Christian education essential

Louis Berkhof wrote this in 1953, while president of Calvin Seminary:

"We must take that which is most fundamental in the life of the child into consideration in the whole of his education.... [it is foolish to say] that the school is concerned only with the head and should limit itself to secular eduction, while the home and the church make provision for the heart by addign religious education. We should never forgget that the eucation which the child receives in the school, though divorced from religion, is nevertheless an education of the entire child and is bound to make a deep impression on the heart....

"In view of the fact that the influence of the Christian home is waning, and that the church can devote only a couple of hours a week to the religious training of its youth, the school is easily the most important educational agency of the present. Is it not the height of folly even from a purely educational point of view to let the most important agency in education ignore that which is most essential and most fundamental in the life of the child?"

Pages 32-33