Torch, Winter 1978

10 / A Question of Values James R. Biddle .f\ loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days." With these words, the Russian exile Alexander Solzhenitsyn began his insightful 1978 commencement speech at Harvard University. Four years after his expulsion from the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn sadly concluded that "spiritual exhaustion" marks the Western world. Nowhere is this "loss of courage" and "spiritual exhaustion" more clearly manifest than in our public schools. In denying that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," modem public schools unwittingly have discovered that "the fear of man is the end of knowledge." Whatever public schools are doing, it is clear that most have produced young people with neither spiritual fortitude nor academic prowess. Of course, the contemporary educational goal of "life adjustment" is hardly one which can catalyze spiritual vitality or academic excellence. Adjustment to "what is" has rendered excellence an oddity and courage an affront. Though not perfect, an alternative school movement has been developing which has not been enamored with the objective of adjustment to life, but rather preparation for everlasting life. It has taken "man in the now" out of the pivotal center of public education and replaced him with "Christ in the forever" . In focusing upon Christ, the Christian school endeavors to complement and extend the education started by a Christian home and church. Education is inescapably a moral endeavor, for each aspect of the educational process-selecting goals, teachers, methods, content, and