The World's Need Educationally by Frederick Griggs

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 3, 1910

The World's Need Educationally

By Frederick Griggs

The greatest need of the world to-day is men of honor and worth. In the great battle between right and wrong, lasting over six thousand years, the keenest talents, the brightest intellects, have ever been needed to advance the gospel of truth. The Bible is replete with the biographies of God's missionaries — men who have been sent forth by the power of his love, who were well qualified to carry this gospel to the great as well as to the lowly of earth. Surely the work of a God of perfection requires skilled workmen. The blindness of the heathen is not necessarily an intellectual blindness; and often they are as able to give a reason for their heathen belief as the Christian is for his hope. It needs skilful minds as well as a very pure faith to present the gospel in an attractive and convincing manner. And the greatest work for these men to do is that of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of a wonderful salvation. This gospel is to be carried to the ends of the earth, and in this generation. But the men who carry it must be those who are inured to hardship, who are conquerors of self, rulers of their own spirits. Not only is it necessary to have well-trained minds, filled with useful information, in order to meet the intelligent Orientals, but even the darkest places of earth also need skilled intellectual laborers: missionaries to these lands are often obliged to make the first translation of the Holy Scriptures into the languages of the peoples where they are laboring.

Not only must the missionary possess a mind capable of close, accurate thinking, and a culture of worth, but he must be skilful in the use of his hands, and resourceful in turning all the elements of his environment to practical account. He must have acquired for himself that perfect poise of the intellectual, the physical, and the spiritual which makes him capable of entering into the world's fiercest strife, and mastering the conditions and odds which may oppose him. These necessary qualifications for the missionary demand schools that give a high grade of intellectual and manual training, and that teach young men and women to be self-reliant, sturdy, and vigorous in their work. Above all else such schools must be permeated with a deep missionary spirit — the spirit of the great Missionary.

Seventh-day Adventists have been seeking for the last thirty-five years to develop just such a system of schools. Hundreds of boys and girls, yea, thousands, from Christian homes, grow into the years of adolescence with but slight purposes concerning their preparation for life's responsibilities, and with absolutely none regarding gospel effort. These schools have a responsibility to receive such young persons, and so to direct the current of their thoughts, so to mold their ambitions and aims in life, that they may qualify as valiant soldiers of the cross of Christ.

Not only is there need for this sort of training in the home lands, but the mission fields themselves offer fertile soil for the development of Christian missionaries. In fact, nearly all our mission schools have constantly in mind the educating of natives to teach their own people and to preach the gospel to them. And we reap large results from this effort.

Seventh-day Adventists have four grades of schools — primary, intermediate, academic, and advanced; and the same general system prevails in all lands, adapted, of course, to the particular needs of the people among whom they exist. They have about 550 primary schools, with an enrolment of upward of 11,000 pupils, employing about 650 teachers. Of the schools above the primary, there are about 85, with an enrolment of nearly 6,000 students, employing nearly 500 teachers. The total property value of these schools is approximately $1,500,000. This is exclusive of the valuation of mission-school property, which, of course, is not so large proportionately as that of the home field.

All true Christian education is identical with the work of the gospel; for it holds in mind the restoration of the image of God in the soul. Our divine Lord was himself a teacher. He came in that capacity, and he was ever known as such. And it is the work of the Christian school to qualify children and youth, no matter what may be their race, color, or degree of understanding, to enjoy the good things which a beneficent Creator has provided.

In the world's evangelization, Christian education should be considered an integral part of the gospel work.

FREDERICK GRIGGS.

College View, Neb.