Man can never be content unless he is
provided with a faith which brightens
his eternal future; which fills with hope
the unknown country
that awaits him after death.

Dartington Hall is a prestigious liberal progressive public school, situated near Totnes in Devon, England. Parents pay up to £ 5000 per annum for their children to be educated there. Among Dartington Hall’s illustrious parents were the philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and the writer, Aldous Huxley.

But recently the ills of Dartington Hall have come out into the open. Dr. Lyn Blackshaw, who has since resigned as headmaster of the school, wrote a letter to the parents of his 300 pupils, referring to police enquiries into 30 burglaries involving 20 students. He also quoted a warning from one senior officer that, unless a serious problem with sex and drugs could be cleared up, Dartington’s senior school would have to close in two years.

On July 11, 1983, Dr. Lyn Blackshaw addressed his staff on the problems facing Dartington Hall. Here is part of what he said:

“The worst thing we can do for our children is destroy their faith in the future, whether it be with apocalyptic visions, the unlikelihood of a job, the uselessness of qualifications. If you really believe that… then how would you behave? ... I believe in many ways we’re killing our children’s futures by being so damned pessimistic ... If children are persuaded to believe that there’s really no future, then the most likely thing they would do is behave in a hedonistic way, live in the present, develop no consistent attitudes. I can tell you, in some ways it’s sickening coming back to this country.” (Sunday Times, London, September 4, 1983)

Dr. Lyn Blackshaw is right in saying that the worst thing one can do for any generation is destroy their faith in the future. But the achievement of a livelihood after education is only a small portion of the future. The question of the future extends beyond the present world to the eternal world after death.

Only if man can look hopefully to his eternal future can he be satisfied in life. Man’s greatest problem is not the threat of apocalypse, the unlikelihood of a job, the uselessness of qualifications; his greatest problem is that it has become intellectually unfashionable to think of a life after death. It is his faith in his eternal future that is being destroyed. This is the major psychological factor behind his present dissatisfaction, and it is this dissatisfaction that leads to hedonistic and irresponsible behaviour.

Man can never be content unless he is provided with a faith which brightens his eternal future; which fills with hope the unknown country that awaits him after death. □