Robert Lewis Dabney on the impossibility of true education without moral instruction and the impossibility of moral instruction without Christianity. "To educate the mind without purifying the heart is but to place a sharp sword in the hands of a madman. There can be, therefore, no true education without a moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school room is either moral or it is a degrading brute force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it but the Bible. Hence my argument is as perfect as clear, the teacher must be Christian. But the American Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot be teacher. If it undertakes to be, it must be consistent, and go on and unite church and state. Are you ready to follow your opinions to this consistent end?" Dabney lived during the civil war and after. He was a theologian, soldier, biographer, poet, financier, farmer and architect.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 19:03:50 +0000
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