Departmental Reports by H. R. Salisbury

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 19, 1913

Departmental Reports

By H. R. Salisbury

[We present under this general head the reports of departmental secretaries given at the General Conference. We regret that it has been necessary to abbreviate these reports. They were given in full in the Bulletin.]

Department of Education

The past four years have been a period of growth in attendance and of increase in the efficiency of our schools both at home and abroad. Chief among the results of this advance are: (1) Reflex influence of the rapid missionary extension, especially in foreign countries. This has acted as a strong stimulus to our educators and young people to do their best to qualify for better and wider service. A constant need and demand for helpers have made its impression upon those whose business it is to recruit the gospel forces of this denomination. (2) The help it has been to the work of the department to have for the first time its own organ, in the form of an educational journal. Through this medium we have been able to set before our less-experienced teachers some better standards, and provide some very definite means of helping qualify to meet them; such as the Teacher's Reading Course, the Round Table, and serial outlines and articles on the most needy features of the normal work. (3) Another productive cause of progress is the perfecting of the educational organization throughout the field, especially that part which pertains to the work of union educational secretaries, educational superintendents, the issuing of certificates to teachers of church-schools, and the management of summer schools and institutes. This has resulted in uniformity practically in all sections of the country, so that both teachers and students, in moving from one place to another, avoid the confusion and loss they have often suffered in the past.

Conventions and Councils

Each year an educational convention or council has been held. The council which met at the time of the last General Conference was followed, in the summer of 1910, by a general convention at Berrien Springs, Mich., for ten days. There were over one hundred delegates present, representing every one of our training-schools in America and the larger number of our academies. Special attention was given to the problems of our advanced schools.

In 1911 a council of educational secretaries was called at College View, Nebr. It is doubtful if we had ever before held a meeting of educators where so much was accomplished in behalf of church-schools. Every union secretary was present, and the entire time was given to working out those details which mean better church-schools and more efficient elementary teachers. Much study was given to the question of the reorganization of our church-school work, with a view to bringing about closer and more efficient supervision. Plans were laid for a uniform system of examinations of students and the certification of elementary teachers throughout America.

A year ago, at Loma Linda, Cal., there was held a council of the heads of our training-schools in this country. All but three of these institutions were represented. The time was given to the consideration of matters looking toward the upbuilding and strengthening of our advanced work, and six commissioners were appointed, which were to prepare reports to be presented at this General Conference. The purposes of these appointments were: (1) “To formulate a plan for increasing the efficiency of our Bible teaching.” (2) “To consider the present arrangement of our Bible courses, with a view to their improvement.” (3) “To define the standard of a Seventh-day Adventist college.” (4) “To recommend a list of books that would make a suitable library for our academies and colleges.” (5) To specify “the proper equipment for science teaching in our colleges.” These commissions have been working during the year, and at our departmental meetings which are being held in connection with this General Conference, their reports are being given.

These councils and institutes have helped greatly to unify our work, bringing about closer and more sympathetic relations between general, union, and State organizations, and between our various schools, and have raised the standard of our educational work in all its branches.

Summer Schools and Institutes

During the past four years summer schools have been held annually in the stronger unions, and in most cases they have been permanently established. These gatherings are proving a great help to the church-school teachers, for they receive practical instruction in the subjects especially required of them. At the close of these sessions examinations are given, and teachers' certificates granted.

Elementary Schools

Twelve years ago, when church-schools were just beginning to be established in America, I was told that if educators advocated the starting of these schools throughout this country, the money required for the buildings, equipment, and teachers' salaries, would greatly reduce our mission offerings, and retard our work in foreign fields. At that time the amount necessary for the annual maintenance of our church-schools was little more than $3,000, and our offerings to missions were $135,000. Last year our church-schools required $138,320 for their support, an increase of more than 4,000 per cent; and $472,000 was sent to foreign missions, an increase of 350 per cent. This proves that the success of any department which is a rightful part of this organization will in no way retard the work of any other department, when each is doing its own appointed work.

Four years ago there were 10,487 students in our church-schools. The present enrolment is 17,796, an increase of 7,309. However, it should be stated in this connection that this includes the mission schools, and out-schools as well, and the increase in these has been greater than the increase in the church-schools in the home land. At the beginning of the quadrennial period $101,371 was required for the maintenance of our primary schools; the last year, $138,320, an increase of $36,949.

