Circumstances will have to dictate as to whether this help should be brought through formal schooling or in some other way. We must not despise the manner of the pioneers in this regard. They were largely dependent on the home and on the church services for what education their children could obtain during this period. But what homes! Homes where the Word of God was a household possession and a guide in all things; where piety and prayer walked hand in hand; where the Fourth Commandment taught respect toward parents, elders, superiors, and the government alike. Out from such homes went men and women of high Christian culture, of sound judgment and wisdom, and even of a sort of learning that could pass many a difficult test, though not of the modern adding-machine type. And these succeeded in building a strong nation and a strong church.
Sigurd Christian Ylvisaker, “Why Lutheran High Schools?,” document 3.2 in Telling the Next Generation: The Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s Vision for Christian Education, 1918-2011 and Beyond, edited by Ryan C. MacPherson, Paul G. Meyer, and Peter M. Anthony (Mankato, MN: Lutheran Synod Book Compnay, 2011), 164–73, at 169.
