Removing the Financial Burdens From Our Institutions
By Arthur G. Daniells
LAST week we gave the readers of the REVIEW the full text of the recommendations the General Conference Committee will request the General Conference at its coming session to adopt for the payment of the present indebtedness of our schools and sanitariums. These recommendations, with their various provisions, were not hastily adopted by the General Conference Committee. About a year ago the main features of the arrangement were placed before our committee by the Atlantic Union Conference Committee. At first they were not favorably received. It was feared that the plan would injure our foreign mission enterprises. But after giving the problem months of study, we came to the conclusion that will enable us to accomplish what all so greatly desire—the payment of the liabilities of our institutions. And we believe that the provisions incorporated in the arrangement will safeguard the interests of our foreign missions. Indeed, if rightly managed, the plan will, in the end, prove a great blessing to our mission fields in all parts of the world. It may be helpful to review the main features of this proposal:— 1. It aims to bring all our people into close, intelligent, sympathetic touch with our institutions. There is danger of holding a false notion regarding our institutions. “The last dollar for missions, but not a dollar for our institutions,” is a statement that one occasionally hears. But in this age, how could missions be established and maintained without institutions? They are vitally and inseparably connected. An institution is more than ground, buildings, furniture, and equipment. A very important part of an educational institution is its staff of teachers and its student body. And still more, the efficient, patient labor of teachers, and the steady, intellectual, and moral development of young men and women, under the ceaseless care of the teachers,—this is part of an educational institution. It is the teacher, the lesson, the new ideal formed, the ambition awakened, the associations of student life that are of greatest value and that are dearest to the memory. And who can estimate their value? It is more than a third of a century since the writer left Battle Creek College, and the blessings of those student days seem of greater value with each passing year. Among fellow students of those days were O. A. Olsen, E. H. Gates, O. A. Johnson, I. J. Hankins, L. T. Nicola, L. A. Smith, D. W. Reavis, Mrs. G. W. Caviness, and others who have given their whole lives to this cause. And these first students to leave that institution have been followed by a host of others who are to-day carrying great responsibilities in all branches of this work. Who of all these would speak lightly of dear old Battle Creek College? or consent to have it and all it did for them blotted out? And what is true of this institution is true to a large extent of our other schools. The inestimable service these institutions have rendered in bygone days, are still rendering to a larger degree than ever, and will continue to render until our work is done, is a mighty appeal for the love and hearty support of all our people. 2. This plan places the weight of this financial burden upon the shoulders of all our people in the home land. This is right, for all are debtors, either directly or indirectly, to the benefits of these institutions. The thousands of young people who have been connected with them are their debtors. Every parent whose son or daughter has been in them is a debtor. Every believer who has been won to this cause by those who received in them their training for service is a debtor. Every conference whose efficient laborers have come from these institutions is a debtor. In short, all who believe this message and long for the coming of the Lord are debtors to these institutions for their part in the finishing of this work. We believe our people will recognize this great debt, and cheerfully join in this general effort to remove the handicap under which these institutions are struggling while trying to do their great and necessary part of this work. 3. While this plan recognizes the inseparable connection between the institutions in the home land and the missionary stations in foreign lands, it safeguards the foreign mission funds. For the present the total of fifteen cents a week per capita from all our people seems a reasonable amount to provide for our missionary undertakings, and one of the provisions prevents this from being drawn upon for home institutions. 4. The provisions of this plan require that the entire amount turned over to these institutions shall be applied on their present indebtedness. No part shall be used to erect new buildings, purchase additional equipment, nor to make up losses on operating expenses. Funds for all or any one of these items must be raised in donations by the direct efforts of the management. 5. This plan restrains all institutions receiving the benefits of this fund from increasing their liabilities. This is necessary in order ever to get free. It is necessary in order to deal justly with each institution and with the donors to this fund. 6. Finally, this plan provides a commission, composed of three men of experience in managing institutions, who shall investigate the working of our schools and sanitariums, with the purpose of helping the management so to adjust their affairs as to operate without loss. We have launched so many institutions during the last decade that we have been obliged to call to their management a great many persons who had never had any previous experience in managing such enterprises. Many accepted the call to these places of responsibility with great misgiving and at great personal loss financially. In this they have been governed by conscientious scruples, the same as our men who are called to the ministry. They have endeavored to do their best. But full success could not reasonably be expected of them. We believe that a year's work by this commission will effect economies178totaling tens of thousands of dollars in the operating of our institutions. These are the main features of our plan to free our institutions from their indebtedness. It is comprehensive, yet simple and workable. Four years from now we shall probably see that we planned better than we now realize.