EDUCATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE The God of popular theology has been engaged for more than thirty centuries in educating his child, Man.

His system of education has been based on complete distrust of Man's nature.

In the schools which Man has been required to attend--the Legal School under the Old Dispensation, the Ecclesiastical School under the New--it has been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, nor desire what is good.

The truth of things has therefore been formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and profess his belief in it, clause by clause.

His duty has also been formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or to the direction of an all-controlling Church.
It has further been taken for granted that Man's instincts and impulses are wholly evil, and that "Right Faith" and "Right Conduct" are entirely repugnant to his nature.