Study Notes on Education Ch.

2-3
Philosophy of Education Class

1. Describe God’s plan for the earth, educational-wise, had there never been sin. What would have
happened?
2. Adam and Eve were given great intellectual gifts that they might “discern the wonders of the visible
universe.” What else were they to comprehend (20:3)?
3. Easy Point: “In His interest for His children, our heavenly Father personally directed their” __________.
4. How might wealthy children benefit particularly in their educational philosophy from a consideration of
the Garden of Eden?
5. In what sense did Adam “hold converse” with objects “animate and inanimate”?
6. What were some of the “objects [subject matters] of study” by the pupils in the first school on earth?
(from Chapter Three)
7. Consider the question “Why did God allow Adam the power to do evil” as addressed in the first
paragraph. Did Adam receive the fullness of the blessing that God intended to impart when he was placed
in the garden? What kind of development would have been impossible without freedom to do wrong?
8. Why did God withhold knowledge of evil from Adam? Adam could have known sin the way that God
knew it…to have been aware of its effects and malignity. But he did not.
9. Contrast the words “Lord’s admonition” and “God’s commandment.” How does the story of the
knowledge-tree in Genesis illustrate the ethical authority of God’s not-commanded counsels?
10. “Satan desired to make it appear that this knowledge of good mingled with evil would be a blessing,
and that in forbidding them to take of the fruit of the tree, God was withholding great good.” Write briefly,
how does Satan do the same today in educational lines?
11. In the first paragraph of the book Education EGW wrote that our ideas of education ought to be higher
and broader. In the third chapter she attributes this same idea to Satan as the serpent. Be prepared to discuss
this point intelligently.
12. In the book Steps to Christ, Ellen White speaks of “prayer” as the “key in the hand of faith.” In this
chapter it is “faith” that is the key. What door does “faith” open?
13. Review question: Would a student that puts communion with God and surrender to all He asks as first
priorities in his life have a miraculous advantage over others in his study and preparation for college
classes?
14. Consider the phrase “a tree to be desired.” Be prepared to draw an illustration of the human mind and
its faculties that expresses the proper relation of desires to the will (from Lecture 5).
15. According to Ellen White, was the great sin of Eve one of “yielding to appetite”? What not-so-visible
sins were part of the eating experience?
16. By listening to Satan man lost his ability to _________________ “the good that God had so freely
bestowed.”
17. God had made all the world. Why, according to 25:4, was Eden a poor place for Adam and Eve to
continue their studies after the fall?
18. How has the message in nature changed, in content, since the fall?
19. From Adam and Eve, prior to the birth of their children, the spirit of rebellion was spread. Where was it
spread? Where did it appear?
20. Hindu’s and other pagans have witnessed the cycle of life, the death of the seed and resurrection of the
new grain; the falling of leaves and their replenishing in the spring. From these Hindu’s have developed
reincarnation. What lesson were these cycles intended to teach us?
21. What evidence of God’s compassion is observable in order of his statements to Adam, regarding the
future, spoken after the fall? How might this be instructive for teachers giving discipline today?