# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1920_S8
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

8 Proceedings of the twenty-seventh convention

school measured? The answer to such and similar questions should give food for thought. The shell of the parish school we generally still have, often very handsome and imposing, but is not the kernel threatening to vanish from us? Or better, are we still inwardly sound in our attitude toward our school?

It is the Christian education of their children, entrusted to Christian fathers, with which we are concerned in the present struggle; not an external institution.

II.

At first glance it might seem that the difference between state school and parish school is not all that great. Essentially the same subjects are taught, though in the parish school some are perhaps somewhat shortened and others dropped altogether, in return for which religious instruction is inserted, and moreover is given the principal hour of the day.

If that were the only difference, we should need no parish school. Then we could come to an arrangement with the state school for the release of an hour for religious instruction, or where that could not be obtained, we could give religious instruction outside school hours. In this way much money and effort would be saved, which would then be free for other necessary work.

But the difference is not so slight. The names of the subjects may be the same; but above all else it depends on the spirit in which the instruction is given. For example, it is a world of difference whether the simple sentence 2×2=4 is used by a Christian or by an unchristian man. For the unchristian man this sentence, together with all the laws of logic, holds absolutely, so that even God must bow beneath it. For the Christian, on the other hand, this sentence expresses only an arrangement that God has made for conditions here on earth, but to which God is not bound. God is LORD also of the laws of logic. One need only compare doctrines such as the following: the Trinity; the union of the natures in Christ; no uniform ground for the conversion of the one and the non-conversion of the other; the election of the one is not the same as the rejection of the other, etc.

This one example from mathematics, to which others from history, natural science, etc., could easily be added, shows sufficiently that with apparent equality a fundamental difference can nevertheless exist. It therefore depends on the spirit of a school.

The spirit shows itself chiefly in the goal one has set. The Christian school wants, in a word, to educate its pupils for the kingdom of heaven. Our homeland is in heaven; on earth we are guests and strangers. We do not say this with a regretful