This excerpt from So Much More comes from chapter 10 "Fathers, Daughters, and the Highest Education."
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An education can be defined as the training and shaping of the heart, soul, mind, and strength. An education consists not only in the learning of facts and skills, but also in the developing of affections and worldview. Our worldview is how we see and judge our culture and the world around us. Anything which affects our worldview and affections - in fact, anything which influences our hearts, soul, minds, or strength - is educational, whether for good or for evil. And this means that all education is inescapably religious.
Many girls have never thought of an alternative for the bright, gifted girl. Some think that an environment of debauchery is a necessary initiation for real life. Well, occasional brushes with danger do tend to strengthen character, but long-term immersion in an environment of false religious ideas can destroy good character and does corrupt morality.
What kind of education are you saying is important?
We are referring to the kind of education that makes us useful to God, in contrast to the schooling that makes a pupil useful to the State. In the mind 1800's a loving father William B. Sprague explained the essence of the "right" education to his daughter. "I would have you, then, in the first pace, bear in mind that the great object of your education is to enable you to bring into exercise the powers which God has given you in such a manner as shall contribute most to his glory. For all the noble faculties with which you are gifted, you are indebted to the same Being who gave you your existence: on Him also you are dependent for their preservation; and it is a first dictate of reason that they should be employed in His service... the object of education then is twofold: to develop the faculties and to direct them; to bring out the energies of the soul, and to bring them to operate to the Glory of the Creator. In other words, it is to render you useful to the extent of your ability."
Godly education is purpose driven. Because our purpose as young Christian women should be to glorify God and obey Him, our educations need to be our tools in this task. As the great scholar R.J. Rushdoony points out, "...the purpose of Christian education is not academic: it is religious and practical." Therefore the kind of education we need to pursue first is the training and shaping that will equip us to do His work comprehensibly.
The line is drawn between the two competing types of educational priorities at the very beginning of the Bible. As Tom Eldredge points out in Safely Home, "The first conflict in recorded history was a battle over education." He explains that Adan and Eve were given a choice between knowing God and walking with Him, gradually discovering more and more of His truth and wisdom; or a shortcut to instant knowledge - to eat the fruit and know everything, good and evil. These two education philosophies - the empty, shallow knowledge centered around man, and the wisdom of God, which comes only through knowing and fearing God - are still at war today. According to Eldredge: "[the humanist philosophy] emphasizes the autonomous reason of man and his eternal quest of personal philosophy, on the one hand, and social utility as defined by the State, on the other. [ The Christian philosophy] emphasizes obedience before God, a key component of which is the development of wisdom and godly relationships."
We live in an age where even Christians don't question the importance of pursuing trivia, nonsense, political correctness and credentials, and view these as the educational priorities. In a culture devoted to the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, comfort and entertainment, shallow, man centered education is now higher education. Academic "qualifications" have become a goal that has nothing to do with learning or wisdom.
We know families who skipped the "college experience" whose lives are filled with joy and excitement - even professional fulfilment. Family business can be not only fun but successful. We know daughters who work with their fathers and fathers who work with their daughters. These are stories of happiness because the families broke out of the enslaving mentality that "success is impossible without a college degree."
Are there ever and circumstances that might make college attendance, on campus, a legitimate option for young women?"
The Bible never says college is off limits to girls, and we are trying very hard in this book to advance only those ideas that can be defended exegetically. We are attempting to raise a simple question that is too rarely asked by our generation:
If a young woman was determined to think and act biblically, how would she live?
She would rediscover God's design for virtuous womanhood for every stage of her life and try to conform her service to God to that plan. Central to that plan is a virtuous heart, a pure mind, the right education, a strong father-daughter relationship, a wisely contracted marriage, and a wise, God-fearing descendants.
The role of the Proverbs 31 wife and mother is not a role that can be:slipped into" easily. In fact, to do it really well takes a lifetime of training. What are out priorities? Learning to survive" can teach girls attitudes of independence. Hardness, authoritativeness, cynicism. Can this be wise or godly if it damages our ability to become Proverbs 31 woman?
We should be bending all of our energies toward making God's ideal a reality in our lives, pursuing the best-case scenario will all our might. Settling for the status quo will not help pull out society up out of the mire, but choosing the better course can.
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These truths have made a major impact on my life. Learning to submit to my father's wishes. and make his priorities concerning higher education mine. I hope this had been as much of a blessing to you as it has to me.
I encourage every unmarried woman to get a copy of this book.
From A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
