Conserving Our Resources
By W. J. Stone
MUCH is said in the business world and by politicians about the conservation of the country's natural resources. No one would question the propriety of so doing, but rather commend it. However, in this agitation we may learn a lesson, insomuch as we are told that “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” I am certain that we have not always husbanded our resources as carefully as we should; and for this reason many persons who might have become valuable workers have been lost to this message. It is a cause for gratitude that arrangements have been made by the General Conference whereby all worthy young people who can meet the requirements, can now enter the Foreign Mission Seminary under provisional appointment to some missionary station. In this article I wish to speak of a class of young people who should receive special attention,—the nurses who have been graduated from our various sanitarium training-schools. I have watched with sadness many of these nurses, who, after their graduation, have taken up nursing as a profession, and used their ability simply in a commercial way. Nor are they wholly to blame, as in the past they have not always had proper encouragement to enter some department of missionary work. In view of the fact that our trained nurses can become efficient workers, especially in foreign lands, it would seem that we ought to guard with great care all these institutions of training; and every suitable person who finishes the course in these schools, and who can be spared from our institutions, should be encouraged to go to the Foreign Mission Seminary to receive further preparation. Thus this talent would be saved to the cause. First of all, our sanitarium training-schools should be conducted for soul-saving and the education of missionaries. The missionary idea should ever be kept prominent. Care should be taken to receive only those who wish to educate themselves to become missionary workers. Then when these have spent two or three years gaining this knowledge, well-defined plans should be laid by every conference to encourage all such worthy persons; and, if they are not needed in the institution where they graduated, or in the home conference, provision should be made for them to enter the Seminary at Washington, that the desired object may be reached. Many of this class of workers have a much more thorough preparation than some who have entered other departments of work; and under the present arrangements there should be no excuse for our young people dropping the real object of this education,—the saving of souls,—and using their training for commercial purposes only. Shall we not take a greater interest in saving to the cause the worthy young people who graduate from our sanitarium training-schools, and encourage them to enter our Foreign Mission Seminary, that this talent may be used to the glory of God and to the advancement of the message?