It has been reported to the department from some States that government inspection of our church-schools will soon be made. This ought to cause no alarm, except to stir us up to do our best to so increase the efficiency of our work, especially through our normal schools, that a corps of teachers of such recognized ability will be developed that we shall welcome rather than fear inspection, making it the means of bringing the value of Christian education to the attention of those who are deploring the lack of moral training in State schools.

Academies and Colleges

During the past quadrennial term the enrolment of our academies has increased from 6,521 to 8,205, an advance of 1,684. In the same period our colleges and academies have increased their resources from $1,339,421 to $2,081,208, or 53 per cent, which is highly gratifying. However, in increasing the resources, they have increased their indebtedness $7.46 on every one hundred dollars of assets. It is to be hoped that during the next four years the aggressive policy will be not an increasing of the number of our advanced institutions, especially in this country, or in the buying of land or adding of buildings to those already purchased, except where actual growth makes it a necessity, but, rather, the hearty joining of the schools in the movement which is being set on foot by the denomination for the reduction of institutional indebtedness, and letting more be used for the betterment of the scientific equipment, libraries, and general appearance. And while we hope that the attendance in our church-schools will greatly increase during the four years, so as to gather into our own schools a larger per cent of our boys and girls, yet great care should be taken not to increase these schools more rapidly than efficient teachers can be found to operate them, or than money can be procured to guarantee a proper salary. It would be well, perhaps, in this matter for us to heed the time-worn motto, “Not how much, but how well.”

Mission Schools

The past term has seen the rapid increase of our mission schools in foreign lands. Four years ago we had 2,779 students. The number has increased to 8,630. When it is understood that in many countries our schools are the most effective means of reaching the people, and that those who have accepted Christ while in attendance have been among the most loyal adherents to the faith, it will be seen that the mission schools have been, and will continue to the end to be, one of the great factors in mission fields in bringing souls to a saving knowledge of the truth. While the evangelist gathers about him an audience which is continually changing, the Christian teacher has before him day after day, and in some cases year after year, the same persons, so that he can continue to impress upon them, by example, by lesson, and by sacred song, the story of Christ and the blessed news of the soon-coming Saviour.

New Enterprises

Besides the growth in church and mission schools, the past four years have seen three foreign training-schools started in the United States, for the Danish-Norwegian, German, and Swedish nationalities. All three were established in the year 1910. There is no doubt that in the providence of God they were led to the right location, where they found suitable, well-built educational institutions, which they purchased at a great reduction from the original cost. This was not true in regard to the Swedish Seminary, but they were able to remodel buildings, and have been very comfortable to the present time. Their continued growth, however, will soon demand a main school building. The attendance at each of these schools has increased from the opening.

At the time of the last General Conference the Pacific Union purchased 1,784 acres of land near St. Helena, on which were buildings which could be used for beginning school work. The school has had a healthy growth from the first, and now, besides the buildings already on the property, there have been completed a large dormitory for ladies, containing a dining-room, and also the main school building. The lumber was cut from the forest on the estate, teachers and students felling the trees, sawing the lumber, and erecting the buildings.

The year 1910 also saw the establishment of a training-school in Constantinople, where a favorable beginning has been made to educate the young men and women converts of the Levant, so that they may help to extend the message in that difficult but interesting field.

The same year, the Chinese training-school was started at Nanking, and at the present time land has been purchased, and steps taken for the erection of a permanent building. This, we trust, will result in establishing a strong training-school in the world's largest mission field. In Korea a successful school has been in operation for the past three years, and a very desirable site has been procured by the purchase of land in Soonan, on a hill overlooking the city. Plans are being drawn and work is about to commence on buildings for both the men's and women's schools, and for the dispensary which has been operated in connection with them. While in Japan we have been unable, up to the present time, to purchase land and to erect buildings, yet in rented quarters a small but encouraging school is being conducted.

Correspondence School

By a vote of the General Conference at its last session, a Correspondence School was started. This has been successfully conducted, 576 having been benefited by its service. The present enrolment is 311.

The patronage of the school represents a wide range of ages and occupations, and leads us to look for much

wider usefulness during the future. Its enrolment is drawn from every continent, and the islands of the sea. Its course of study ranges from the grammar school to the college. The possibilities of the school are just beginning to show themselves, and when its usefulness is better known, more advantage will be taken of its opportunities.

