Proverbs 22:6; 2 Timothy 3:15
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): Education is a matter of first-rate importance; and in this country at the present time its importance is, in some measure, felt and acknowledged. It has become, or at least is becoming, the question of the day. Out of it many difficulties arise; over it many battles are fought.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The good education of youth is a public concern.
WILLIAM ARNOT: Besides all the noise which we make about the quantity of education, we quarrel about the kind.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Education in modern parlance, means nothing more than instruction, or the communication of knowledge to the mind; and a good education means, the opportunity of acquiring all kinds of learning, science, and what are called achievements. But properly speaking, education in the true and higher import of the term, means the implanting of right dispositions, the cultivation of the heart, the guidance of the temper, the formation of the character.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The expression, “from a child,” in 3 Timothy 3:15, might be better understood if we read it, “from a very child” or, as the Revised Version has it, “from a babe.” It does not mean a well-grown child, or youth, but a child just rising out of infancy. From a very child Timothy had known the sacred writings. This expression is, no doubt, used to show that we cannot begin too early to imbue the minds of our children with Scriptural knowledge. Babes receive impressions long before we are aware of the fact.
WILLIAM ARNOT: The oldest training school is still the best: home is the best school room, sisters and brothers the best class-fellows, parents the best masters.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): What rules shall we observe about his education?
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Education includes not only instruction, but the right application of knowledge to practical purposes—in other words, the formation of character. This is beautifully expressed in the proverb, “Train up a child in the way he should go.” Not merely in what he should know—but in the way he should go…His mind is, of course, to be stored with knowledge, but his judgment, heart, will, and conscience, must also be trained to act rightly.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The Hebrew of this clause, “Train up a child in the way he should go” is curious: It means “Initiate the child at the opening—the mouth—of his path.” When he comes to the opening of the way of life—being able to walk alone, and to choose, stop at this entrance, and begin a series of instructions, how he is to conduct himself in every step he takes. Show him the duties, the dangers, and the blessings of the path; give him directions how to perform the duties, how to escape the dangers, and how to secure the blessings, which all lie before him. Fix these on his mind by daily inculcation, till their impression is become indelible; then lead him to practice by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, till each indelible impression becomes a strongly rooted habit. Beg incessantly the blessing of God on all this teaching and discipline; and then you have obeyed the injunction of the wisest of men. Nor is there any likelihood that such impressions shall ever be effaced, or that such habits shall ever be destroyed.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: The time of school education is of immense consequence to future life, and should, and does, lead all considerate parents most anxiously to look out for suitable people to entrust with the education of their children, when they are no longer able themselves to educate them at home.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): My advice to every person is, not to place his child where the Scripture does not reign paramount. Every institution in which the studies carried on lead to a relaxed consideration of the Word of God must prove corrupting; a weighty sentiment which governments, literary men, and parents in all ages would do well to ponder.
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): No age doth despise the Word of God so much as this, which hath most need of it…Go to the universities, and you will find that those who should be as Nazarites, consecrated to God, live as those who have vowed and consecrated themselves to Satan.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): We may depend upon it, the one aim of the enemy is to set aside the authority of the Word of God—whether we look at the religion or the education of the country, we observe a fixed purpose to set aside the Bible—a settled determination, not only to cast it down from its excellency, but to fling it completely into the shade.
WILLIAM ARNOT: If you do not adopt the Bible as your standard in training the young, combined training is impossible. If, in moral principles, every man is his own lawgiver, there is no law at all, and no authority…In efficient training two things are absolutely necessary—a rule to show the ignorant what the way is, and an authority to keep the wayward on it…If we do not train the children in truth and righteousness, it would be better that we should not train them at all.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): All training, save on the principles of the Bible, must be injurious. To expand, without soundly enlightening the mind, only increases its power for evil.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The training of children is a most solemn responsibility, and in these days of laxity and lawlessness, an increasingly serious problem. No little grace is needed to defy the general trend of our day, and to take a firm stand.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The best education is education in the best things. Education without religion is like the solar system without the sun…If we know the Lord’s statutes we have the most essential education.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: The most important part of education is that which relates to the communication of godly principles, and the formation of moral habits. You educate your children by your example, your conversations, your likings and dislikings, your home life, your daily behaviour—these will educate them! You began educating your children the moment they were capable of forming an idea. This unconscious education is of more constant and powerful effect, and of far more consequence than that which is direct and apparent. This education goes on at every instant of time. It goes on like time—you can neither stop it, nor turn its course. Your children may read many books, but the first book they read, and that which they continue to read, and by far the most influential—is that of their parents’ example and daily deportment.
THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): We may see, in our children, the wickedness of the world in embryo: their dislike to religion, their ingenuity at inventing lies, their pride, obstinacy, vanity, envy, and anger, are rank weeds, which if neglected, will overspread their minds, and prevent the growth of every good thing. It is our duty therefore to bestow much pains upon their education; and above all to pray for converting grace to make them new creatures.
ADAM CLARKE: These things observed, and illustrated by your own conduct, the child will never depart from the path of life—and you have God’s word for it.
