Untitled article by Jos. Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · July 23, 1867

EDUCATION.

By Jos. Clarke

To many parents, it is superfluous to urge the claims this subject has upon them. Such parents would deny themselves to a great extent rather than neglect the education of their children.

There are others, who for various reasons, neglect to have their children instructed. Some are too poor; some have too much care of other things on hand; others do not feel their responsibility on this point; and others have so much dread of the evil influence of such young company as their children must necessarily associate with at school, that they prefer ignorance for their children, to education under such circumstances.

Such parents as I have last named may be found among conscientious professors.

What has the overscrupulous parent gained? Is it likely the ignorant youths they have brought up are more likely to possess a virtuous mind than if educated? Do not all the hideous forms of vice flourish just as much among the ignorant as among the better informed?

Does not ignorance rather debase than elevate?

Such a system of common schools as exists in our country is nowhere else to be found in the world. Doubtless God's hand is in this; he has stirred up the minds of our legislators to make wise provision for the education of all, and many of our common schools are so managed as to be of great utility, and as a whole they are an inestimable blessing. Without these advantages, where would now be the field for the propagation of the truth? Would the unlettered Hindoo, or the superstitious, ignorant Tartar understand the force of Present Truth?

One would suppose that Christian parents would undergo almost any self-denial, rather than suffer their children to grow up uncultivated around them. We grieve to say that there are children and youth in the families of Sabbath-keepers whose ignorance is a shame, even to the neighborhood.

Some time or other the children and youth must come into contact with the world, or be always useless, or semi-idiotic. Some time or other they must meet and resist temptation, and when can they do this better than among the mates in a well-conducted school? Let parents visit the school with the children, and encourage the teacher, and take a lively interest in all that concerns it, and soon they will, if discreet, see the benefit of so doing.

A man who lived near the ocean had great fear lest his two little boys should get drowned in his absence from home. Both the little ones could swim, but he feared if they fell in with their clothing on, they might not be able to get to the shore. So one day, to test the matter, he tumbled them both into the waves, without any notice or preparation; they both swam like ducks, and came out in bright spirits. The father after that felt more at ease in his mind.

Jos. Clarke.