Recapture True Values

The striking difference in basic educational philosophy at Ambassador College should be clearly understood. And also, the reasons!

Higher education is fast approaching a crisis in the Western world. Prominent educators recognize with alarm the dangerous drift into materialism and collectivism. At the same time they confess their helplessness to change the situation. Major colleges and large universities find themselves in the clutch of an established system which no one bound by this tradition can alter.

Ambassador College came on the world scene free from the shackles of materialism and the grip of tradition. Ambassador has dared to recapture the true values—to blaze new trails, while retaining all that is sound and that has bean proved good in educational experience.

Educational institutions, generally, have grown so large that the regimented assembly-line processes have replaced individualized instruction. The student has lost his identity. Development of personality and initiative is largely sacrificed.

Moral bars have toppled. University campus students say bluntly that with the waning of church and parental influence, “We decide for ourselves on codes of morality.” Stuffing minds with crass materialism, while moral, spiritual and emotional development is neglected, produces unbalanced education and is criminally dangerous.

The very first law of success in life is the choosing of the right goal as the aim of life. Where there is no sense of the true values, there can be no meaning to life, no right purpose, no aiming at the right goal. There can be no well-balanced, broadening and worthwhile education where the true values have become obscured from view. Character building is a lost and discarded art, and minds are filled with dead knowledge and false materialism.

This tragic state of affairs in today’s higher education is the natural result of the mass-production machine age with its demands for highly specialized technological, scientific and professional training along purely materialistic lines. Emphasis is upon specialized training in preferred fields for financial rewards. The development of the man himself, his character, right sense of values, knowledge of the real purpose of life, and the laws that govern happiness, peace and abundant well-being is neglected. Modern education too often commits the crime of developing the machine while failing to develop the man.

Eminent scientists warn publicly that they are frankly frightened by this trend which now threatens to annihilate human life from this planet! This world’s education is failing to instill a knowledge of true values and a God-fearing sense of responsibility for the direction of these new and awesome forces into peaceful and productive channels. The question now is whether this new technology is creating the Frankenstein monster that shall destroy its producers and all humanity!

At Ambassador College, students find the true values. They learn the real purpose of human life. Life takes on true meaning. Emphasis is upon character building. Students learn not merely how to earn a living, but how to live! Students acquire a well-rounded, broadening, balanced education. There is not only mind development, but also that of personality, true culture, poise and emotional maturity!

To that end, the small student body and ratio of one lecturer to each ten students provides a distinct advantage. At Ambassador the relationship between student and faculty is as happy and helpful as it is unusual. The smaller college, adequately staffed and outstandingly equipped for its needs, with its cultural atmosphere, offers greater opportunity for self-expression and activity in the area of the student’s talents. It can give more personal attention to the individual student’s problems. It produces an altogether different and more desirable college atmosphere.

The Ambassador policy is based upon the recognition that true education is not of the intellect alone but of the whole personality—not alone of technologies, sciences and arts, but an understanding of the purpose of life, a knowledge of the spiritual laws which govern our lives, our God-relationship and human relationships; not a memorizing of knowledge alone but a thorough training in self-discipline, self-expression, cultural and character development; not book learning only, but broadening travel and experience; not only hearing and learning, but doing.

In other words, the curriculum is planned to give students a broad cultural background—a foundation for the art of living happily, usefully, successfully, abundantly. Hence, the emphasis upon character building and spiritual development is aptly stated in the Ambassador motto: “Recapture True Values.”