Students in a worldly system of education are inspired by ideas from the heathen classics and other worldly authors, even as students of Christian education are inspired by the Bible. The classics, or humanities, may not always appear by name in the curriculum of some so-called Christian schools, yet, if the system is not animated by the spirit of the Bible, the result of the education will be seen in worldly characters.
"Uninspired authors are placed in the hands of children and youth in our schools as lesson books-books from which they are to be educated. They are kept before the youth, taking up their precious time in studying those things which they can never use." (Ibid., p. 232).
"All unnecessary matters need to be weeded from the course of study, and only such studies placed before the student as will be of real value to him." (Ibid., p. 151).
The classics in Oberlin
Educational reformers prior to 1844 endeavored to follow the truth in the subjects they taught. Oberlin among others had this experience:
"Heathen classics:-These two words stand for another of the burning questions of sixty years ago... The subject was under debate everywhere abroad." (The Story of Oberlin, p. 231).
President Mahan, in 1835,
"objected to the present plan in relation to Greek and Latin, especially the latter. It was better adapted, he said to educate the heathen than Christians. We can discipline the mind with the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and these can purify the mind. This is the opinion of the best men and the best scholars. Let us have less classics and more natural science, more American law, and history, more of men and things. Give us truth, facts, practical and available knowledge." (Ibid., p. 232).
The annual announcement of Oberlin, issued in 1834, contains this statement,
"The collegiate department will afford as extensive instruction as other colleges, varying from some by substituting Hebrew and sacred classics for the most objectionable pagan authors."
The reason assigned for substituting the scripture in the original for heathen authors was "that certain classical authors were so abominably unclean that it is nothing less than criminal to put them into the hands of our youth." (Idem).
Sixty years after this, we Seventh-day Adventists received the following instruction on this subject, because our schools had not taken the positive stand on the classics and worldly authors that these educational reformers took prior to the midnight cry:
"Shall pagan and infidel sentiments be presented to our students as valuable additions to their store of knowledge?" (Ellen G. White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers and Students, p. 26).
The Board of Trustees asked the Faculty of Oberlin:
"to consider with much prayer and deliberation whether the time devoted to heathen classics ought not to be improved by the study of the Hebrew Scriptures and natural science." (The Story of Oberlin, p. 233).
Three years later the same trustees asked,
"Should not the theological students read the entire Bible in Hebrew and Greek?" (Idem).
Two years later they voted,
"that no student should be denied the approbation of the college at the end of his course by reason of any want of knowledge of heathen classics, provided he sustains well an examination in other branches needed to prepare him for preaching Christ." (Idem).
The movement to substitute the Scriptures for the heathen classics met with favor in many schools. In 1830 a lawyer of great eminence, a graduate of Yale, made a plea for "Sacred vs. Heathen Classics." The President of Amhurst, the President of Cooper Union, and Professor Stowe of Dartmouth College,
"were in full sympathy with him in his desire to see relatively less honor bestowed upon the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and relatively greater honor upon the literature of ancient Palestine." (Ibid., p. 235).
These quotations show that a number of institutions of learning which today advocate the classics, at one time in their history favored the substitution of the Scriptures for the classics.