Among the Schools by W. E. Howell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 14, 1911

SOME OF THE NEW BELIEVERS IN CARRIACOU, GRENADINES

Among the Schools

By W. E. Howell

No period of labor in the field since I left college eighteen years ago has been more profitable and enjoyable to me than the six weeks I spent among our schools and educational conventions in the West during July and August. The meeting of scores of old students who have buckled on the gospel harness and are bearing the heat of the day with Christian fortitude, gave me a deeper sense than ever before of how rich is the teacher's compensation. Associating in counsel and prayer with fellow teachers, many of whom I have known since my own school-days, caused me to appreciate how strong is the tie that binds us—head, hand, and heart—to the cause we have loved from early youth. The old men, and women, too, who have stayed up our hands during these years of service, who have grown still more gray, yet more ardent within their love of the truth, impress anew the words of Scripture. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

The educational work on the Pacific Coast is very progressive in most respects. The educational officers and teachers seem keenly alive to the importance of putting into practise the special instruction given to our schools for years, and frequently repeated in one form or other. The managers of the Pacific Press are working shoulder to shoulder with these workers, in the publishing of text-books and school supplies, in pushing their circulation inside the denomination and outside, and in frequent counsel in educational matters. The conference officials are lifting in every way they can to sustain the hands of these workers, and to remove every hindering obstacle to unity and progress. As long as the leaders keep within bounds and in the lead, the people are sure to follow.

The Pacific Union educational convention was held on the camp-ground in Oakland, July 2-8, and the summer school at Lodi, July 17 to August 14. Of the convention, the union conference secretary, Professor Lewis, writes: “The longer I think about it, the more sure I feel that the convention did some excellent work,—work that will be felt in the future. I think we have a fine corps of superintendents, and I look forward to a very successful year of educational work.” Of the summer school, one teacher says, “It is one of the very best I have ever attended in California.”

The North Pacific Union held its convention in the pine woods at the foot of Mt. Hood, July 18-25. It was very fully attended by all the teachers, including members of college faculties and the educational officers, and most of the time by the entire union conference committee. The results were correspondingly good, and very strikingly in unison, in nearly every respect, with those of the Pacific Union convention, even to the adoption of text-books, although there was no concerted plan beforehand. Of the summer school, July 27 to August 29, the union secretary writes: “We are having a fine time, with an attendance of fifty teachers.”

The Central and Northern unions held a union summer school this season at the Danish-Norwegian Seminary, Hutchinson, Minn. Though spending but one day there, I found an atmosphere of progressive, earnest activity. Professor Ruble has worked diligently to systematize the work in his union, and to raise the standard of efficiency in the schools.

To this effort the teachers are responsive, seeming no less eager than their secretary to bring their work up to the degree of solidity and fruitfulness that it richly deserves.

Of my visit to our schools at St. Helena, Loma Linda, Lodi, Walla Walla, Hutchinson, and elsewhere, I desire to write at another time.

Though the educational problems yet to be solved are many, and though their solution implies much arduous labor, diligent study, and fervent prayer, yet to me the present outlook is decidedly promising, and I daily pray for greater capacity and despatch.

W. E. HOWELL.