You will want to know what methods have been followed in extending the educational work in the Lake Union Conference. I think I am correct when I say that this was the first, or at least one of the first, union conferences to give definite organization to the educational work. As you know, the union conference has its educational secretary, and each conference in this union conference has an educational superintendent. It has been the duty of the conference educational superintendent to work as closely as possible with the individual teachers, to help in the organization of the various schools, to visit the churches where there are children, to encourage the fathers and mothers to provide for their children, to search out the young people who should act as teachers, and as far as possible to provide some means for them to obtain the necessary training.
The Lake Union Conference has been fortunate in having an energetic company of educational superintendents. Some, it is true, have been hampered in their work, because it has not yet been recognized in all our conferences that the educational superintendent should be free to devote his entire time to the upbuilding of that department of the work. In several instances ministers have been asked to act as educational superintendents, and they have been made to feel that their first work must be in other lines; if they had time, they could work for the schools. I think that this has already been recognized as a mistake. The work is great. The office should be filled by an individual thoroughly grounded in the principles of Christian education. A teacher can, of course, do more than one who has never taught: the superintendent should be able to go into the schoolroom, when that is necessary, and conduct an ideal Christian school. He needs to recognize keenly each individual teacher's needs, and be able to give constant advice and instruction to those who are actively working under him.
In the Lake Union Conference the efforts of the educational superintendents of the various conferences have been backed by the following well defined lines of work, which have necessarily had their center in the training-school: (1) the summer schools; (2) our educational journal, the Advocate; (3) the Missionary Training-school of Correspondence; (4) the publication of text-books; (5) an extensive correspondence by the educational secretary and the management of the training-school.
A word concerning each of these. The first summer school for the training of Christian teachers was held in the year 1897. You will see, therefore, that these summer schools are contemporary with the church-school movement. Have you watched the growth of any other educational system? If so, you will note that its strength has been in proportion to the definite effort put forth for the training of teachers. Our summer schools are, therefore, an integral part of the church-school movement.
Shall I say that they have strengthened because the school work has been extended, or vice versa? Take it as you will; so long as we attempt to provide for the education of the children and youth, we must have some definite means for the training of teachers. Fortunate is our union conference because it has within its borders a training-school which not only during a few months of the year, but throughout the year, is working in harmony with the principles which should be put into practise in every elementary Christian school, and in every intermediate industrial school. It is for this reason that a summer school can be conducted in connection with Emmanuel Missionary College to much better advantage than elsewhere in this union conference. There are being worked out in this school principles of co-operation and methods of teaching and discipline with which every teacher of the children should be perfectly familiar.
Our educational system calls for the co-ordinate training of the body and the soul. Teachers who attend the summer school not only receive theory, but here come directly in contact with the practical working out of this system. They mingle with the young men of the building department. They are offered an opportunity to work in the field, in the garden, in the orchard, and among the berries. They can go into the bakery, into the domestic science class. They can learn sewing or tailoring, printing, bookkeeping, commercial work, or whatever industry they choose, not in an abstract way, but under the direction of teachers who consider industrial work an integral part of the college curriculum. The value, therefore, of the summer school is inestimable.
The second item I mentioned was the Advocate, our educational journal. Scarcely had the church-school movement begun when the need was felt for an organ, a general means of communication, something which could give to others a reason for the movement. Year by year as teachers have gone into schools in different parts of the country, the Advocate has been their right hand companion. Again and again the Advocate has gone before the teacher, paving the way for him, showing parents what they should do, showing them how they could do it.
The Advocate also has another mission. It advocates a threefold education. Possibly you do not realize how eager people are for information on this subject. This has been proved in our own community. This year the students of Emmanuel Missionary College have put forth well-directed efforts to bring before those in this neighborhood the reason for the erection of such an institution in their midst. The Advocate has been the entering wedge. From ten hundred to fifteen hundred copies of this paper are now distributed in Niles, Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, South Bend, Dowagiac, Buchanan, and the country about Berrien Springs. I mention this because it is the beginning of a movement. The time is before us, and not very far, I am convinced, when every individual who grasps the truth of Christian education will make the same effort to place this truth before others that the most ardent Sabbath-keeper ever made to give his neighbors the Sabbath truth.19
I mentioned in the third place the School of Correspondence. Our teachers have been urged into the work. The demand for them has been so great that many have reluctantly begun teaching before their preparation was completed. Even the most competent teacher feels the need of making progress. For their benefit there has been established a course by correspondence. There is at the present time an opportunity to take instruction in Bible, in preparatory nurses' work, and in bookkeeping. A course in the various common branches, in pedagogy and philosophy for the teachers, and a course for parents, dealing with teaching in the home school, and in agriculture as it should be understood by every Seventh-day Adventist, will be added this fall.
