I am just going to write my thoughts and answer all three questions within the body of this post rather than number the specific questions. To me, the most important premise of the article is that intelligence is from God. Erskine explains that being good is more important to many writers than being intelligent, even that it is often presented as an evil to be intelligent. But he argues against this and shows that being intelligent is also moral. If intelligence is good, then it comes from God. And that IS where the ultimate source of truth comes from. We are under a great obligation to learn that truth, especially as we share knowledge with others, including our children. I love the title of this article, because it uses the word obligation. Being intelligent is not just a nice idea, it is our duty! I believe that is vital to understand as my husband and I teach our children the things of the world. In fact, they are not just things of the world, but eternal principles and ideas.Therefore I need to make sure I am getting truth from the correct source. This article made me check myself - do I downgrade the importance of intelligence? Sometimes I tell myself that I am doing so much better than the public schools because I am teaching character. Of course that is important, but if my children are unable to use their brains except to be nice to people, I have actually done them harm. I have been reading Little Men and have noticed that Alcott included this type of thinking in her story. We need to build both intelligence and character to help a child of God become like his or her Father.
One more thing I noticed as I was reading this article was how much I lack in knowledge. I had no idea of many of the literary works he referenced. I have a lot of work to do!
One more thing I noticed as I was reading this article was how much I lack in knowledge. I had no idea of many of the literary works he referenced. I have a lot of work to do!