Martin Luther on Education

                                                                                                                    Vol. XII, No. 10, Nov/Dec 1999

Luther wrote: “There is nothing which will more surely earn hell for a man than the improper training of his children; and parents can perform no more damaging bit of work than to neglect their offspring, to let them curse, swear, learn indecent words and songs, and permit them to live as they please. ... it is highly necessary that every married person regard the soul of his child with greater concern than the flesh which has come from him, that he consider the child nothing less than a precious, eternal treasure, entrusted to his protection by God so that the devil, the world, and the flesh do not steal and destroy it. For the child will be required from the parent on Judgment Day in a very strict reckoning. [p. 263]

Regarding appropriate schools and universities, Luther wrote: “Where the Holy Scriptures do not rule, there I advise no one to send his son. Everyone not unceasingly busy with the Word of God must become corrupt; that is why the people who are in the universities and who are trained there are the kind of people they are. ... I greatly fear that the universities are wide gates of hell if they do not diligently teach the Holy Scriptures and impress them on youth.” [p. 307]

[Quoted from Edward M. Plass, This Is Luther (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis).]