The Opening of the Foreign Mission Seminary

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 17, 1908

The Opening of the Foreign Mission Seminary

At nine o'clock on Wednesday of last week a large number of the employees of this Office, the General Conference Office, and the Sanitarium, gathered in the chapel of the Foreign Mission Seminary to enjoy, with the students, the opening exercises of the first session of the new school year. Prof. H. R. Salisbury opened the exercises by reading the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, and an earnest prayer for God's blessing upon the work of the Seminary was offered by Elder G. A. Irwin. The opening address was given by Elder A. G. Daniells, the president of the board. He spoke of the deep interest which he felt in the work of this institution, which is to give the final preparation to our young missionaries before they depart to take up work in the rapidly whitening harvest-fields. The purpose and the necessity of such an institution were clearly set forth. The necessity of the Foreign Mission Seminary was made more emphatic by giving in detail a comprehensive outline of our school system from church-school up through to the Seminary. He gave a very inspiring array of facts in this discussion. For instance, five hundred have church-schools, with over five hundred devoted teachers, are giving instruction to about eight thousand children. Next came twenty-two intermediate schools, with sixty-eight teachers and about one thousand pupils. Then there are thirty-two academies, with one hundred sixty-two teachers and about twenty-two hundred students. Above the academies are our thirteen colleges, with one hundred eighty-five teachers and twenty-two hundred students,—a total of about thirteen thousand students and nine hundred teachers. In all these schools the object is to rightly mold the growing youth, and give them a correct idea of their relationship to God and to their fellow men.

Elder Daniells then spoke briefly of the unique place which the Foreign Mission Seminary occupies in our school system, taking the graduates of our other higher schools, who have definitely decided to enter the mission fields, and giving them that definite instruction and definite help which will enable them to carry the work to victory in the fields to which they go.

Elder Daniells expressed deepest satisfaction over the fact that we were not now called to send missionaries to any Protestant country; that in all the Protestant countries the work is now self-supporting, and those lands are now providing their own workers. Now the Mission Board's special attention is given to Catholic and heathen countries. We are already operating, he said, in thirty-two Catholic countries and twenty-seven heathen lands. The magnitude of the work never seemed so great, nor our force of workers so cosmopolitan, as when the speaker gave a list of the languages in which this message is now being proclaimed. “To all of these people,” he said, “some of you will go; and some of these languages all of you will learn.” These remarks closed with the assuring declaration that God would lead these consecrated young men and women in the field as well as to the field.

Elder Irwin then occupied a few minutes in emphasizing the difference between the work and purpose of this school and of the schools of the world, and the certainty of the triumph of this message in spite of all that can be done against it. He predicted that the facilities here would soon be found to be entirely inadequate for what will be demanded of them.

Following Elder Irwin, Dr. D. H. Kress, who is in charge of the Sanitarium, and will conduct the department of tropical hygiene in the Seminary, gave a short address upon the necessity of teaching the principles of health, hygiene, and cleanliness while ministering to the spiritual needs of the people.

A few appropriate remarks by Professor Salisbury upon the purpose and prospect of the institution closed the exercises. The present prospect is that the institution will be filled to its utmost capacity during the present year. The number matriculating on the opening day of this school year is nearly a half larger than last year. It cheers the heart of the lover of this message to see so large a company of earnest, consecrated young men and women whose one purpose is to fit themselves for service in the work of proclaiming this last message in the regions beyond. May God greatly bless them in this noble purpose, and make their work fruitful in the dark lands of the earth.