All Articles For Hoeksema, H.C.

At the conclusion of our previous installment we had begun to speak of the salary question in connec­tion with the solution of the teacher problem. Our first remarks concerned the subject of the proper at­titude to be assumed by both parents and teachers in regard to this matter of salaries. On the one hand, we warned against an over pious attitude of expecting the teachers to “sacrifice for a kingdom cause”. And on the other hand, We emphasized that our teachers must not be materialistic.

Thus far we have offered a few suggestions to­ward solution of those problems which are connec­ted particularly with the procurement and mainten­ance of a teaching staff in our Protestant Reformed schools! This, as we have said, is to a large extent a formal and administrative problem.

At the conclusion of our previous article we promis­ed to continue our discussion on the subject of solving the problem of obtaining teachers qualified to teach in our Protestant Reformed schools by suggesting cer­tain stop-gap or emergency measures which should be taken as long as we lack the regular facilities to train our own teachers. To this task we now address ourselves.

Introductory It is already rather evident from our previous chapter, concerning the teacher problem, that the matter of teacher training is a second major problem for the movement for Protestant Reformed education. I mean, of course, Protestant Reformed teacher training.

The reader will remember that after a few in­troductory remarks concerning the necessity of our own teacher training facilities, and after mentioning a few of the various aspects of this problem of teach­er training, we made a beginning in our last article of recording the history that has been made in this respect, in as far as we could glean it from the Acts of Synod, beginning with 1948. (Incidentally, it is very well possible that our school boards have put forth other efforts than those which are mentioned in our Acts of Synod.

Evaluation of History The reader will recall that in our two previous in­stallments we gleaned from the Acts of Synod, ‘48, ‘49, and ‘50, the available material concerning various attempts to establish our own Protestant Reformed teacher training facilities, together with the material concerning the synodical reaction to these attempts.

Proceeding now on the supposition that the aim of those who seek Protestant Reformed education for their children is also to have teachers with Protestant Reformed training, as has been evidenced by the in­terest in and activity toward such a project ever since 1948, we still have several important questions to con­sider.

Diverting your attention for the present from the particular subject with which we have busied our­selves in the past several articles under this rubric, we take note of a very interesting and nicely written article appearing in the Reformatie of June 21, 1952, under the rubric Opvoeding en Onderwijs (Training and Instruction), from the pen of J.L. Struik.

In the last issue of our magazine we reproduced and translated an article from the pen of J.L. Struik, found in the Reformatie of June 21, 1952, on the sub­ject “What Now Is Really Christian Education?” The same writer also furnishes a brief answer to the ques­tion, “Is Christian Instruction Different in Every­thing?” Before offering our comments we present also this article, since it deals with a closely related question. Mr. Struik writes as follows (translation mine, H.C.H.):

Our fathers obviously cite the text in I Peter 1:23 in order to make one point, namely, that we are born again out of incorruptible seed. This, to them, makes the Arminian teaching of regeneration that can be lost and of frequent regenerations of the same individual absurd.