Concerning text-books for Christian schools but little need be said. The need of text-books has been most urgent. Teachers have pleaded for them. There has been no hesitancy about recognizing this need. The drawback has been lack of means. A few books have already been issued. Others are in process of preparation, and will be published from time to time. I could give you what I think would be a most interesting history of the development of this work were not the time so limited.
Summary
It has been the policy of your educational secretary to leave the details of the organization of the various schools wholly to the State superintendents, striving in the meantime to lay a deep foundation for the growth of this work in the ways suggested. I believe that I have had the hearty co-operation of these superintendents. The work is still decidedly primitive, but I believe we have a right to look forward to the time, and that time is in the near future, when people everywhere will eagerly grasp the truths of Christian education which God is making known to his people. This presupposes the deepest interest on our part in the distribution of educational literature. I believe we shall see as the result of this conference a more decided policy in regard to the financial support of our schools. Let this question be once settled, and the condition of our schoolhouses will be improved. They should become as attractive as our sanitariums and other institutions.
Our teachers should be noted for their strength in correlating manual, intellectual, and spiritual work. Every church in the denomination should have a school for its own children and for the children of others. Need I tell you that already there are schools where the majority of the children are from homes outside our church? Of course this is an exception, but God gives us glimpses of what we may expect. He has said that the Gentiles shall come to our light; that their children shall be nursed by his people.
We shall see schools established in new localities. That means not only in our own country, but an army of teachers should go to foreign fields. That time is not far ahead of us.
I feel confident that we have reached the time when every educational superintendent should have his full time for this work, and when he should be able to do what has already been suggested as the duties of the superintendent.
The preparation of text-books must be continued until teachers and pupils are well supplied with books dealing with the truths upon which children's minds should feed. And there stands as the climax in this educational work that great movement from the cities into the country,—a movement which in trumpet tones heralds the coming of our Lord.
Briefly let me call your attention to the young people's work and the Sabbath-school. Possibly you will feel that I have overshadowed these subjects already, but I have not; for when I speak of the Christian school, I mean to include the training of every child on the Sabbath as well as during the days of the week. Our Sabbath-school is coming to be more and more an educational factor. For years we attempted to hold our children by giving them a half hour's desultory instruction one day in the week. We have come to see that no natural child, surrounded as the average child is in this world, can be held for God and his work on such meager feeding. It was a starvation diet. Let God be thanked that a better way has been opened to us. The Sabbath-school is an integral part of the Christian school, and more and more we are coming to realize this fact. There are young people here who could tell you of developments along this line better than I. I doubt not that every educational superintendent could also tell you of the growth during the past year or two.
The movement in behalf of the young people is also included in what I have said concerning Christian schools. The organization of bands for missionary work is according to God's plan. However, companies of young people will have but little strength unless those young people are in school preparing themselves for this work. Therefore, I say our schools can do the greatest amount of good when they give these young people a definite training. For the benefit of those who can not yet attend one of our schools, the correspondence school is recommended. I know of companies who have begun a definite line of study by correspondence, and the work thus conducted builds them up for active missionary work. This has also been the means of uniting whole families, in fact the members of whole churches, in the careful study of God's Word and the principles of practical missionary work. We are reaching out for the young people. The more we can do for the establishing of elementary Christian schools in every church, the more true we are to the principle that our youth should be in preparatory manual training-schools; and the greater our vigilance to place our young people in the training-school, the greater will be the success of the work which has previously been spoken of as Young People's Societies, and the Sabbath-school work.
I have but touched upon these various subjects. Reports will follow from the different educational superintendents, from the principals of the various intermediate schools, and from those connected with our other educational institutions which will give more definitely the specific work of each.