In addressing the brethren and sisters of the Lake Union Conference, no argument need be put forth to convince them that the education of the children is and ever has been one of the vital factors in the spread of God's work. The life and vigor of any denomination is in proportion to its efforts in behalf of its children. God peoples the earth, he develops the plan of salvation, not by making men full grown, but by bringing them into the world as children, that by a gradual process of development his plans may be unfolded. Everywhere is to be seen the lesson that we should have learned long ago; that is, that every child should be trained for the service of Christ. And to perpetuate the work of Christ in the earth definite and well directed efforts should be made to save the children.
The Lake Union Conference has a right to pride itself upon the development of its educational work. It was in this union conference that the church-school movement received its first impetus, about six years ago. Well do I remember a meeting of students in the chapel at Battle Creek College. Two churches in the State of Indiana, possibly unconscious of the fact that they were the forerunners in a great movement, had made application for teachers to train their children. The request was made known to the students. To complete a course was then the ambition of our students. To be prevented from doing this was to them a sacrifice, indeed. They listened as the appeal was made for teachers, and finally two young women volunteered to give up the year's work, and entered those churches in Indiana, and began the training of their children. That was the beginning of a movement which has had a steady and rapid growth from that time on.
During no period of its history, however, has greater progress been made than since the last meeting of the Lake Union Conference, in the spring of 1902. At the present time there are one hundred church-schools in the Lake Union Conference, divided as follows among the individual conferences of the union conference: Ohio, eight; Indiana, fifteen; Northern Illinois, eight; Southern Illinois, three; Wisconsin, twenty-two; East Michigan, thirteen; West Michigan, twenty-three schools and thirty-six teachers; North Michigan, nine.
Scarcely had the effort to educate the children begun until it was seen that a work of no less importance must be carried on for the youth. Definite instruction was given through the spirit of prophecy concerning the opening of intermediate industrial schools, which should provide an education for the youth after they have completed the usual course offered by the elementary schools.
The growth of the intermediate schools has been gradual. There are today within the bounds of the Lake Union Conference five well-established schools of this order. First in point of time is Cedar Lake Industrial Academy, at Cedar Lake, Mich. The second one established was Bethel Industrial Academy, at Bethel, Wis. Then followed the opening of the school at Sheridan, Ill. Less than two years ago the brethren of Indiana began the work of their first intermediate industrial school in improvised buildings in Boggstown. At the opening of the current year they took possession of buildings which were erected especially for school purposes. Still more recently the brethren of the Southern Illinois Conference opened an intermediate industrial school at Du Quoin.
There are a number of other centers where, in the near future, recognized industrial school work will be carried on, but in which the work has not yet been fully developed. At Owosso, Mich., there has been conducted a church-school having two teachers, and the conditions are such that an intermediate industrial school would find there a good patronage.
The Wisconsin secretary will tell you of several places in that State where small intermediate schools should be established in the near future. She will tell you also of the work in that State which has already been begun for the Oneida Indians.
At Wolf Lake, Ind., a school has been conducted for the last four or five years, and conditions there are very favorable to the establishment of a regular intermediate industrial school.
Briefly let me refer to developments in connection with the training-school of Lake Union Conference. Two years ago at the time of our biennial meeting, Emmanuel Missionary College was little more than such in name. The move had been made from Battle Creek. There were definite plans on foot for the building up of this institution, but what you see to-day, and possibly more than you have been able to see, is the result of developments under the blessings of the Lord during the past two years. I feel that it would be impossible in the brief time allotted to such a report even to outline to you the effects on the district of the development of the school at this place. The effort to raise means for the establishment of this school, an effort with which you are individually acquainted (I refer, of course, to the campaign for the sale of “Christ's Object Lessons,” which brought our students in direct contact with hundreds of our brethren), has done much to deepen the interest in the growth of the institution, and to bind the hearts of our brethren to this place. The steady flow of young workers from this school into the field—young people who have gone out as teachers, canvassers, and ministers—has had an immeasurable effect. The spirit which pervades this institution is unconsciously reflected in the church-schools.
The fact that this institution accepts and trains only mature students has set the pace for the intermediate industrial schools, and has encouraged the starting17of such schools when otherwise there would have been a hesitancy to undertake such a work. Not one school has been built up but there has been a steady growth of an educational system. This is one of the most encouraging features of the report which I have to make.
I should like also to mention, before leaving the subject, the wide extent of this influence. The bounds of the Lake Union Conference have been unable to confine the spirit which pervades this work. In nearly all our neighboring States small intermediate schools have been established within the past two years. I would not have you take undue credit to yourselves for this, but I believe we have a right to recognize the fact that the light and the blessing which the Lord has bestowed upon the schools in the Lake Union Conference has been seen from afar, and has led others to follow in this way. There are, I feel warranted in saying, almost constant demands for teachers in sympathy with this system of education, to go as instructors and leaders in these various intermediate industrial schools outside Lake Union Conference. It is our privilege to supply them. I speak of it because I feel that our brethren take much the same pride in this as a parent would in the work of his child. The institution is your own. God has blessed in its development. Why should not our young people be able to fill vacancies in needy fields? Had I the time, I would call your attention to the growth of this same movement in various parts of the foreign field.
