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Healdsburg Academy

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 12.

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Healdsburg Academy.

By Sidney Brownsberger

THE outlook for a successful school at Healdsburg is excellent. A week's visit in Healdsburg and vicinity in company with Bro. White, during the past two weeks, has enabled me to judge more definitely of the prospects.
The school building is in the center of the beautiful village of Healdsburg, and its capacity is ample to accommodate an attendance of 200 students.
It is in excellent condition and needs only equipment of students and teachers to commence the work.
Healdsburg is a quiet town in the fertile valley of the Russian River, and surrounded by a rich and well-settled agricultural country. The healthfulness of the climate, the beauty and sublimity of the scenery, and all the surroundings, combine to render this locality one of the finest in the State for an educational institution.Our brethren and sisters at this post appear to be awake to the responsibilities that they must bear in the care of the youth that shall come among them. They stand ready to labor and to make sacrifices for the success of the school. Certainly God has great blessings in store for that church if its members prove faithful to the sacred trust that he has committed to their charge.

RANGE OF STUDIES.

These must be suited to our circumstances and necessities on the Pacific Coast. Separated as we are, over 2,000 miles, from Eastern schools by a long stretch of desert and mountain country, it is not expected that many of our youth, not even those most advanced in their studies, can possibly attend Battle Creek College. The large majority would attend the public schools and colleges on this coast.
We feel warranted, therefore, in promising as wide a range of studies as is usually pursued in any first-class academy. Some are beginners; others already somewhat advanced in the elements of the common branches. There are still others who are still further advanced in the common branches, and are desirous of completing them.
A much smaller number, having completed the common branches, are prepared to study the natural sciences, advanced mathematics, and languages.
Some of our older brethren and sisters, who expect to labor in the cause, wish to pursue special branches, best adapted to the wants of the minister.
The interests of our children and young people demand that the scope of instruction in the proposed academy be such as to meet the educational wants of all these classes. This is just what the trustees are designing to provide in the Healdsburg school.
But while these young people and youth are pursuing the various branches of secular studies according to their attainments, they will devote a part of each day to the study of the Bible.
From this great text-book of morality and religion, these youth should receive such nourishment daily, as will, by the blessing of God, sanctify their lives, and make them fit subjects for the coming kingdom. This is of far more value to them than the knowledge of all science, philosophy, and language. The Bible must be assigned the place in our school which its importance renders it worthy.
There is, moreover, a wonderful expanding power in the influence of the Bible upon the intellect which is experienced in its fullness only by those who love and practice its precepts.
What can be better calculated to elevate the mind and give breadth and loftiness of thought than the beauty, sublimity, and grandeur of the truths of the Bible? Many a man has become distinguished for learning as well as for piety by devoting himself to the study of the Bible and giving its truths their full force upon his life.
In view, then, of the shortness of time, our youth ought to have the benefits of daily Bible study in acquiring an education, to develop their minds in the channel of religious truth. There may be many somewhat advanced in years, but of limited attainments in education, whose circumstances would admit of their spending some time in self-culture. These imagine it would be embarrassing for them to attend the school on account of their age. This objection would, however, soon disappear after entering their classes, in finding that there are associated with them others in like circumstances.
In Battle Creek College there were quite a number who were over thirty-five and a few over forty-five years of age. In two or three instances father and children were in the same classes. In other instances husbands and wives were attending at the same time. There is no good reason why false pride should debar any person from the advantages of the school. If the friends of this enterprise who are in the field, and the parents of those who might attend, will properly appreciate the value and importance of the school, and will interest themselves to encourage those with whom they have an influence, to attend, we are assured that we shall have a successful opening. S. BROWNSBERGER.