The Graybrook Vision: Education and the Nature of Man

 

"Before we can discuss the nature of education intellectually we must have come to some understanding of the nature of man ... a creature created by God for fellowship with Himself. [Training, as opposed to education, is in the] realm of means, and the crucial question concerns the ends to be served by these means.... It would further the interests of clarity if we could use the word training to describe the instruction that has to do with means, or instrumental knowledge; reserving the word education for that which has to do with ends, or formative knowledge.

"Instruction in instrumental knowledge is not education, although it is part of education and useful in its own right. It is needful that men possess such skills as the ability to lay bricks, cut hair, add figures, perform experiments in physics and chemistry, write books and preach sermons. But while the possession of such skills is desirable and important, their exercise is not the distinctive mark of an educated man....

"There is something wrong with our system of education because there is something wrong with our theory of education, and we won't correct our system until we straighten out our theory. But, this we cannot even begin to do unless we know what is normative. We really do know, as a matter of fact, but we need to be reminded that the norms are Christian imperatives."

Edmund A. Opitz