Is It Worth While ? by M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1916

Is It Worth While ?

By M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN

M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN

Is it worth while to support the church school? The answer will depend upon an understanding of what the church school is, and of the nature of the responsibility we are under toward the little ones growing up among us.

The church school, like other institutions representing Christian ideals, is rooted in the spirit of love and self-sacrifice. It is the outgrowth of a desire to shield our boys and girls of tender age from the corruption that is in the world, and to surround them with the influences that make for righteousness. It makes provision for daily religious instruction, recognizing that the child has a soul as well as a mind and a body, and that spiritual things should be first in the life of a child as well as in that of an adult. It makes possible the permeating of all knowledge imparted to the child with a sense of the presence and help of an Almighty God and loving heavenly Father; it thus gives him from the very beginning a right perspective—a practical demonstration of the great fundamental truth that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The church school provides a ready means of cooperating with the home instruction which is the lot of every well-brought-up child. The solicitous mother sends her boy to the church school morning after morning, knowing that his teacher has precisely the same ideal for him that she herself has—that he shall grow up to fear and honor God, and to be a power for righteousness in the world. She knows that the atmosphere which he will breathe in the schoolroom will be instinct with reverence for God and with strong faith in his inspired Word. She knows that the school will be opened with a Scripture reading, song, and prayer, and that at some time during the day each pupil will recite a lesson in the Bible as part of the regular school work. She knows, too, that the devotional exercises at the opening of the school and the Bible lesson will not be gone through in a cold, formal manner; but that the teacher finds them her chief joy and support, and would not attempt to conduct the school without them.

The mother knows, moreover, that the children with whom her little ones will associate at the recess hour or while going and coming from school, will be boys and girls from Christian homes, whose fathers and mothers have the same high ideals for their bringing up that she has; and thus the whole environment of the day school is but an extension of the home life, and school and home work together for the accomplishment of the one great aim,—to train the children for God.

How different must be the feelings of the mother who sends her children to the public school! The dangers in going and coming are multiplied, and the atmosphere in the school itself is at the best that of the world. There is no instruction in the Word of God, no prayerful looking upward for guidance and help for the day's activities. Knowledge is treated as a thing entirely separate from God and religion; the mind is instructed while the heart is neglected; character building does not enter into the day's program. The teacher holds fundamentally different views from those of the parents, and not seldom the child is made to feel in many ways that the religious teaching which he has received at home is out of harmony with the new world of knowledge upon which he is entering. So it goes on from day to day for a period of years, during all of which time the child is receiving impressions that will never be effaced. It is to no avail that the school is conducted in harmony with the best traditions of a public school, and that the teacher is kind and efficient. The very love and respect the child feels for a good teacher make him the more susceptible to that teacher's influence, and the more certain will be the alienation from the ideals of home and parents.

Is it worth while to guard against such influences, and give our little ones the best possible chance to grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

But it costs something. Yes, there is call for self-sacrifice. Adventists pay their school taxes, and then in addition support their own church schools. But how small the outlay compared with the results! Two or three dollars a month, eight cents a day, about one and three-fourths cents for each hour of instruction,—not a very large sum when one considers that the eternal life of the child is at stake.

God confers no other gift so precious as the gift of a little child, and our own characters as parents are tested by the treatment we mete out to our children—little ones like those whom the Saviour loved to gather in his arms and bless. If we feel in duty bound to provide them with daily bread, how much more important to see that they are spiritually fed! While their tender hearts are yearning for the pure milk of the Word, how dare we deny it to them?

After all, in providing church schools for our own dear boys and girls, we are doing no more for them than we do for the little heathen children of China and India. Are they not at least equally precious in the sight of God? Then is it not very much worth while to support the church schools we already have, and to do our best with God's help to start others, to the end that the time may soon come when every Seventh-day Adventist child will enjoy the inestimable privilege of attending one?