Finished Reading: A Christian Philosophy of Education by Gordon H. Clark

I have two small children, and education is increasingly on my mind. I discussed this with a more experienced parent recently, and his first question was, “What are you trying to accomplish?” It was a good question, and it shook me. What am I trying to accomplish?

I decided to read Clark’s A Christian Philosophy of Education, which I’ve at least partially read before. I love Clark, so this seemed like a good place to start. I was surprised by my reaction to the book. Clark sounded old, peevish, and Republican, and I disagreed with some of his arguments. But the book is fundamentally sound, if not excellent. Clark argues that the goal of a Christian education is to produce a Christian worldview. This is a critical point, and one that I had lost sight of. Clark doesn’t give much guidance on how to instil a Christian worldview, but mainly argues that the American public education system is an atheistic and anti-Christian environment, and that removing your child from this environment is key. It’s important to note how Clark defines education:

The object of education is truth; the transmission of truth to the younger pupils and the discovery of truth by the more advanced students. The aim of education, at least the best education, is intellectual understanding. Home economics and secretarial science (science! no less) have no place in the liberal arts because they are matters of vocational training and not rational explanation.

Of course, it’s possible to have a Christian worldview and be illiterate, so this is not the end of the discussion. I also disagree with any idea that the purpose of the Christian life is to maximize our understanding of truth. Truth is essential, but in this life we will always see through a glass darkly, and it is entirely possible to be very fruitful on a foundation of little truth. The contemporary church possesses a great deal more truth and understanding than the apostolic church; we are hardly a great deal more fruitful.

But where do we go from here? Clark has a little to say about curriculum:

The soundest principle governing the curriculum is to stress those subjects that will prove useful to the student no matter how he may later choose to earn his living.

We are now speaking of usefulness, and usefulness to the student, no less! What happened to truth? And how do we define usefulness? I would continue the discussion by saying that the goal of a Christian education is to produce a Christian worldview, and to equip the person to serve the Kingdom. So what is useful in service to the Kingdom?

• Communication through reading, writing, and speaking
• Music to sing praise
• Perspective in the areas of history, philosophy, and art
• Good judgement through instruction in ethics and logic, exercises in criticism, and real world responsibility and failure
• Vocational training, so that one can earn in order to give

Clark’s approach to curriculum is cursory, and I actually appreciate this. Most people will agree on the essentials, and the benefits of stressing the details are marginal.

As an aside, I recently heard it said that the purpose of a liberal arts education is to teach a person to think. It is liberal, as in free, because there is no point in teaching a slave how to think for themselves. Vocational training is perfectly appropriate for a slave; a liberal arts education is not. I love this and find it useful. However, would Paul have agreed?

There is one final consideration, which is that I hope to learn by teaching my children. This is selfish. So be it. I want to learn a little Latin, improve my German, discover fencing, and read broadly in philosophy. If I can use my children as a means to these ends, wonderful!

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach; those who cannot teach, teach Education.

So minute are the investigations of researchers that they are unable to converse with other scholars even in the same general field. The jest about knowing more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing has almost come true. Of course, the chemist might reply that philosophy is so general that it knows less and less about more and more until it knows nothing about everything.

      The superiority of liberal arts over vocational curricula lies the fact that the latter tend to turn men into machines. The stenographer trains her fingers. She can type faster and more accurately than machines, with an equal absence of thinking. So long as the vocationally trained person is actively engaged in his or her little rut, everything runs smoothly. But after hours the stenographer must decide whether to take benzedrine and go to a party or sleeping pills and go to bed. Or she could for a while turn on the television. Whatever noises and nonsense blare forth, at least they fill the vacuum between the ears.
      The liberal arts curriculum has the opposite aim. Instead at turning a man into a machine, it alms to prevent him from becoming one. The liberal arts tend to make the student independent of pills and television. The fingers are not trained, but the mind is developed. The student does not learn to do, he learns to understand. If successful, he becomes a rational man, instead of an over-age dependent child in need of amusement. Like Spinoza, he may have to grind lenses for a living—he can train his fingers in a short time—but he will spend his evening thinking and writing books that will influence mankind for centuries.