Wednesday, August 24, 2022

C.S. Lewis on educating the next generation

C.S. Lewis:
.... None can give to another what he does not possess himself. No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got. ...[I]f we are sceptical we shall teach only scepticism..., if fools only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism. .... We shall all admit that a man who knows no Greek himself cannot teach Greek...: but it is equally certain that a man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion, cannot teach hope or fortitude.

A society which is predominantly Christian will propagate Christianity....

What a society has, that, be sure, and nothing else, it will hand on to its young. The work is urgent, for men perish around us. But there is no need to be uneasy about the ultimate event. As long as Christians have children and non-Christians do not, one need have no anxiety for the next century. ....
C.S. Lewis in his Preface to B.G. Sandhurst, How Heathen is Britain? (1948) (pdf)

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