Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 2, 1911

Editorial

By Editor

“AND all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” Isa. 54: 13.

THE promise does not mean school work specifically; but it includes all educational effort. And it is a promise for this gathering time. “With great mercies will I gather thee,” is the word. And the command of this chapter to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes is for our time. The educational work is to prepare laborers by which to enlarge the place of our tents and stretch forth the curtains of our habitation, to take in all the world.

FROM early times the believers were led to plan for educational work. But the first definite announcement of matured plans for a training-college appeared in the REVIEW of June 4, 1872. Elder G. I. Butler, then president of the General Conference, wrote:—

We want a school to be controlled by our people, where influences of a moral character may be thrown around the pupils which will tend to preserve them from those influences which are so common, and injurious in the majority of the schools at the present day; and in this school we want a department in which those who would labor in the ministry, or in other public positions of usefulness, may receive that instruction which will qualify them for the duties of those positions.

THAT school described was the beginning of the old Battle Creek College. In the REVIEW of the next week, Elder James White announced the opening of the school, June 3, with twelve students, Prof. G. H. Bell in charge. Elder White’s words were a true forecast of the future:—

This may seem to some like a small beginning. But a beginning, however small, is something; and it was expected that this would begin in a small and humble way, and come up to its true position by a steady and healthy growth. And we can never be discouraged at the smallness of any beginning, so long as we have the Saviour’s parable of the mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds, but finally becomes the greatest of all herbs.

As the mustard seed among plants, we expect this school will come up to occupy an important place among the agencies in operation for the advancement of the truth. Friends of the cause, you have now another institution to remember in your prayers.

FROM the seed of that first effort for a training-college has grown up an educational system that now spreads through all the great lands, ministering every year to thousands of students, of many tongues and nations. Thank God for the schools that are helping to strengthen the stakes and lengthen the cords.