Let me not pass this subject of schools in Lake Union Conference without calling your attention to the fact that in addition to the institutions already mentioned we have the long-established school at Mt. Vernon, Ohio; and numbered among our educational institutions stand the American Medical Missionary College, the Sanitarium at Battle Creek, the nurses' training-classes in connection with the sanitarium at Madison, Wis., and with those at Moline and Hinsdale, Ill. The church-schools of the Lake Union Conference are at the present time giving a Christian training to over fourteen hundred children. The intermediate industrial schools of this union conference enrolled during the year about three hundred. The Madison Sanitarium has had a training-class numbering thirty-five during the past two years. At Moline seven are in the nurses' class. The number at Hinsdale varies. There are nearly six hundred young people in Battle Creek preparing for active medical missionary work. To this let us add three hundred who have this year spent more or less time in our training-school, and we have in the aggregate nearly eighteen hundred children and young people whose feet are being directed toward the spread of the everlasting gospel. This is but a beginning; for there are in Lake Union Conference over four hundred churches, while the number of schools already established is one hundred, showing that only about one fourth of our churches have established schools for their children.
Reasons for Slow Progress
Possibly you have prided yourselves that what has been done is all that could be done, but dare we take this position? The figures themselves speak to the contrary. In view of the instruction which has been given, why has so little been done to reach the children of the denomination? I think we may attribute it to the following causes:—
1. We ourselves were educated in the public schools, and there is in the hearts of most of us a love for the public school system of education. We cling to the material, and fail to grasp the need of the spiritual, and yet we are faced constantly by that statement from the Lord through his prophet: “Now as never before we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.”
2. I believe that our lack of progress has in a great measure been due to the fact that there has not been the hearty co-operation which should have existed in the conference organization. We have been slow to come to the place where ministerial work for children has been recognized as of equal importance with ministerial work for adults. The educational work has not been opposed, but in many cases there has been passive assent where there should have been decided activity. I think you understand the condition. To-day let me say that I hold a statement from the president of each conference in this union conference giving in positive terms his belief that his conference should place itself on the aggressive in the matter of training its children and youth. This is a great step in advance, and betokens more rapid progress in the future than we have yet been able to witness. May God bless what has already been begun, and bind our hearts together for a steady forward movement.
3. As a third reason why the school work has made no more rapid progress, I must give the lack of trained teachers. There are churches which to-day would gladly have teachers for their children could they be obtained. No appeal from Africa is more touching than the cry for teachers by parents who realize that their children are fast drifting into the world.
Our educational superintendents know what it is to receive these calls, and be unable to answer them. There is a remedy for this situation. It is this: there are still hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist young people teaching in the public schools. They are to be met in almost every church. Has not God a place for them in his own specific work? There are still hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist young people untrained for this work who should be in one of the preparatory schools or in the training-school. Our educational superintendents and our brethren, the ministers, should constitute a vigilance committee from whose activity not one young man or woman in the denomination should escape. I know of no more painful thing than to read such words as these from a man solemnly appointed to look after God's flock: “I am not very well acquainted with the young people in this conference. I think there must be some who should prepare for various lines of work.” It makes one heart-sick to think that there is a single young person in our churches with whom some minister is not personally acquainted. Why should not our ministers know the ambition of their youth? Why should they not, as they go from church to church, hold up to these young people the great need of workers, and urge them to prepare for some definite line of work? Why should they not, as they visit from home to home, meeting parents who have means, brethren and sisters who have no children, raise money to help young people who are financially embarrassed?
There is another avenue from which we shall in the near future draw competent workers. I refer to the teachers who are yet unacquainted with the third angel's message. God has a message of truth for them, and when they see the light which Christian education will bring to them, many of them will accept the whole truth of the third angel's message, and having given their lives to the children, they will continue to work for them. Already we have indications of such a movement, but it has seemed to me that God has restrained us that every opportunity might first be given to the young people who are already acquainted with the third angel's message.
4. As a fourth reason why our schools have not multiplied as they should, I will mention the unstable financial support which most of our teachers have had. The growth of the church-school movement was a local affair to begin with. It could not have been other than that, and it has seemed to me that we have for too long rested satisfied with this condition. I meet it everywhere,—that constant drawback,—poor salaries, few facilities, short terms of school, uncertain support. I do not uphold the teacher who enters the work for the money there is in it. No one can, in view of the facts, flaunt that argument in the faces of our church-school teachers. They have been a self-sacrificing company of young people, if ever such existed. But it remains a fact that the present organization and means of support are decidedly unsatisfactory.
Let me illustrate: I can point you to a school the support of which rested wholly upon a few church-members. This you will recognize as no unusual condition. It seems that the various members who considered themselves able to give support took turns in meeting the monthly expenses of the school. About four or five individuals at first pledged themselves to maintain the school for one month each. Two or three months passed. When it came time for one of the brethren to meet the running expenses, he did not feel inclined to do so, and the school closed. What became of the children? Out of twelve months they were in school possibly three. They remained at home the rest of the time, or what would be more natural, drifted again into the public schools. The teacher of that school became discouraged; and when I saw her, she was teaching a public school, having been pressed into the position by those who had known her in the public school work, and were willing to trust to her care between fifty and sixty young children. I am not giving this to uphold that teacher in returning to the public school work, but it is a statement of actual facts, a condition which has been repeated again and again, a condition that can not but exist so long as our teachers are dependent on local support.
The strength of the ministry has always been in a large measure due to the fact that local support was not depended upon. God has given a system of support. Let us enlarge our borders, and as he has revealed to us greater light and truth, let us welcome into our ranks those who are called to minister to the children.