Church Schools Needed by B. E. HUFFMAN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 12, 1903

Church Schools Needed

By B. E. HUFFMAN

B. E. HUFFMAN

WHEN we consider the times in which we are living, and the snares Satan is laying for the children and youth in the church to-day, the question comes to us, What can we do to save the children from the corruption that is in the world, and give them a home with Jesus? I think the answer is to be found in training the children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Teach them to know and believe the truth, and the truth will make them free,—free from the corrupting influences of the world,—and “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

The work of teaching begins with the infant in the mother’s arms. See “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. IV, page 313. The first eight or ten years of the child’s life should be spent largely in the home school. During this time the child is rapidly developing physically, and becoming acquainted with the outside world. Difficult lessons from books should not be given young children, but their instruction should be largely from observation. This is also a period of developing love and obedience. Parents, filled with the spirit of Christ, should

teach the children through love to obey all their requirements. If their little hearts are made familiar with the story of God’s love, if they can see that love worked out in the lives of their parents and teachers, they will be the more ready to recognize the Spirit’s pleading, and to surrender all to God.

At about the age of eight or ten there comes a change in the child’s life. His mind begins to develop more rapidly, and he is ready to combine his observations with those made by others. You get him a book and start him to school. While he is in school, the one you have selected as teacher takes your place. It is the teacher’s duty to teach unquestioned obedience to all true principles and personal obligation to parents and to God. The instruction given should also develop implicit faith in the Word of God, for this is the faith period of the child’s life. Fairy tales, fables, myths, and Mother Goose rhymes should not form a part of the child’s course of study. They develop a love for light or sensational reading. He turns away from reproof and seeks flattery. One trained in this way is in a fair condition to fulfill 2 Tim. 4:3, 4. The text-books and libraries found in the public schools are filled with such reading, and the effect is clearly seen in the lives of the children. Many of our brethren find a way of escape and a remedy for all these evils in the church school. With a fully organized system of schools, carefully prepared text-books, and thoroughly trained teachers, we may well expect to see our children and youth saved to the service of God, instead of being lost in the service of the world.