Section 2

How can it not be absurd to send children away to learn trades and to school, and to do everything possible for those purposes, yet fail to bring them up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”? This is why we ourselves are the first to reap the fruit when we raise our children to be insolent, undisciplined, disobedient, and coarse. Let us not do this. Instead, let us listen to this blessed man’s exhortation: let us bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Let us give them an example, training them from their earliest years to devote themselves to reading the Scriptures.

Alas! Although I say these things continually, I seem to be thought foolish. Still, I will not stop doing my part. Tell me, why do you not imitate the people of old? You women especially, imitate those admirable women. Has a child been born? Imitate Hannah. Consider what she did: she brought him immediately to the temple. Which of you would not rather have his son become Samuel once than become king of the whole world ten thousand times? “And how,” someone says, “is it possible for him to become such a man?” Why should it not be possible? Because you do not want it, and you do not entrust him to the One who can make him such a man. “And who is that?” God. Hannah entrusted him to God. Eli himself was not especially capable of shaping him—for how could he be, when he was unable to shape even his own sons? But the woman’s faith and earnestness accomplished it.

He was her first child and her only one, and she did not even know whether she would have others. Yet she did not say, “I will wait until the child grows up so that he can experience the affairs of this life; I will let him spend a little time enjoying childhood.” She pushed all such thoughts aside and was concerned with one thing alone: how from the very beginning she might dedicate this spiritual image to God. Let us men be ashamed before the wisdom of this woman. She offered him to God and left him there. For this reason her marriage became more glorious, because she sought spiritual things first and dedicated the firstfruits. For this reason her womb became fruitful and she received other children. For this reason she also saw him honored in the world. If people return honor when they themselves are honored, how much more will God, who does good even without first being honored?

How long will we be nothing but flesh? How long will we bend down toward the earth? Let everything else be secondary to our care for our children and to bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If from the beginning a child learns to love true wisdom, he has acquired wealth greater than every kind of wealth and glory stronger than any reputation. You will accomplish nothing so great by teaching him a trade or secular learning through which he may gain money as you will by teaching him the art by which he will despise money. If you want to make him rich, make him rich in this way. The rich person is not the one who needs much money and possesses much, but the one who needs nothing. Train your son in this; teach him this. This is the greatest wealth.

Do not seek how to make him distinguished in secular learning and give him a celebrated reputation. Instead, consider how to teach him to despise the glory of this present life. In that way he may become more truly splendid and glorious. Both the poor and the rich can do these things. A person does not learn them from a schoolteacher or through a trade, but through the divine words. Do not seek how he may live a long life here, but how he may live an endless and unending life there. Give him great things, not small ones.

Listen to Paul saying, “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not make it your chief aim to make him an orator; train him instead to love wisdom. If he lacks the first, there will be no harm; if he lacks the second, ten thousand accomplishments in rhetoric will be no help. We need character, not speeches; moral formation, not cleverness; deeds, not words. These things obtain the kingdom; these things bestow the blessings that truly matter. Do not sharpen his tongue while leaving his soul uncleansed; cleanse his soul. I do not say this to prevent you from educating him in those other things, but to prevent you from attending to them alone.

Do not suppose that only a monk needs this education from the Scriptures. Children who are going to enter life in the world need it most of all. A man who remains always in harbor does not need the same preparation of ship, pilot, and crew as one who is continually at sea. So it is with the person living in the world and the monk. The monk is, as it were, in a calm harbor, living a life free from public affairs and removed from every storm. The other is continually out at sea, sailing in the middle of the ocean and struggling against many tempests. And even if he does not need such preparation for himself at every moment, he must still be equipped to silence the objections of others.