All Articles For Hoeksema, H.C.

 We conclude our remarks on the subject of teacher training with a few observations as to the execution of a plan to establish our own facilities for the train­ing of Protestant Reformed teachers. Again we re­mind you that we have only some suggestions to make, rather than a full-blown plan.

In our discussion of the future of our movement for Protestant Reformed education, with its problems and the solution thereof, the matter of proper text­books occupies a major position. As important as are tools to the carpenter, machinery to the farmer, pro­duce to the merchant, so important are textbooks to teacher and pupil. They are the “tools” with which the finished product of an education are built. And no one can produce a properly finished product with inadequate tools.

What Do We Need? In our last installment we pointed out by way of illustration and in a negative way the necessity of having different textbooks in our Protestant Reformed schools. Granted our own schools and Protestant Re­formed teachers and Protestant Reformed pupils, there is still a very serious lack in the classroom that employs non-Protestant Reformed textbooks.

In this concluding article we will make a few re­marks about the actual realization of this goal of hav­ing our own textbooks in our own school. Is it pos­sible? How large a task is it? Whose work is it? How must we go about this work? Where must we begin? All these questions we face, and a multitude of others. But again, we undoubtedly are a long way toward a solution if we but first understand the pro­blem and its ramifications well. Let us see. The Size of the Task

We are not quite finished with this matter of text­books. Although we made some observations last time as to the method, especially the point of beginning, in the production of our own Protestant Reformed text­books, there nevertheless remain certain practical as­pects of the matter on which we must touch.

About the above subject we wish to make a few remarks in this concluding chapter of our series concerning the future of our movement for Protestant Reformed education. It will be noticed at once that the present subject is somewhat different in nature than those matters which we have previously treated. The matter of national organization in itself consti­tutes no problem, in the first place. It is simply a matter of desirability or non-desirability.

The above topic describes a subject which pertains to a life “in His fear”, about which we desire to say a few words and to issue a warning to our readers.

The third of the Three Forms of Unity commonly adopted by Reformed churches of Dutch extraction is usually known as the Canons of Dordrecht, or the Five Articles Against the Remonstrants. The full original title of this symbol reads as follows: “Judgment of the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of the united Netherlands: held in Dordrecht in the year 1618 and 1619.

It was not long after Arminius’ ordination at Amsterdam in 1588 that his erroneous views began to come to light. The occasion of this was Coornhert’s agitation against the doctrine of election. Arminius, whose views were not at this time in question as yet and who was accepted as being truly Reformed, was asked to refute the views of Coornhert and to defend the teachings of his former teacher, Beza.

Article I