# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S17
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 17

embody great fundamental laws, whose observance brings good for those who obey and for all people, and at the same time they are approved by God." (Besides practical intellectual training, we insist upon moral and religious development. Of course we cannot give religious instruction except in a general way, all denominational or sectarian teaching being excluded. But there is a common and indisputed ground for all to stand upon. No person rises to the full stature of manhood until he chooses to model his life according to the eternal principles of right, and this is only tantamount to saying, until he chooses to please God. Love and fear of Him must be made to result in reverence for Him and in obedience to His will. . . . All obedience in the family, the school, or the state should be insisted upon because such obedience is in accordance with the fundamental principles of right. I do not mean to discuss the foundation of obligation — whether a given course of conduct is right because it results in good, or whether it is right because it is commanded by the great Creator of all things. The ten commandments embody great principles, obedience to which results in good to those who obey and to all men, and at the same time they have the divine approval. Report U. S. Commiss. of Ed. 1886—87, p. 201.)

That may have a quite captivating appearance for many: that their children are now also to have impressed on them obedience to the great fundamental laws as laid down in the Ten Commandments, and to be told of a Creator to whom they must subordinate their will out of fear and love. But this religion is not the Christian one; it stands on the ground of old heathenism. Whoever wants to educate with the Law only produces a servile mind. If fear and love, reverence and obedience toward God are really to be worked in a child's heart, that can happen only through the Gospel. Law without Gospel is not the life-giving Word of God, especially when it is not taught as the holy and righteous will of God. And therefore Luther's word applies here: "Where the Holy Scripture does not rule, there I truly advise no one to put his child." (St. Louis Edition, X, 341.)

The third thing that we must consider in judging the religionless state school is this, that it also cannot lead the pupils to the goal of all true education, the attainment of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. State school education, according to the declarations of its chief representatives, has as its real and final aim to make good citizens of its pupils. It strives not a hair's breadth beyond the old Roman schools, which regarded their aim as fully attained with the training of true Romans.