p. 18 | Our Schools From the Student View-Point

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 3, 1910

Our Schools From the Student View-Point

By ROBERT M. GREY

WHAT do the students in attendance think of our conference schools? Why do they love them, and why attend them rather than the schools of the world?

The large majority of young men and women who enroll in our denominational schools come because they are actuated by a desire, and a firm determination, to fill a place in the grandest, broadest movement of our time. They believe that to do acceptable service in the last great work for the world, a wide education is needed. I do not speak of literary, scientific, or classical education, but of a broad and thorough training in those principles and truths upon which the work of God is based.

The third angel's message is the greatest educational reform that has ever illuminated the world. It educates for eternity. It fits men to live forever with the Author of all wisdom. Those who would handle its great truths intelligently, who would teach them successfully to others, must themselves be truly educated in the message. Where can we receive this education so well as in our colleges and academies?

Our young people look to the conference schools as to their best friends, because they are the means of fitting them for the one thing most desirable in the world to-day—a place in the great work of God. It is for this reason that the students love the schools and attend them.

Besides the mere course of study, are there any advantages that our schools afford and others lack?—There are indeed many. Let us consider some of them. When a young person from the world takes hold of this truth and decides to enter the service of God, no matter what his general education may be, he feels his insufficiency to take up the work without some special preparation for it. Then, too, he is confronted with this question: What department of the cause shall I enter? There is the medical department, the school work, the canvassing work, the ministry, and others. In which department can I best serve? and what field, home or foreign, needs me most? Very likely he can not answer these questions. He asks the advice of the conference brethren, and nine times out of ten they are not able to give him satisfaction.

The same is true of a young person brought up in the truth, who has received nothing but a public-school education. But let either of these young people enter one of our schools. What does he find there to help him in this choice? There are seminars for ministerial students, for Bible workers and teachers, and canvassers' societies, where the best talent among our book men conduct institutes and give instruction in salesmanship and field missionary work. The student may enter any or all of these societies, and there prove to himself where his talent lies. In the ministerial band, or seminar, he can develop his power for public speaking, and there also the Bible teachers give instruction in pulpit manners and the preparation of sermons. The teachers' seminars give opportunity for practise-teaching to those who have the school work in view. Among these many advantages a young person can soon locate his talent. Then, too, the teachers are in daily contact with the student and have a care for his interests, being always ready to advise him in the choice of his life-work. The school, then, besides preparing one for service in the cause, helps to locate him in that branch of the work where he is best fitted to serve.

Ask a company of young people just entering one of our academies to what special phase of the message they intend to devote their energies, and you may expect to learn that the large majority have not decided. But put the same question to a class of twenty-five seniors about to be graduated, and you may confidently expect a decided answer from every one of them. The school fits workers and locates them.

In the study of mission fields and their history, the student finds growing up in his heart a deeper love for the regions beyond and their many millions who must yet hear the gospel of the kingdom. Very often by this study in class-rooms where the Spirit of God is present, burdens for special fields are laid upon young men and women, who finally go forth from the schools to carry the gospel to those people whom God has laid next to their hearts. This fixing of definite burdens is one of the great achievements of our schools.

These thoughts are but as a bird's-eye view chosen from the great, broad panorama that presents itself to the student when he begins to think about the advantages of his school.

ROBERT M. GREY.