# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S7
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 7

philanthropists and of the American schoolmen who follow them, who proceed from the assumption that the child is good by nature, and who therefore see the real task of education in this, that evil be kept away from the child and its natural endowment be developed in accordance with reason. What fruits such an education produces anyone can imagine who has taken a look at the damage wrought by Adam's fall, but it is also plainly before our eyes in fact. Whoever will not educate in such a way as to combat the evil in the children with the Word of God will not be able to educate at all. Even in matters belonging to this life, education must work against the inborn corruption; how much more is this necessary in spiritual matters, of which the natural man perceives nothing, which are foolishness to him. This is certain: education in the sense of Christian education is what our children need.

Upon whom, now, does this task first fall? Plainly upon those to whom God first gave the children, the parents. To them God has entrusted the children, and with the children has laid upon them also the care for their bodily, mental and spiritual education. When Jer. 29:7 calls out to the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, "Seek the welfare of the city" [literally, "Seek the best of the city"], after the preceding verses had spoken of care for the family and its increase, there lies in this admonition plainly the summons to bring the children up in every possible way to be quite useful members of human society. And yet this is the lesser thing that parents are to have in view in education; it is a "goal of passage," to speak with a devout schoolman of an earlier time, a goal through which the children are to be led to the real final goal, eternal life. This real goal parents may never lose sight of in education. It is God's will that "not one of these little ones be lost" (Matt. 18:14). God wills that they all come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Thus parents have the obligation, so far as lies in them, to see to it that their children are not lost, but rather come to the knowledge of the truth. And how would it be possible that parents who truly recognize Christ as their Savior and are filled with firm faith that in no other is there salvation, and no other name is given among men by which we must be saved, should now not speak to their children first of all about this, should not make the proclamation of this saving Gospel the main matter in education! Christian education therefore lies first with the parents. The Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament says so too. While we find there only a few exhortations addressed to parents to care for the bodily life of their children, there are many passages in which the duty to care for the children's souls,