Liberty University - School of Law - Dean's Blog

“For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.”
-- CS Lewis

Regardless of popular opinion, graphics enhanced video games, web surfing, sit-coms, rap music, and MTV don’t increase sensibilities and set a heart and mind on fire. Rather, these things have a tendency to promote lethargy, to de-sensitize, to create apathy and, ultimately, to de-humanize. They turn the mind to mush and make deserts of the soul.

As Lewis thought, the world is crowded with God, all ground is holy, and every bush, if we could perceive it, is a burning bush. But, education that fortifies the mind against emotion won’t help students see the burning bushes. Education, whether about law or mathematics, will touch the mind and heart when it irrigates the deserts of the soul—when it makes one thirst all the more for knowledge that is difficult but available.