The Adaptation of Our School Work to Gospel Work

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 7, 1909

The Adaptation of Our School Work to Gospel Work

No work can be compared in importance with that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The third angel's message embraces all the great issues which have appeared in the progress of this gospel work throughout all time. In its promulgation and advance are the mightiest problems which have ever been given to any people. The strongest faith, the keenest intellect, and the greatest courage are required for their solution. Our schools are charged with the training of men and women with such faculties. In the very nature of the case, such an education must be as different, in its genius and in many of its methods, from that of the world at large as the work of this message is different from that of the spirit of aggrandizement and selfish uplifting prevalent in all the earth.

This message is peculiar, and requires a peculiar education; and the better our understanding of it, the more nearly shall we be enabled to adapt our courses of study and methods of teaching to its needs. We are not to be different for the sake of being different, but as educators we are to study, first of all, the gospel message for this time, and thus so to adapt all our educational factors to it that our students may form such characters, at the same time so improving their personal qualifications, as will make them powerful in the work of the Lord.

As our knowledge of the breadth and scope and meaning of present truth increases, it will naturally and constantly call for changes in the subjects which we teach, and in the methods of teaching them, and we must ever be ready to make them. It is dangerous for us to feel for a moment that we have reached anything like perfection in our educational work.