Dangers in School Life by A. B. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 14, 1910

Dangers in School Life

By A. B. E.

It should be a matter of deepest gratitude to Seventh-day Adventist parents that a system of schools has been provided for the children and youth of the denomination, where they can receive not only an education and training in all branches of useful knowledge, but where they are in a large measure sheltered from the evils that permeate high-school and college life. The young man or woman who for four years runs the gauntlet of the modern high school, with its secret societies, its military organizations, which exact large outlay in time and money, its dances and late suppers, its disregard of high religious standards, with many other evils, may indeed have proved the possession of a character that can stand in the front of the battle; but what of the weaker youth, those who must needs be led on softly into the safe path if they shall enter it at all? A countless company of young people could give the sad answer to this question. It is unwise and unsafe to allow the feet of the youth to be set in the way of temptation, and especially in these days when, by every possible device, Satan is seeking to ensnare them and lead them to ruin. Rather should every safeguard of Christian home and Christian school be thrown around them, and especially during the habit-making, character-forming years of adolescence.

Dr. Francis E. Clarke, leader of the Christian Endeavor movement, has set forth some of the evils of modern high-school life in a recent number of the Christian Endeavor World. He especially arraigns the high-school dance, and says that “an appalling revelation could be written on this subject.” “Many girls not yet out of their teens,” he declares, “have been ruined body and soul, for time and eternity, by these dances.” He says, further, concerning

the conditions in high schools in general:—

“I formerly thought that girls were more easily reached by the appeals of religion than boys, that their consciences were more sensitive, and their higher natures more fully developed than their brothers’. I am coming to doubt that, especially with girls of the high-school age. On the cars and on the streets I see more vulgarity and rudeness of behavior, less respect for others, and more indifference to the general public welfare, among the high-school girls than among the boys; and it is often harder to find steadfast, earnest, Christian workers among them than among those of the other sex.

“Yet it is not the teachers or the pupils who are chiefly responsible for this condition in many of our high schools, but primarily the parents, who do not know enough or care enough to keep their children out of these secret societies, and who encourage the late hours, the dances, and the attendant dissipation for the sake of the supposed social advantages. Or, if they do not encourage them, they yield weakly to the importunities of their children; and the demoralizing results are the same.

“Many a father or mother has awakened with shame and contrition, when it was too late, to the results of such carelessness and overweening ambition, when the daughter has brought disgrace and confusion of face upon the family.

“I write about this because I have upon my heart particularly the boys and girls of this high-school age, the age of adolescence, the most critical, and in many respects the most important, period of human life. I know thousands of these boys and girls in our high schools of pure, noble, Christian characters. I know scores of teachers who are conscientious and watchful of the morals of their pupils. Alas that all are not of this type!”

When the greatest leaders and teachers of our day see and deplore the conditions in many of these schools, is it not time for Seventh-day Adventist parents to weigh carefully the advantages to be gained not only for the present but for the future by their choice of a Christian school for their children? A. B. E.