Brave, Sensible Man

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 16, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 29.

Brave, Sensible Man.

The World tells us the following: The title of D.D. was recently conferred upon John Thompson, pastor of the Centennial M. E. Church, of Rockford, Ill., by Taylor University. In reply to a question he said: “No, I do not value a degree. When the day comes that I find it necessary to have these things to keep me in a position of credit and dignity among my brethren of the ministry, I will seek some other work, some other field of usefulness.”

How much better is this than the purchase of titles and cabalistic abbreviations from some society of little worth and no reputation. “Semi-lunar fardels,” Leonard Woolsey Bacon called them. It’s the same seeking after honor that leads people to call any one that ever tried to preach “doctor,” and whoever may attempt to teach anything, from pugilism to polo playing and hypnotism, “professor.” It is the same thing which originated something like 300 “degrees” of comparative ignorance with their cabalistic letters. And the same thing is fostered in the lower grades of our schools among the elementary students. Sometimes they designate real merit. As frequently they mean that the wearer has squeezed through a certain examination. The true student will strive for the real knowledge, not for certain labels of men’s judgment. It is unfortunate that so many of the youth are constantly being educated away from the true idea.