Home Schools

There is a growing demand from mothers whose children do not have access to a Christian school, for definite help in the instruction of their children at home. Some such home schools are already being carried on, and action has been taken by the department to prepare and conduct a Mother's Normal Course, through the Correspondence School. And it is the intention of the educational journal to make more efficient its department of Home Education.

Normal Work

It has been evident that if our church-schools are to have trained teachers to carry out methods of Christian education, we must strengthen our normal departments and greatly increase the enrolment. Perhaps no branch of our work the past four years has received more attention or shown more real, substantial progress than our normal work. New normal buildings have been constructed at Walla Walla College, at South Lancaster Academy, and at Keene Academy, and steps are being taken for one at Union College.

A reading course for teachers has been put into operation by the department, and is compulsory for those receiving certificates.

Improvement of the Ministry

The ministerial institutes which have been conducted by the members of the General Conference Committee the past two years have been attended with remarkable success. We are profoundly thankful that so large a number of ministers have been permitted to receive this uplift. This department is now working out a plan which it hopes will result in much good in the building up of the ministry. It was recently voted by the General Conference Committee “that we approve of the plan of bringing together in institute the Bible teachers in our training-schools, at such time as may be arranged by the educational secretary.” This gathering of our Bible teachers this summer now seems assured, and I feel sure the result will be a more efficient ministry.

The General Conference Committee, at its last autumn council, requested the Department of Education to prepare a reading course each for licensed and ordained ministers, which will be presented at this meeting. No more important work lies before this denomination than the training of an efficient gospel ministry. We have required a standard of our bookkeepers, teachers, nurses, and physicians, but not of our preachers, and we are reaping the results of our short-sightedness. The strongest and most inviting course in our colleges should be the ministerial, and its teachers should be men of strong spiritual leadership, who have a clear conception of “the faith once delivered to the saints.” Then there will be attracted to these classes in large numbers our young men of promise. Let them be held there until the training of head, heart, and hand fits them to go forth to preach the word with force and conviction, which will bring again to the church that apostolic power which caused sinners to cry out, “What must I do to be saved?”

Conclusion

While this report shows that steady growth has been made in the educational work in our denomination, yet we ought not to be content until a far greater number of our children and youth have found a place in our own schools,—schools better organized, better disciplined, and better equipped. We need these schools so that our children may be surrounded in their daily work by a Christian atmosphere. In the years of childhood, impressions are easily made, but not easily effaced; the clay is pliable in the hands of the potter, and, by painstaking effort and constant prayer, can be molded into vessels for the Master's use.

We need to strengthen our academies, refusing to employ as teachers the untried, unskilled, and uncouth; for into these institutions come our youth at that age when thorough work and firm discipline attract, when laxness and shallowness disgust, and discourage, and turn them away from us for all time. We have left too much to the training-schools, forgetting that it is in youth we win or lose our boys and girls; that it is during this time that seventy-five per cent of the converts to Christ are made, the time when boys and girls are changing to men and women; when they are leaving trifling play for thoughtful work; when they stand at the parting of the ways, hesitating in their decision whether to join the multitude in its pursuit after wealth, wanton pleasure, and vanity of the world, or to turn to the nobler and enduring things of life which give promise of a life beyond. As our academies increase in spiritual and intellectual excellency, they will be able to pass on a far larger per cent of their pupils to our training-schools.

In these training-schools lies our hope; for from them are coming and will come the men and women who are to be God's colaborers in finishing the work in our own day. These schools must be strong; but strength must come from the power given to men who do God's bidding. The scholarship must be excellent, but that excellency must be measured by the Word of God, and not by “rationalistic instruction or secularized education,” to which men are bowing down today.

Our educational work is ever in danger, on the one hand, from those who would substitute ill-guided religious fervor for hard work; on the other hand, from those who insist that the efficiency of our training-schools must be measured by worldly criterions. We need the help of the all-wise God, that we may profit by the grand principles of Christian education which he has graciously given us in this our day through the spirit of prophecy, that we do not circumscribe it by our narrow interpretation, but be broadened and sanctified by its instruction. This department needs your help and counsel, that in all our plans for the educational work of this denomination we may reach a standard of excellency which will satisfy men because it is thorough, and which will please God because it is wrought out in the fear of the Lord.

H. R. SALISBURY, Educational Secretary.