pagan world rested upon a distinct system
of education, and that the customs and practices of pagan nations were
the result of the educational ideas which they advocated.
The God-given system, as found among the Hebrews, rested upon faith, and
developed the spiritual side of man’s nature, making it possible in the
highest sense for divinity to unite with humanity. The result of this
union of the human and the divine—the Immanuel—is the highest creation of
the universe. It in itself was a power before which men and demons bowed.
[Sidenote: Paganism self-worship]