What follows is an excerpt from the Friend to Youth acceptance speech delivered by Phil Roberts at the Florida College lectures. Dr. Roberts, at the time was a teacher at Florida College, Since then he has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Parents would be wise to carefully consider brother Robert's thoughts if you are thinking that a state school or university is better for your children.
I
believe the reason you should want your children to come to Florida
College or your grandchildren or others to whom you would like
to be a friend, a friend to youth, is because of the quality
of the education they will receive in every class and
not just in their Bible classes.
If we really believe that God created us and that every thing about who we are and how we function is based on the fact that God created us in this world, then any education, from Harvard to UCLA, from Miami to some place up in Oregon, no matter which way you go, with all the places in between, any education that does not integrate the belief in God in every aspect of its curriculum will be a deficient education.
Even if the courses are taught by Nobel Prize winners or poet laureates, they will still be giving you a fundamentally flawed education an education that is flawed, not just around the edges but at its very foundation. And I'm not just talking about the biology class where they'll teach evolution. Let me assure you, that a clever sociology professor can do far more damage to the faith of your sons and daughters in one good week's worth of discussion of Berger and Luckman's The Social Construction of Reality or Freud's Totem and Taboo than a biology professor could do over a whole semester or even a whole curriculum. It is the godless teacher of the arts, of history, of anthropology, of English literature, and all the other core humanities courses, and education courses that represents the greatest danger to your children. Such teachers produce the most distorted view of the nature of the world that we live in, the nature of man, of man's beliefs, of his values, and of what is worth living for, and, ultimately, what is worth dying for. Yet these are the very matters that are at the core of any good education. And any education that does not have a belief in God as it's core value is gutted from the center out and that's what is different about Florida College.
It is precisely here that such prestigious schools provide you, not just with an incomplete education, but with a broken education a three legged stool, if you will, that has only two legs, one leg in the arts, the other in the sciences, but lacks the most crucial leg that can integrate those two and give them some basis to stand for something. And that is the third leg of the knowledge of God.
Why should we buy for our children, why should we encourage our grandchildren, why should we pretend to be a friend to youth when we encourage them to choose such a broken product, just because it's near home and costs a little less, or holds higher prestige before a godless society. I encourage you to be a friend to youth--to be a friend to youth here, by your support of Florida College. I encourage you to be a friend to my sons, so that my boys will come and find here at this school an education that is rooted in faith in God, and, yes, an education that will integrate that belief in God with everything else they will learn about this world in which we live.
I do not know how difficult my battle will be, I'm sure. But, God willing, my hope and prayer is to see you next year at lectures. Thank you.