Our California School by S. Brownsberger

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 9, 1882

Our California School.

By S. Brownsberger

BY PROF. S. BROWNSBERGER.

The intention of establishing a school on the Pacific Coast, for the special benefit of our people, is already well known to the reader. The providence of God has no doubt directed the Trustees in their purchase at Healdsburg.

It is certainly providential that building and grounds so well adapted to our needs, could be obtained so cheap in a place where climate and circumstances are so favorable.

It does not seem possible that God would move upon his people to undertake this enterprise unless there was a necessity for it.

It is certainly not the lack of schools that has created this necessity. Evidently there is something lacking in them which God wants to have supplied. To supply this lack is the object of our proposed school at Healdsburg.

We believe that God favors true education, and he wants his people to make special provision for it.

The public schools are generally deficient, and this is why God would have us provide schools of our own. If this is not so, then we are making a great mistake in starting the school; but if it is so, then those who do not favor the school with means and students as far as they can, are making a still greater mistake.

Our common schools generally lack thoroughness. Very few of them afford genuine mental culture. But this is not really their greatest lack. They pay but little attention to morals and religion. If the views of Adventists are correct, we cannot attach too much importance to these views in the instruction of our children.

If the proposed school at Healdsburg is not thorough in its instruction, and if it does not give special attention to Bible truths, then, in my opinion, it is not what God would have it to be.

The Trustees and teachers will spare no effort to make its instruction and moral tone of the highest order. If every friend of the cause on the Pacific Coast will do his duty, our school must be a success.

The school is yours and with you lies the responsibility of its success or failure. California has a noble record, and will not sacrifice her reputation in this enterprise. Each should take a personal interest in the school, and ask himself, What can I do to advance its interests? Cannot my children enjoy its advantages?

With this unity of action, the school must prosper, and our children be blest.