p. 3 | The Value of the Denominational College by L. L. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 10, 1916

The Value of the Denominational College

By L. L. C.

THE Pilgrim Fathers understood the value of education. In 1636, or sixteen years after their landing on the American shore, they founded a college, which they named two years later after their clergyman, Rev. John Harvard. Referring doubtless to this establishment of Harvard College, Rev. Cotton Mather said, “A college was the best thing that ever New England thought upon.”

One of the founders of this college said:—

“After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.”

Eleven years after the founding of the Harvard College, public schools had been established. This public school system is now so widespread that high schools are found in every town, and universities in every State, and it can be said without danger of contradiction that the United States largely owes its greatness to its educational system.

Seventh-day Adventists early appreciated the importance of having a denominational school, and in 1874 Battle Creek College was established. In this school most of our older workers received training. This fact was very strongly brought to the attention of the delegates at the General Conference in 1913, when plans were being made which resulted in the organization of the Battle Creek College Association. At one general meeting a rising vote of all those who had received some training in Battle Creek College was called for, and the large number of our workers who responded was indeed striking.

As public schools were established soon after the founding of Harvard College, so denominational primary schools grew up soon after the establishment of Battle Creek College. These primary schools have increased from one in 1880 to 611 in 1914, while our advanced schools have increased from one in 1874 to 67 in 1914. It is very interesting to note also that this period of growth in the educational system marks the period of greatest growth in the denominational membership. The membership in 1874 was 7,000; in 1914 it was 122,386. If one will take the early catalogues of our first school, and run over the names of the students, he will find an argument for the denominational college which cannot be answered or overdrawn. We shall never know till we reach the other side how largely the advancement of the message throughout the world has been, humanly speaking, due to the work done by our educational system.

With the development of the public school system and the great State universities, denominational colleges have, in the consideration of some, lost favor. Many educators, however, recognize that in many respects the small college has great advantages over the large State universities. William Rainey Harper, former president of the University of Chicago, once said:—

“It is a mistaken notion that the larger the institution, the more efficient the education given. There is an increasing sentiment in behalf of the small college. The large institution cannot give the same intimate attention to the students that the smaller one does. Necessarily, in the large university, much of the instruction is committed to young, inexperienced instructors. In the smaller college, the student comes into intimate relation with the administrative officers and the heads of departments, who are capable of rendering personal counsel and help when it is needed. For this reason many of the best institutions of the East are restricting attendance to five hundred, and some to even less.”

A former chancellor of the University of Nebraska said that his personal advice to any young man would be to take

at least his first two years of college in the small denominational college, where he could receive more personal help from the teachers than would be the case in a large State university.

It is well for our people to think of this value of the small denominational college, in addition to the Christian atmosphere which surrounds the student and makes for development of Christian character in the young man or young woman.

One of the evident signs that this message is soon to be finished in the earth, is the great increase in the number of college graduates within the last few years. Our work is beginning to attract the attention of the educated classes of this country, and in God’s providence he is preparing workers, thoroughly trained, to meet these opening opportunities. Let us take courage, and pray very earnestly for our schools, that they may be blessed of God to the training of many workers who may soon finish the work in the earth.

L. L. C.