In Defense of Orthodox Christian Education
	The idea that Christian parents are responsible for the education of their children is certainly not a new one, though many people have had much to say on the subject in recent years. Below, you'll find words on the subject of education from the Fathers and early writers of the Church. Image: Icon Made Without Hands

St. John Chrysostom
	"With us everything should be secondary compared to our concern with children, and their upbringing in the instruction and teaching of the Lord." "The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give examples of a virtuous life."

St. Basil the Great
	"Young people must be made to distinguish between helpful and injurious knowledge, keeping clearly in mind the Christian's purpose in life. So, like the athlete or the musician, they must bend every energy to one task, the winning of the heavenly crown." (c. 379)

St. Theophan the Recluse

"Let the study of faith be considered the chief thing. Let the best time be assigned to works of piety, and in case of conflict let them take the first place over learning. Let approval be given not only for success in learning, but likewise for faith and good behavior. In general, one must so dispose the mind of pupils that they do not lose the conviction that our chief work is the pleasing of God and that learning is a secondary quality, something incidental, which is good only during the present life." - The Path to Salvation "It should be placed as an unfailing law that every kind of learning which is taught to a Christian should penetrated with Christian principles and, more precisely, Orthodox ones. Every branch of learning is capable of this approach, and it will be a true kind of learning only when this condition is fulfilled. Christian principles are true beyond doubt. Therefore, without any doubting, make them the general measuring stick of truth. It is a most dangerous error among us that subjects of learning are taught without attention to the true faith; one allows oneself freethinking and even lying under the supposition that faith and learning are two spheres which are quite distinct." - The Path to Salvation

St. John of Kronstadt

"Society is corrupted precisely through the want of Christian education." "The task of every teacher is to give to his children a defined, permanent, stable foundation, on which he can in the future build a strong structure, a wise understanding of life. Contemporary schooling gives no knowledge of the will of the living God, it gives no understanding of how to live by faith and do good. It gives no answer to the basic question of the world concerning what is truth, no answer to the urgent, vital question of how to live. Not the quantity, but the soundness of what is learned is important. One should teach only what could become a true part of oneself: that which can be fashioned usefully by the soul, mind and heart, not just the memory."

St. Ambrose of Optina

"The Old Testament says: A foolish son is a grief to a father, and a bitterness to her that bore him. (Prov. 17:25), that is, a son who has not been instructed in the fear of God nor in the law of God. At the present time, many parents teach their children many things which ultimately are neither necessary nor beneficial, but take no care in instructing the children in the fear of God, or to fulfill the commandments of God, and to adhere to the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Because of this, children, for the most part, are disobedient and disrespectful to their parents, useless to themselves and to their country, and sometimes are even dangerous." "It will be enough if you take care to instruct your children in the fear of God, instill them with an Orthodox understanding, and by teaching them to be faithful, you protect them from reasoning that is foreign to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. The good that you sow in the hearts of your children while they are young will blossom forth in their hearts when they come to full maturity, after enduring the bitter trials of school and contemporary life, which often break off the branches of a good Christian upbringing in the home." "If you succeed in planting the fear of God in the hearts of your children, then the caprice of human behavior will not be able to harm them."

Clement of Alexandria

"To the spiritual man, knowledge is the principal thing. As a consequence, he applies himself to the subjects that provide training for knowledge. He takes from each branch of study its contributions to the truth. So he studies the proportion of harmonies in music. In arithmetic, he notes the increasing and decreasing of numbers and their relations to one another...Studying geometry, which is abstract logic, he comprehends a continuous distance and an unchanging essence that is different from these bodies. Again, through astronomy, he is mentally raised from the earth; he is elevated along with the heavens." (c. 195)

Lactantius
	"Great attention should be given to the grammarians, so that you know the right method of speaking. That should occupy many years. Nor should you be ignorant of rhetoric, for it enables you to say and express the things that you have learned. Furthermore, geometry, music and astronomy are necessary." (c. 304-313)

Origen

"Your natural talents might make of you a finished Roman lawyer or a Greek philosopher...But I am anxious that you should devote all the strength of your natural talents to Christianity for your end. To this end, I wish to ask you to extract from the philosophy of the Greeks what may serve as a course of study or a preparation for Christianity. And from geometry and astronomy, take what will serve to explain the sacred Scriptures." (c. 240) "Truly, it is no evil to have been educated. For education is the way to virtue...It is no hindrance to the knowledge of God to have been educated. Rather, it is a help." (c. 248) "It is not that no wise men according to the flesh [receive Christ], but that not many who are wise according to the flesh." (c. 228)

Thomas of Alexandria

"If, therefore, it should happen that a believer in Christ is called to this same office (librarian for the emperor), he should not despise the secular literature and those Gentile intellects that please the emperor. The poets are to be praised for the greatness of their genius...Furthermore, the orators and the philosophers are to be praised, in their own class...On occasion, also, he will endeavor to praise the divine Scriptures...Sometimes, too, the Gospel and the apostles will be praised for their divine oracles. And there will be opportunity to speak of Christ." (c. 300)

The Didache
	"You shall not remove your hand from your son or from your daughter. Rather, from their youth, you shall teach them the fear of God." (c. 80-140)

Clement of Rome
	"Let your children be partakers of true Christian training. Let them learn that humility is of great avail with God." (c. 96)