A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION FOR ISRAEL.
By E. A. SUTHERLAND.
ENSLAVED and in deeper bondage than the negroes of the South ever were! Over two hundred years of servitude in ignorance and oppression! This was the race which the God of heaven risked His name upon, and whom He promised to redeem. What could give more convincing proof of the value of a system than its power to take men from such a condition and elevate them to a plane where Jehovah Himself was willing to make them an eternal people and their country an everlasting inheritance? We boast much of the power of the present school system to so educate the children of the land as to make them loyal citizens, but it dwindles into insignificance when compared with the attempt made to educate the whole nation of Jews. We are apt to carry with us a species of rare prejudice, and historians usually say that the Jewish religion and education as well were narrow and bigoted, and could never have been adapted to the needs of a nation like our own; that the education was exclusive instead of aggressive in its tendencies. Yet these same people are obliged to acknowledge that this despised and buffeted race has had more influence on the world, has come in contact with more nations, has laid the foundation for more governments, than any other people in existence. With pride, we point to the Roman law as the backbone of all legal proceedings, but it is on the principles of the moral law delivered to Israel that we, in reality, rest our statutes and judgments, if they lay claim to justice. As to religion, none can deny that all modern civilization and true culture date from the time of Christ, and men who in one breath deny the Son of God, are in the next obliged to acknowledge Him as the Author of law and order. To Israel, then, it must be acknowledged, was delivered the finest system of education which the world has yet seen. It behooves man to consider its strength, and while still copying, in part at least, the customs and rites of the nation which was enslaved, to follow that delivered race through a forty years' experience in which they were taught the grand lessons of faith and obedience. So prone are we to consider our methods of instruction the best, that it is scarcely safe for one to suggest to the popular educator of to-day that there is a higher form of instruction than the inductive system of imparting knowledge. Around this one idea the intellectually progressive have, within the last few years especially, woven such a net of argument and have groped after light with such tenacity, bringing to their aid such a fund of information, and indeed meeting with what seemed such unparalleled success, that, I say, it seems almost like stemming the Niagara to suggest that there is a system of instruction having divine origin which, in practise, contradicts the theory of induction. I refer to the education which makes faith in the Word the basis of all intellectual growth; faith, simple faith, in the plain, positive statements of God. This is illustrated in the case of Israel, and it is to them that we turn. One almost hears the clamor of voices which declare that if inductive reasoning were ever used, it was during the forty years of desert wanderings. But let us consider with less haste. Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians. Forty years of age, strong, commanding, wealthy, proud, heir to the Egyptian throne, why hesitate if God had chosen him as the deliverer of his race? It is true he was an educated Egyptian, but an uneducated man of God; for the wisdom of this world appears as foolishness in the eyes of Jehovah. Forty years more; forty years of close communion with nature and nature's God; forty years a homeless man—his first son, Gershom by name, meant "a stranger here"—four decades passed over his head as he watched the sheep of Jethro in the Midian desert. But those forty years made of him a man who would hear and heed the Voice from heaven. It was then he was counted worthy to take the lead of his people. But because Israel's commander had learned the lesson did not signify that the people themselves could grasp by faith the mighty truths that would make them a nation before whom all others would tremble. Another forty years was needed,—forty years with a Cloud to lead by day and a Pillar of fire by night. During all that time the last waking thought was whether the fiery pillar rested. One motion of that light at midnight was enough to arouse the whole camp and set it in motion. An object lesson most striking indeed, but given, not as an ultimatum, but as the means for reaching that higher form of education by faith. Are we not now in that same stage of development? Is not all this groping unnecessary if we but believe? How can we? Turn from the Egyptian servitude to idols, and serve the living God. It has been thus always. It is for this reason that a history of education is the history of the world. Another forty years of manna daily given, daily gathered; forty years the cool waters flowed from the smitten rock; they drank and were filled; but one day without it was enough to bring rebellion on the part of thousands. Again I say that it was a most solemn attempt to lead the minds of men from servitude, and subjection to mere sight and form, to that higher sphere where education would be taken as the gift of God. Compare the advancement made by Israel during the journey from Succoth to Kadesh-barnea, with the subjection of thought to theological tyranny which was being exercised during the same period in Egypt. Education from books forms but a small part of the heart culture toward which Israel's leader was directing them. When the senses, so long bound by sin, can be once unloosed, the eye will find volumes of knowledge in every leaf and blade and stone. The ear once deaf will be attuned to sounds before unknown, and myriad forms of life will be heard repeating the mysteries of creation. The means by which this can be attained, the tuner, as it were, of the human organ, is the Spirit of God, for the reception of which all training was fitting the Jews. In the days of Samuel the devout young men were gathered together for instruction by the prophet, and so powerful was this divine Presence that strangers approaching the school caught the Spirit and prophesied also. Later on, Elijah stood as visible head of this school, and one is given a glimpse of the real development wrought by the system of education, when he reads that the master was received into heaven without seeing death, and his most devout pupil had such experiences as those related in the first few chapters of the second book of Kings. What an education for young people! So unaccustomed are men in general to thus estimate the value of an education that in the history of the subject this chapter is usually passed by. Yet no candid mind can deny that around such periods circles the real, true history of the world. You look to an Alexander, a Caesar, a Napoleon! Rather turn to those of whom the God of heaven gave such record: "What shall I more say? for time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets; who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, . . . out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." That there must have been something in this education which appealed even to the worldly wise is evidenced by the experience of Daniel in the court of Babylon. Although the Israelites failed to live up to the very principles of education here outlined, and as a result became captives in an eastern nation whose customs, in many respects, resembled Egypt, yet a few of the youth from Jerusalem, who had received their early training in the schools of the prophets, were recognized by the highest authorities in Babylon as possessing ten times the wisdom of their own wise men. Strange, indeed, that a Jew should be placed at the head of an idolatrous government, but it is but another demonstration which secular history is in duty bound to recognize, that the educational system which bears divine credentials, when put to the test, must be acknowledged, even by the worldly wise, as far superior to their own. It is to this system that the world would do well to return to-day. It is to this system that, before the final close of history, a people will return. It may be possible to find a few on earth who are even at this day turning their faces in this direction, and as they see the line of light that appeals to the eye of faith, are pushing toward that goal.