Our Training-Schools in England and Switzerland by H. R. Salisbury

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 13, 1913

Our Training-Schools in England and Switzerland

By H. R. Salisbury

ELEVEN years ago in one room in London was the beginning of our educational work in Great Britain. The eleventh year has opened under far different circumstances. Then we had about eight hundred Sabbath-keepers as a constituency; now there are two thousand members. For the first six years the school was conducted in rented buildings in London; now it has its own neat brick building on an estate of sixty acres fifteen miles from London. It is also to the advantage of the students that the school is connected with the printing and health food factories, and the newly established Watford sanitarium.

That this training-school has been a blessing to the British field can be seen in the number of workers who have received their education here. The young ministers, Bible workers, and all the missionaries who have been sent out to British East Africa, the mission territory of the British Union, were trained in this institution.

I wish more of our school buildings could have been constructed as suitably and at the same time as economically. Its beautiful grounds, its well-kept rooms and halls, and the quiet deportment of the students make it a desirable place to receive a Christian training.

It was a pleasure to meet again, Prof. Herbert Lacey and the other teachers associated with him. Professor Lacey has now been in the English school nine years, the last six years as principal.

I was very much pleased to find a sanitarium established on the same estate and working in the closest harmony with the school. It is evident that the building was planned by one who knew the needs of such an institution, and it has been well equipped. Dr. Charles Hayton, who is in charge, has the confidence of the patients and the hearty cooperation of his helpers. There is every reason to expect that this new sanitarium, so healthfully located and so suitably equipped, will be the means of bringing many in touch with our world-wide message. One could but wish it the same success that has been enjoyed by the Caterham Sanitarium, established ten years ago in the Surrey Hills. It was started free from debt, and under the careful management of Dr. A. B. Olsen has not only kept free from debt, but from its earnings has increased its capacity fifty per cent, added many improvements, and paid each year a per cent of its earnings to the building up of the medical work in that field.

The Latin Union School

It was my privilege to be present this year at the school in Gland, Switzerland, at the beginning of the new year. There were fifty students in attendance, almost double the number of any previous year. Brother Paul Steiner, the principal, is being blessed in his efforts to make the school a real training-center for the Latin Union, and is greatly encouraged with its rapid growth. There were present students from Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Italy, Germany, England, and America.

The school and sanitarium have been able to operate with mutual advantage as to teachers and industrial work.

The sanitarium is enjoying prosperity, and while it has not been long since its capacity for patients was doubled by adding to the original building, it is necessary again to increase its capacity, which will be done by erecting another building this year. While there, I saw illustrated how our sanitariums are in a position to reach those who otherwise would never hear of our work. There sat facing me in the dining-room the wife of an Egyptian pasha, who has been a long time at the sanitarium, and whose husband has also been a guest; at my right sat a Catholic priest in his robes; and there were Americans searching for health, an English officer, and a number of Swiss and French men of education holding high positions of trust.

It would be difficult to find a more beautiful place for a school and sanitarium than this estate, reaching down to the shores of the blue waters of Lake Geneva and facing Mt. Blanc with its perpetual snows.

May the students of this school, who come from the land of Savonarola, Farel, and Calvin, go back to their countries with the spirit of the early Reformers deepened by a thorough knowledge of the final reformation.

H. R. SALISBURY.